It’s a pure power play. Putin as Main Boss. Capo di tutti capi.
Putin as gangster in chief is far more menacing to anyone else with ideas akin to Prigo’s than is Putin as president of a country operating under the rule of law and proper jurisprudential procedures.
It’s also a giant FU to ordinary Russians. It says “I just killed 3 or however many total innocents on the way to getting Prigo and his henchman. Step even slightly out of line there Mr or Mrs Ivan / Ivana Ordinary-ski, and you too will meet a prompt and grisly end.”
In a land of barbarians, the most barbaric is the one who ends up in charge.
The one change I would have made is to shoot it down when it was flying toward Moscow, so it could be claimed that it was thought to be a Ukranian drone attacking the capital.
It’s a good question. While Russia has not abolished capital punishment, it has a moratorium and has not conducted a judicial execution since 1996. Extra-judicial killing with plausible deniability is the preferred method of dispatching undesirables.
One could ask what there would to be gained in processing the undesirables through the judicial system, rather than just killing them gangster-style. I’m not sure there would be any benefit from Putin’s point of view. He would be giving up the rights to execute them on his terms and at the time of his choosing.
Yes, this is a warning to all the Wagnerites and all potential Wagner sympathizers, including General Surovikin. (“Who? do we have a general of that name?”)
Stand too close to Piggy, and you get blown up. So sad, too bad.
The fact that Putin had to do it this way is important, though. Ordinary methods weren’t available, and the fact that it was so loud and blatant, roping in the military and crash investigators, says “brutal and clumsy.” Not as slick as usual. A sign Putin is crumbling, just is a bit.
IMO that would completely defeat the purpose of what they did.
Just like that NK general that was supposedly shot with an anti-aircraft cannon when a simple pistol shot would have made him equally dead. The whole and entire point is
This is the vast amount of organization and firepower I can command to descend on any head anywhere any time. All of you need to be very afraid of me.
Any cover story totally neuters the real message.
Hard disagree. This was totally about exactly that loud blatant message. No clumsiness. In addition to what I said above the message is
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Play really bigly stupid games, win especially brutal stupid prizes.
Having Prigo hauled away in a van to be tortured to death, or simply shot in the back of the head by a sniper while eating dinner would have been trivially easy for the FSB. They wanted this splash as a show of force. This is the antithesis of clumsiness.
It makes much more sense that it would be a bomb. With an anti-aircraft missile, there’s no plausible deniability. With a bomb, they can blame it on Ukrainian or NATO spies, or some other enemy they can use as an excuse to go after.
Meanwhile, the memory of Wagner being erased from history in traditional Soviet style:
Hmm, the Wagner cemetery story may not be as it seems. The story appeared on Russian local media, but relatives of Wagner dead replied to say that the cemetery is not being demolished, but is instead being made into a proper military cemetery.
President Lukashenko says he warned Prigozhin twice following the coup. But Lukashenko also doesn’t think it was Putin who did it. Not out of naïveté, of course. “It was too rough, unprofessional work, for that matter,” he added.
The double-think is getting stronger in Russia:
1.- Of course it wasn’t Putin, what an infamous lie!
2.- The doubters and traitors better get Putin’s message.
3.- Planting a bomb on a plane with 10 people on board is an act of terrorism.
4.- Planting a bomb on a plane with 10 people on board is a show of strength.
5.- Planting a bomb on a plane with 10 people on board is a sign of weakness.
Actually: penta-think. All (and more!) at the same time.
I’m thinking if it were the UK there would have been somewhere a smartly-dressed gent wearing an awesome watch, who’d have made a pithy quip about “he didn’t give it the right spin” or something like that immediately after the cratering.
