Going down in fiery crash, 62-year-old Wagner Mercenary Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin got his comeuppance for staging a June 23 aborted mutiny where the Russian mercenary said he was looking for justice against Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Prigozhin was a hero in Kiev and Washington for defying 70-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the real story behind Prigozhin’s mutiny was sadly overlooked by the fake news, too busy promoting mythology than dealing with reality. After months of battling for Putin to takeover Ukraine’s Bakhmut, losing thousands of his mercenary fighters, Prigozhin claimed that Shoigun bombed his troops. Whether that happened or not is anyone’s guess. But the real story behind Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny was that he had a nervous breakdown saying he would turn his mercenary army toward Moscow.
All the fake news in the U.S. and Europe hyped the short-l;ived event as the beginning of the end for Putin, saying Prigozhin was an ally and hero to the West secretly trying to topple Putin. By the time Prigozhin returned to his senses, it was already too late, with Putin identifying him as a traitor, when he was nothing more that a broken solider. Prigozhin took on heroic proportions in the Western press, just lie they gave jailed 47-year-old dissident Alexi Navalny who still occupies heroic status for rebelling against Putin’s rule. Navalny was convicted of violating terms of his probation and sentence to nine years in a penal colony. U.S. press covered Navalny’s arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing like he was revolutionary hero. Navalny received an additional 19 years Aug. 4 in prison for “extremism,” a threat to the Russian state, all because of Western fake news.
Without the Western press hailing Navalny as a national hero or Prigozhin as the man who could end Putin’s rule of power, they might have survived. Prigozhin’s private jet was most likely sabotaged by the FSB [formerly KGB], largely because the Western press built Prigozhin up as the man to bring down Putin. Now that he’s dead, the fake news blames Putin for the extrajudicial hit. How ironic that the U.S. or European press is busy meddling in Russian internal affairs, saying nothing about the current charges against 77-year-old former President Donald Trump, charging him with treason, in four separate charges totally 91 felonies. But the fake news has been obsessed with Navalny and more recently Prigozhin making up fairytales about both having some clout in driving Putin from power. What has the fake news accomplished in putting targets on their backs?
Watching the headlines about Prigozhin’s private jet go down in a fiery blaze, the U.S. press acts like they lost Russia’s top revolutionary, prompting articles in the New York Times and Washington Post about him potentially leading a coup against Putin All the fake news stories were pure rubbish, all resulting in Navalny and Prigozhin’s viewed as a provocative threat to the Kremlin’s status quo. Crashing 100 miles north of Moscow, the jet had all the markings of Prigozhin’s private jet with his name on the flight manifest. While not confirmed yet, Prigozhin is assumed to one of the 10 dead plucked out of the smoldering wreckage. RIA Novosti state news agency reported on the crash, letting Western officials know they had lost their best hope of seeing Putin toppled in the foreseeable future. U.S. and European fake news grossly exaggerate Navalny and Prigozhin’s status as revolutionaries.
All the reports from the fake news about Putin’s alleged terminal illness or, more recently, Alzheimers Disseae, reflect the West’s desperation to prosecute its proxy war against the Kremlin. Spending over $100 billion on Ukraine with no end in sight, the fake news wants to focus on fomenting revolution against Russia by suggesting that Prigozhin led a vast network of revolutionaries, secretly plotting to topple his government. Prigozhin made himself rich from catering contracts, all because his relationship to Putin. When he cracked after the long campaign in Bakhmut, it wasn’t reported by the fake news, touting the 63-yea-old mercenary as a true Russian revolutionary. Prigozin’s June 23 coup ended quickly because he cracked but returned to his senses knowing he was dead man walking. Hyping Prigozihin only put a big FSB target on his back.
Watching Prigozhin go down in a blaze of glory shows that Putin is firmly in control of the Russian Federation. While Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith seeks to put Trump away for life, it’s ironic how the fake news sees the end of Prigozhin as a big loss to the cause of getting rid of Putin. Prigozhin owed h is life Putin, making him rich over the years with Kremlin catering contracts, then eventually forming his Wagner mercenary group. Where the fake news thought Prigozhin led a secret revolutionary society is anyone’s guess. It’s utter fiction by the fake news to suggest Prigozhin led a secret revolutionary group seeking to topple Putin’s government. Whether intentional or not, the fake news put a target on Navalny and Prigozhin’s backs by hyping their revolutionary activities. Now that Prigozhin’s dead, it time for Biden to get serious about peace talks in Ukraine.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.om and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
