Navalny on Prigozhin's assassination

Because of the terrorist attack that Putin arranged to kill his soldier Prigozhin, I would like to speak about decency, cunning and strategy.

Decency. Just a few days ago I was writing to one person explaining what the secret of Prigozhin's survival is. Most likely, it's simple. Personal agreement and the dude's oath. Prigozhin promised Putin that he would fight for him and his war till the end. He would be his most reliable commander, who is ready to do anything to win. Putin, looking at the Defense Ministry's lack of enthusiasm, pretty much appreciated that. He gave Prigozhin an unprecedented level of support (thousands of prisoners being taken out of prisons in one day is no joke). I'm sure that there was also a classic conversation between them:

- I will do anything for you, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Victory will be ours at any cost. However, please don't let me down and don't give me up to be eaten.

- Zhenya, here's my hand and my word. Complete the task, and I'll be always by your side. Support is guaranteed.

During the «rebellion», Prigozhin freaked out and it didn't change the nature of their relationship. Putin's word continues to work.

How stupid I was to write this. What a naivety to assume that Putin can be characterized by any kind of decency: officer's decency, dude's decency, gangster's decency.

There is nothing but constant lying for absolutely any reason. Lie, steal, kill, run away.

Cunning. Here it is worth laughing at those who believe in jewelry work of intelligence services and «if they want to kill, they know how to kill in such a way that a mosquito nose do not sharpen».

So here is a brilliant work of Putin's assassins. To shoot down a passenger plane in Russia, in other words just to organize a real terrorist attack, killing the pilot, flight attendant, and other people, who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Strategy. There are 50-60 thousand former prisoners and former war participants wearing «Wagner» patches all over the country.

There are also several hundreds of thousands more fans of this cult. It has been officially chanted, and it is quite popular: «Wagner», «orchestra», «musicians», «ours in Africa», they promote Russian interests, and so on.

Prigozhin and Utkin are awarded hero medals. Two presidents, of Russia and Belarus, give them security guarantees. Now, what happened through the eyes of Wagner fans is: that Russian officers-heroes did not spare their lives in the war in Ukraine. They are super professionals. They were deceived by traitor generals. They were sent to Africa and even there they declared that they would strengthen Russia's power, start expansion, and again make Russian weapons to be considered.

However, the traitor and coward is Putin in his Kremlin who envies the popularity of these Russian heroes in the people's eyes and the army and hates them for it. So he gave the vile order to kill them.

Thus, Prigozhin and Utkin turned into the eyes of many of those dudes who like to dress up in a camouflage outfit even if it is out of place, into martyrs.

In the «legends» of this war.

In the eyes of historians, by the way, they will be legends and the most interesting characters as well. Movies, books, and conspiracy theories that they survived and are fighting in the jungles of the Congo will be there too.

The point is not even that for some of the most aggressive supporters of war with Ukraine, the history of this war is now the saga of how Putin betrayed and killed his loyal officers.

It's that these are the ingredients used to create the dish called «civil war».

They created a gang. Armed the gang. Disbanded the gang. Killed the leaders.

The metaphor «spiders in a jar» is often applied to those who sit in the Kremlin. However, another metaphor — «monkey with a grenade» — is more suitable.

https://navalny.com/p/6656/