Commenting on the plane crash that killed Wagner mercenary army chief 62-year-old Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others 100 miles of Moscow, 70-year-old President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the families, saying the authorities would conduct a thorough investigation. “As for the aviation tragedy, first of all, I want to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all victims,” Putin said. Putin praised the Wagner Group as a “significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine,” referring to 45-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymenr Zelensky, whose Kiev regime receives cash and weapons from the U.S. and NATO to battle the Kremlin. Putin pulls no punches when it comes to 80-year-old President Joe Biden’s effort to topple his government, seeing the war as one between the U.S.-NATO and Moscow.
Since yesterday’s crash, U.S. officials, including Biden, say they’re not surprised by the outcome, because Prigozhin temporarily turned his mercenary army toward Moscow Jun 23, the West considered him a revolutionary hero capable to toppling the Russian president. Prigozhin’s story was grossly distorted by the U.S. government and press, saying, since the June 23 aborted mutiny, that Prigozhin led a clandestine movement to topple Putin. U.S. officials and the press fabricated stories about Prigozhin to suit the U.S. narrative that Putin is out to conquer as many European countries as possible. Biden’s narrative showed up on the GOP Fox News debate stage in Cleveland, with all but two candidates, 44-year-old Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and 38-year-old tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, adopting 80-year-old President Joe Biden’s failed Ukraine War policy.
U.S. intel officials think that Putin ordered a missile strike on Prigozhin’s private jet, something likely covered-up by Russian authorities. “I knew [Yevgeny] for a very long time, since the earls 1990s. He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in his life,” Putin said. “He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months,” Putin said, giving away what really happened. No psychic necessary to figure out Prigozhin’s private jet was taken down by the FSB, in response to his aborted June 23 mutiny. Prigozhin changed his mind about sending in mercenary army to Moscow to punish Russian Defense Secretary of Sergei Shoigu, whom he accused to bombing his Wagner troops in Bakhmut, Ukraine. Prigozhin was launched by the Western press into revolutionary status for his June 23 aborted mutiny.
Prigozhin was quickly exiled to Belarus in a deal by 68-year-old Ukrainian President Alexander Lukashenko, ending quickly when Prigozhin traveled freely back to Russia. In the two months since his aborted mutiny, Prigozhin admitted that he had a nervous breakdown, leading him to tell the press he turned his Wagner army toward Moscow on a justice mission for Shoigu’s bombing of his army. Western leaders and the press put a big target on Prigozhin’s back by promoting him a revolutionary leader capable to toppling Putin. Stories fabricated in Kiev by Information Minister Kyrlyo Budanov speak daily about the disgruntled Russian military looking to topple Putin’s government. So when Prigozhin was promoted by the U.S. and foreign press to revolutionary hero status, it was only a matter of time before Putin found a way to neutralize him.
When Putin talks of Prigozhin’s “serious mistakes,” he refers to his June 23 attempted coup, something promoted in the Western press. Keeping Prigozhin in the news was bad publicity for Putin because the press saw him as a threat to Putin’s power. Prigozhin wasn’t the first, nor the last, to challenge Putin’s power, something 47-year-old Russian dissident Alexi Navalny did when he returned triumphantly to Moscow after recovering from a near fatal poisoning. Navalny, like Prigozhin, was promoted by the West as a revolutionary, now faces life in a Russian penal colony. Instead of promoting diplomacy and détente with the Kremlin, Biden has funded a reckless proxy war with Moscow using Ukrainian troops. Now Biden has virtually no diplomatic relations with Russia. Biden still thinks he can topple the Russian Federation by giving cash-and-arms to Ukraine.
White House officials continue to make incendiary remarks about Putin. “If confirmed, no one should be surprised. The disastrous war in Ukraine led to a private army marching on Moscow and now—it would seem—to this,” said National Security Spokeswoman Adrienne Watson in a statement. Watson calls the “disastrous war in Ukraine,” hinting that things haven’t gone well for Kiev and the Biden White House. But what she really meant is that things are disastrous for Putin, thinking Russia has incurred more losses than Ukraine. Any objective look at the Ukraine battlefield shows Kiev losing more soveregn territory, destroying infrastructure and more carnage in Ukraine. Watson had a Freudian slip, calling the Ukraine War disastrous, regardless of what she meant. Whether Putin retaliated against Priogzhin or not, Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine hasn’t gone well.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
