Originally published at: Russia: "Molecular genetic examination" of remains prove that Yevgheny Prigozhin's definitely dead | Boing Boing
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First draft: “Is potato.”
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Some conspiracists will believe he’s still alive, not entirely unreasonable because the source of this info is the palace of lies known as the Kremlin. I don’t have much doubt, though – Putin never passes up an opportunity to have his revenge and send a message “pour encourager les autres”.
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The whole thing was quite bizarre and difficult to understand.
Move a convoy towards the capitol and Putin? It only takes a few ground attack planes or choppers to wipe out the entire convoy… they would have been slaughtered. And Putin had plenty of time to escape the lumbering convoy even if they did get close.
I feel like Prigozhin already knew he was a target before he turned towards Moscow and hoped his gamble would pay off.
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Well, what a blooming shame. I really did have low hopes for him.
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What’s odd is that he left Russia right after the coup attempt, and was allegedly seen in Africa the day before the plane crash.
Why the hell would he (or any of them) spend a single second in Russia after he turned tail? He, of all people, knew what would happen.
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Honestly… probably arrogance on his part, that he thought that he’d somehow be immune because of his role in shaping modern Russia with Putin… He likely saw himself as indespensible to Putin, and never thought that his actions would cause Putin to really go after him, because of the importance of Wagner in projecting Russian power abroad.
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The Wagner guys did shoot down a few helicopters in the process. But on the whole, the reaction of much of the Russian military seems to have been one of “Meh … you do you”.
The most interesting takeaway from the whole affair wasn’t that the Russians didn’t flock to Prigozhin’s side in large numbers, it was really that pretty much nobody seemed to want to stand up and be counted in favour of Putin.
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Ukraine reminded Putin that it takes less than that.
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Yeah the main reaction seems to have been “I pledge my undying devotion and eternal loyalty to whomever wins.”
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… like militia dweebs in America, they always think cops and soldiers are going to switch to their side and all the militia has to do is spark the rebellion
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Believe it or not, Putin could be saying the truth for once and it was be one Prigozhin’s many enemies who offed him now that he no longer enjoyed Putin’s protection. Shoigu and Gerasimov are obvious suspects in that scenario, they had the motive, the opportunity and control over Russian anti-aviation defenses.
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I don’t understand why Putin didn’t just have him publicly executed. Is it because he has followers and that would martyr him? And this way there’s some doubt which would blunt the effect?
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Fully agree. After the coup, he wasn’t immediately dragged off to the cell next to Alexei Navalny. Then followed a couple months where he wasn’t killed at the obvious times. I imagine that boosted his confidence.
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Russian Forensic Scientist, “The Traitor, Prigozhin, was alive when recovered from the crash site; but, let me assure you, no one survives Molecular Genetic Examination!”
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I think that might the dweebs actually be correct. Many cops and soldiers would probably swap sides; abandoning their pals in the militias as soon as shit got real. 
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Because Putin doesn’t publicly execute people. He privately destroys them and lets everyone know that he can get you at any time and any place in any way.
A public execution comes with a public trial and (even if it’s a show trial) that means everyone can guess what happens next.
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Why bother? Blowing up his aircraft avoids the inconvenience, expense, and delay involved with having to run a show trial.
In addition, why stop with Prigozhin? If you really want to bring Wagner to heel without even more inconvenience, expense, and delay, rather than just punish Prigozhin, arrange for most of their senior leadership to be on the same aircraft and then blow up the aircraft (business continuity planning does not seem to be Wagner’s strong suit). After that, install your good and loyal buddy Mr Corruptovsky as the new boss of Wagner to keep its various operations going, e.g., in Africa.
(Nobody knows yet how the Wagner guys will react to all of this but we’ll see. This is made somewhat more interesting by the fact that Wagner officially doesn’t exist, because, technically, it is illegal in Russia to operate a private army.)
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… well, at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and at the Capitol on 1/6/21 and on Prigozhin’s march to Moscow, it didn’t happen 
oh wait you’re making a jokey joke never mind
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