Wow, I’ve been browsing Twitter, Reddit and Lemmy for the past few hours. I’m surprised to see such breaking news first in Lemmy instead of Twitter or Reddit.
Awesome! Hope the Fidiverse keeps on growing to become bigger than Reddit and Twitter.
Look at me
Lemmy is the frontpage of the internet now
Damn right it is!
Good point. Really good sign for users if we can get breaking news stories here like this.
literally the only reason i keep going to reddit to sort by rising every now and then.
Reddit hot sorts more by popular, so things take a long time to rise up.
Lemmy hot seems to be (too much) biased to new. Can be a bad thing because it looks like things don't get popular. They do but you don't see it by hot, you see it by top 12 hour.
Early 2010s Reddit was so addicting, if there was something in the world it was on the front page in 15 minutes. I remember being excited to check on Reddit after waking up to see that was the event of the day.
After 2016 the algo was screwed up and it became a cesspool of reposts and news were late to show up.
I think the algorithm for Lemmy's hot sorting is just based on interactions within time unit. The newer the post, the more valuable an upvote is.
Lemmy "hot" seems to function a lot like reddit's "rising"
The one thing current Reddit seems to do right is give smaller subreddits a chance to show up on Hot. Lemmy tends to be a little too simple, and the frontpage gets dominated by the one or two big groups.
Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the sorting algorithm in general for the way content gets presented, but some weighting to better include smaller communities would be great. Lemmy is still struggling with getting a critical mass in users to support niche interests, and a better post sorting could help a bit at least.
On Reddit you want to sort by "Rising" for this sort of breaking news stuff.
Now I learn this, 2 months after tossing that platform in the bin.
After years of wondering where the hell the breaking news went…
I saw it first on YouTube and got really mad about that
I think it's only a matter of time. The enshitification of reddit is guaranteed, it's really inevitable and it's going to keep getting worse. Long live the Fediverse!
But the only one who opposed Putin (with any military power) being dead isn't necessary a good thing (imho)
Yeah, but he was stripped of all of his power. Wagner group is being rolled into the state military. The opportunity for Wagner to push back and or give Putin the boot has passed.
And, this dude was also an evil corrupt piece of shit. If he overthrew Putin, Russia would’ve still been an authoritarian disinformation state.
He was a straight-up Neo-Nazi and named the group after Hitler's favorite composer. So yeah, he would have been infinitely worse than Putin... and that's saying something.
Yep Prigozhin was a monster. My only regret is that he and Putin didn't die together with their hands around each other's throats. And in other news, I think I'll have tacos for lunch from my favorite local hole-in-the-wall...
When the short insurrection by Wagner was going on, I had hoped so much that Prigo and Putin somehow annihilate each other, or at least the hardliners in military and mercenaries perish in infighting. Sadly, all we got was confusion on that day.
At least if Prigo's death now ends up being confirmed, there won't be that much confusion on why it happened, only some details will remain unclear.
Wagners are straight up fleeing into neighboring countries and Africa. They must have read the history books about what happens when one warlord assimilates another's forces (they kill them quietly and easily now that they're disarmed).
i don't think, russia and historical knowledge can come together
But the only one who opposed Putin (with any military power) being dead isn’t necessary a good thing (imho)
Replacing one dictator with another who has the support of something like the Wagner group would not have been good for anyone but the Wagner group.
There would be no clean replacement. It would get very bloody and chaotic. Not a bad hypothetical scenario. But that ship has sailed when Prihozhin surrendered (he didn't stand much of a chance anyway).
The most surprising thing here is that nine people were willing to get on a plane with Prigozhin. That's arguably much closer to actual suicide than any of the convenient window deaths that keep happening.
Good thing for Africa for sure.
Not really. Meet your new boss, same as your old boss. Russia isn't pulling out of Africa.
Somehow I always thought they would poison him. More personal. But if he brought his own water, I suppose this saves everybody some time.
It's not too late for them to identify the body by the "Polonium-210 tracer" he got during check-in.
I honestly thought he’d go via the classic window fall, but this was far more original.
