Important Takeaways:
- With Prigozhin’s death, there’s no sign Putin is losing control
- Putin’s longtime associate and the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, was most certainly eliminated on the orders of the Godfather of the Kremlin.
- Prigozhin and Chekalov, were both listed on the manifest of the doomed flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg, where the Wagner Group is headquartered, that killed 10 passengers.
- There are reports that the plane was shot down
- Prigozhin may or may not actually have been on the plane, however. He, and perhaps Chekalov as well, may simply have been assassinated elsewhere. For convenience sake, a plane crash would have provided excellent cover for their elimination.
- Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death hardly comes as a surprise; the only issue was when it would occur.
- It perhaps it is no coincidence that, a few hours before Prigozhin’s death, the Kremlin announced that General Sergei Surovikin (whose nickname is “General Armageddon”), viewed by many observers as a Prigozhin ally, had been fired as head of Russia’s Air Forces.
- The combination of Prigozhin’s death and Surovikin’s firing are certainly a message to Putin’s potential internal opponents that they should think twice before acting against him.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Wagner Chief Says He Ordered His Russian Mercenaries to Halt March on Moscow and Return to Ukraine
- A rebellious mercenary commander said Saturday he ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to field camps in Ukraine, appearing to defuse a dramatically escalating crisis that represented the most significant challenge to President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.
- Moscow had braced for the arrival of forces from the Wagner Group, a private army led by Yevgeny Prigozhin that has been fighting alongside regular Russian troops in Ukraine, by erecting checkpoints with armored vehicles and troops on the city’s southern edge. Red Square was shut down, and the mayor urged motorists to stay off some roads.
- But Prigozhin announced that while his men were just 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Moscow, he decided to turn them back to avoid “shedding Russian blood.”
- He did not say whether the Kremlin had responded to his demand to oust Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. There was no immediate comment from Putin’s government.
- Putin had vowed harsh consequences for organizers of the armed uprising led by his onetime protege, who brought his forces out of Ukraine, seized a key military facility in southern Russia and advanced toward Moscow.
- In a televised speech to the nation, Putin called the rebellion a “betrayal” and “treason.”
- “All those who prepared the rebellion will suffer inevitable punishment,” Putin said. “The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders.”
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