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Notes -
Prigozhin's death was quite an expected event, it is rather surprising that it happened now, two whole months after the failed coup. But I suspect his story is not over yet. Ignoring Yevgeny's personal qualities, he was not a stupid person, and therefore, even if he believed in the secret agreements that was made on June 24, Prigozhin necessarily kept or created an additional reason not to kill him, and soon we will find out about it. The reason may be some compromising material, military secrets, or, if he had confidence in the loyalty of his people, the threat of a second "march of justice" from the Wagner PMCs. The latter scenario is unlikely, further complicated by the death of Dmitry Utkin, but according to the rule of "interesting events" in Russia it may very well happen.
It is also interesting how exactly the "plane crash" occurred. Stories about bad pilots or incredibly successful Ukrainian terrorists may of course appear in the Russian media, but it is obvious to everyone who is responsible for the elimination of the mercenaries leader. From the point of view of constructing plausible deniability it would be much more correct to kill Prigozhin during his stay in Africa, recent one or in the future. There you can find hundreds of different convenient culprits with motivation and weapons: from the French to the Islamists. Instead, his plane "crashed" in the middle of European part of Russia, not so far from Moscow.
Plausible deniability is bad in one case - when you want to convey a message by your action. This is what the kremlins most likely planned. As many said at the end of the deflated coup: "if it turns out that you can occupy one city, march in columns on Moscow, and then if you fail you will not suffer any consequences, then there may be many who will want to try to do this themselves. No harm if you failed in the end." The message from the ruling clan concerns the second part - the consequences will be much more severe than mere exile to Belarus. The official version will still find a way to declare Prigozhin's death a "fatal accident", but the real message, barely fitting between the lines will be visible to everyone.
Will the death of the former chef become a last note in his life story or just the beginning of the third act? - we'll find out soon.
I do not believe there is anything like that, not anything that can do real damage at least. Putin just killed him, in the same manner he probably killed General Lebed decades ago, to feel more secure about the upcoming elections, exactly 2 months after the beginning of the coup – the old KGB rat likes these stupid calendar jokes (Nemtsov was famously killed on Special Operations Forces Day). Prigozhin had no leverage since it became clear that the army isn't joining in on the mutiny (partially Surovikin's call, for which he's been rewarded in the usual manner Kremlin rewards loyalty), and was banking essentially on some combination of Putin's sentimentality, cowardice, and getting a chance to slip out before the kill order is executed. I am not aware what he was thinking he's trying to dodge when he took off in that private jet; maybe radioactive poisoning, maybe an unstoppable, anonymous Ukrainian Shinobi like the one that took down Yevhen Zhylin.
Let's look back on my unconfident «analysis», so to speak. 23rd June
26th June:
In this light, we can surmise that the thread got reinforced in the meantime and that's it.
I'll take the opportunity to reiterate that anyone supporting the Russian regime in any way or form advocates for an irredeemable abomination. There are only two well-informed perspectives from which such support makes sense: A) if you believe Russian genocide is inherently desirable, even at substantial cost to other peoples; and B) if you think there's an urgent need for Western mobilization against a vicious but not genuinely dangerous enemy, maybe as preparation for the war with China. If you're some galaxy-brained cynical Western right0id antiglobalist who thinks that Putin provides a «multipolar» check to the hated GAE, you're still wrong, he's ineffectual in this capacity since he prioritizes regime stability over any external power projection (he's just not competent enough to pick moves that are worthwhile on either axis) and irreversibly erodes the future possibility of such checks.
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