It's not like Putin and his closest cronies are in any way competent. They are removing anyone who dared to criticize. Before the coup Prigozhin, Girkin were allowed to say whatever they wanted as long as they did not undermine the general effort. Now Putin's inner circle will ultimately disconnect themselves from reality: govern the country and the war from a bunker filled with scared yes-sayers with no alternative voices.
I'm pretty sure Ukraine still opposes Putin so at least we got that.
Tragically the plane crashed into a surface to air missile.
Edit: yeah, this is actually what happened, no subtlety here, damn.
Like, fucking literally.
"Crash" my ass, BBC, you say it got shot down in the article, how is that not a more accurate and sensational headline?
"Prigozhin got blown the fuck up, like everyone knew he would the moment he pussed out, the Nazi coward."
He needed to take Moscow, only chance he had to survive.
Technically, they just say that a Wagner linked Telegram channel said it got shot down. They're probably waiting for better proof/additional sources before they take the full step of saying it was shot down themselves (at which point I think it'd get added to the headline).
Because the only source for that (at present) is the Wagner Group, who have a (dead) dog in the fight and are not bastions of truth. NYT will be trying to confirm it before saying so.
One of the cardinal rules of power struggles is "If you're gonna shoot for the king, don't miss."
Man didn't even miss, he just got scared halfway through
From what I gather, he backed down because all his top men's families were being threatened. Prigozhin's family was kept safe, of course, but I don't think they expected Russia to threaten the families of those further down the ladder.
This all just makes him seem naive and unprepared for the position he was in.
I have a theory.
I think the Slavic Russian Nazi a total dictator let run a private army might have been a little dumb.
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies
-- Machiavelli in the Prince
Not to call out Putin's Russia for being amateur hour, but the Prince is probably the first thing to read for an aspiring dictator.
He just stopped. It was the most bizarre coup attempt, really.
I mean he had to know, right? With guys like Putin if you go hot, you either kill him or he has you killed. There is no in-between. His entire image relies on that. Maybe they had Prigozhin's family or something?
It might be that he was counting on the support of one or more Generals. That fizzled at the last minute, and then he didn't know what to do.
When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
"When you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die. There is no middle ground."
The guy wasn't stupid. He knew going against Putin meant death if he failed. At some point during his attempted coup, he realised it wasn't going to work and was faced with a choice: die now, or "back down" to scheme his way out of an almost certain death later. Turns out he couldn't. ¯\_༼ •́ ͜ʖ •̀ ༽_/¯ Oh well, nothing of value was lost.
I have nothing to add to your comment other than the fact that your text person clearly has a large nose and I think that's a stylistic choice and I appreciate that as someone who also has a large nose.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
I also don't have anything to add other than that I really appreciate comments who pay respects to details of other comments. I don't know, just makes me happy, so thank you for that!
Oh, and fuck this fucking asshole named Putin, may he die a painful and slow death.
consider yourself rewarded for that comment ... thx for the smile
I'm not sure he couldn't have done it if he'd kept driving into Moscow. The defenses of the city were just in shambles. Almost as bad as Denmark in 1940.
However, having tucked tail he should have known better than to come back.
Now there are rumors that Wagner would stage a second coup attempt if the deaths were confirmed (which they are now).
That would be a complete suicide mission now. 2500%.
Still, interesting times.
Yeah, there's pretty much no chance with the leaders dead, their camp far from Moscow, no surprise factor, and the potential allies like Surovikin pushed from power. It seems like Putin has completely outplayed them.
At some point during his attempted coup, he realised it wasn’t going to work
When was that, exactly? Putin fled, reserve forces were standing by and not fighting Wagner, and he was a day out from an undefended Moscow. Worst case scenario was a protracted civil war, but he still would've lived longer than this.
Honestly, none of this makes sense. The fact that he aborted in the first place makes the idea that he was conspiring with Putin the whole time to flush out disloyal elements within the Russian armed forces seem credible... but then why kill him after? I'm not ruling out the possibility that either this was a genuine accident, or it was another false flag and he and his second in command just faked their own deaths.
