Originally published at: Putin sends condolences to mercenary chief Prigozhin's family | Boing Boing
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Classic villain move.
Weren’t they all part of his ruthless mercenary group?
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He didn’t say it was a small mistake…
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"My heartfelt condolences on the loss of your beloved husband and father whom I ordered killed.
“Yours, tearfully, Vlad.”
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Obligs.
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Check the timestamps. Because there’s a non-zero chance the condolences were sent before the plane went down…
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The New Yorker just had an excellent “explainer” article on the uprising. Prigozhin’s accident is absolutely not a surprise.
TL;DR - he became extremely popular after taking Bakhmut, with a poll giving him a 60% approval rating, with 19% of those polled saying they’d vote for him for President. Also, the Wagner group made the Russian Defense Ministry look ineffective, and they ended up in a turf war / pissing contest over it.
ETA: oh yeah, that’s in addition to the uprising, which really made Putin look weak and vulnerable within the Russian state.
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These are a bit outdated now, but they both go into great detail about the lead up to what has happened. The WSJ video goes into excellent depth about Wagner’s finances pillaged from around the world. I know they sent most of the money back to Russia, but I assume there was massive amounts of embezzlement involved as well.
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One of them was the founder of Wagner, Dmitry Utkin who is/was ‘festooned with numerous Nazi tattoos, including a swastika, a Nazi eagle, and SS lightning bolts’.
But apparently they’re in Ukraine to fight Nazis…
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I wonder if Prigozhin set up a Dead Man’s Switch to do an attack on Putin if he met an untimely end. Tic toc?
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And the letter closes with “Thank you for flying Putin Air— Always Room for One More!™”
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What a decrepit, fetid society. The only challengers of note to the “throne” are extraordinarily vicious psychopathic murderers and they’re executed with mild fanfare in public.
Russia is a rotted cabbage. May it decompose swiftly.
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And this wasn’t personal, just business.
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“Putin Air - It’s Not the Fall That Kills You™ “
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Let them… oh, you know the rest.
When you play the game of thrones , you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
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I understand this is the done thing, yes?
On a side note, salaries for pilots flying Russia-affiliated dignitaries through Russian airspace just sky rocketed—and so did the intensity of threats to their families.
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