To think he avoided drinking polonium tea and falling out of a window and self inflicted gunshot wound to the head for all this time just to die in a freak tragic accident.
Reports are that Moscow's anti-air fired on the jet..... "accidentally."
The whole Western political apperatus has been saying Putin doesn't have the guts to release any of the compromat he holds on them and that he needs them more than they need him.
I wonder if there is a correlation between drop height and importance of the persons he's killing.
Oh that's why I fell over my kids' toys. I'm unimportant but it WAS Putin!
dude, wtf? That literally happened to me today. I was bringing my kid a bowl of strawberries when I stepped right on top of a little toy house. Me on the floor. Strawberries all over the place. And all my kid could say was "wow, that was scary," and then went back to playing. Savage.
Your kid is metal af
4 year olds, man. They're ruthless.
Great, so we already have two data points now!
time to interpolate
Insert "I like to extrapolate" meme here
EXPONENTIAL
would that mean your child is a Russian spy?
Not spy necessarily, but ruthless tool of the Russian system.
I'm surprised anybody was getting in vehicles with him after the coup attempt.
I know right? Wtf??? I wouldn't want to be caught dead within 50 square miles of this guy after his coup attempt.
and caught dead, they were
but his tea is amazing. it's quite hot.
Epstein levels of expectation.
Thank you for flying Prigozihn Airlines. We know you have a choice in airline, and today you chose the wrong one.
Plane must have accidentally ran into a surface-to-air missile. Y'know, as you do.
Classic MH17'd
I heard the plane had marital issues and gambling debt, no surprise it tried to end things on its own. Its unfortunate all the passengers were innocent victims and in no way targeted. /s
Please note that the official title of the article is:
Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner chief presumed dead after Russia plane crash.
Decided not to delete this post due to the many comments and discussions.
The whole thing is sus:
Prigozhin stages a march onto Moscow
Putin runs away to St Petersburg, where a couple vans full of allegedly Prigozhin's money get found, so he just stops short of Moscow and turns around
Prigozhin runs away to Belarus, Wagner to split between "core" in Belarus and the rest getting incorporated into Russia's military
Russia blocks food export from Ukraine, holds a conference with African countries where it promises to send food
Niger sees a military coup, asks for Wagner help, Russia agrees, Prigozhin releases video of himself in Africa
...just a couple days later...
Prigozhin in a private plane over Russia, north of Moscow, in route to St Petersburg, crashes and dies along with other Wagner leadership
...wait, what? How? Why? Wasn't he just in Africa, and not welcome in Russia?
You know you can rename posts with clickbait titles right? Maybe just ask the user to rename and kick or ban him if he does not comply.
He should have gone all the way when he started the mutiny against Putin. He would be dead either way but at least he had the chance to take Hitler's disciple with him to hell.
Somehow I doubt Russia would have been better off with Prighozhin in charge. I mean he was the one who did Putins dirty work for him.
Their MO is to threaten family members, threaten subordinates family members, etc.
His fate was sealed when he (very briefly) went up against Putin. Right then and there he had a target on his head.
Yep. This was always going to happen. There's no way he didn't know this was going to happen.
If you swing on the king, you'd better not miss. He missed.
He survived the last plane crash he was in by boy actually being on the plane. I assume there's a chance it's happened again.
Prigozhin allegedly had a massive influence on 2016 USA elections with his troll farms.
I don't think Kremlin gave up on the 2024 elections, it's just now they have Musk.
Yep Putin and Musk are clearly trying to weaponize the stupidity of a little less than half our nation. If Republicans fail to win, Russia and Putin's special snowflake operation will fail.
The airplane itself mysteriously fell out of a window.
It mysteriously acquired an additional window.
Selenskyj was right: Prigozhin will be dead after two months. And he isn't the only hardliner. I think within the last month six out of ten of the hardest hardliners fell out of the window. Or out of the sky.
Seems like Putin is currently liquidating the hardliners so there will be no negative feed back when he ends his "special operation" in a couple of weeks. Message at home will be: Wow, we did great, nobody objects and the world is in awe! And who disagrees will find an open window to jump through...
Putin is not ending his special operation.
A single party can start a war. Stopping, however, ...
Buried the lede a bit with that title, considering the plane was actually shot down
So he releases a video of himself in Africa. Then a plane with his name on the roster flies from Belarus to Moscow gets shot down. Anyone know if any planes belonging to Wagner flew from Africa to Belarus recently? This might be trick.
The likelihood he was anywhere near the location where he was filmed is slim to none. These guys are always moving after they record something, and are long gone by the time it is released.
Why he was dumb enough to re enter Russian airspace is a separate matter.
Yeah my wife is convinced he wasn't on the plane and this is subterfuge. I think Putin had him shot down to make a point, as he's done with pretty much every other real threat he's encountered.
We may never know...
How do you know when the video from Africa was filmed? Also, if it's really Africa?
I just heard on the news the plane was confirmed to have been in Africa just recently. Also please explain, why a trick since both the Russian government and the Wagner leftovers confirmed it? The guy signed his death certificate once he cancelled his little Moscow tour two months ago and we all know it.
Faking his own death is the only way to keep living after signing his own death certificate.
[Thick Russian accent]: Foolish man, should not have gotten on a private plane, bad reputation private planes have. Very unsafe in these parts. Oh well, accidents happen...
Taking down a private plane in civilian airspace with Russian air defense is a surprising escalation, even for Putin. Even Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed by surrogate forces offering a certain amount of deniability.
There’s no going back from this. This was a state sponsored killing (well deserved) but now the masks have been ripped away. There will NEVER be any official relationship from any democratic government with Russia under it’s current leadership. Any business should look at the smoldering wreckage and think twice
I’d like to think you were right but look how people and countries are cozying back up to Saudi Arabia now. There is a lot of people who would sell their soul for a little bit of money.
Even Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed by surrogate forces offering a certain amount of deniability.
Was that actually confirmed somewhere? It's not that easy to train people to use the AA system and IIRC they shot down plane within days of the system arrival in Ukraine, which would suggest that it was controlled by russian forces.
The Dutch investigation was pretty conclusive, with the call recordings and such. A lot of rebels were Russian vacationers, though.
No. You're right. I should have typed "surrogate forces" in quotations or 'supposed surrogate forces' or something. Point being, at the time and for a few news cycles after there was a story used to interject and/or some attempt to introduce uncertainty. That story was bullshit, it was even pretty obvious at the time, but they tried. This is much more cut and dry. That Putin wanted to send a message is obvious, but there was no concern this time about that message being too loud or it sending warning signals to unintended targets.
This could spook business from returning, as mentioned by another response below. This could have knock on effects. Putin didn't even try to act like he cared about any of that. That could mean a lot of things. I don't think any of them are good.
Of all the planes in the country he just happened to get on the one that lost a wing. Terrible luck!
Where, oh where are all of our apologists?
Maybe still figuring out what the "talking points" will be?
We're all waiting for the inevitable bullshit.
They were here early in the thread and are just arguing with people pages back in there. Whatabouting about the US over and over.
The thing I find strange about this is, why was he in Russia to begin with? I thought he was last seen in Africa just a couple days ago. How'd he end up on a plane flying between Moscow and St. Petersburg?
I'm not sure but I think they might have some airports in Africa.
*gasp* but that's.... That's.... impossible! But I was told Africa was all mud huts and wooden spears!!!
Joking aside, I know Africa has airports, but since Wagner has been supposedly moving their operations to Africa to fight against groups like ISIS and al Qaeda I'm a bit surprised that he wasn't busy setting up operations there. I would think he'd want to be overseeing the operations there since it sounded like they were going to be making that their primary mission now.
Maybe daddy Putin got angy because the move was pulling soldiers out of Russia to fight in Africa. Then he called him for an in-person scolding, and when the scolding didn't get through to him, Putin had to make an example of him.
Another possibility is that it wasn't Putin, but instead another military leader who got pissy about Prigozhin being daddy's favorite, in which case we might see another person fall out a window.
Or maybe it's all a hoax because Prigozhin knows his life will probably end when his usefulness expires, so he faked his death to try and avoid Putin's wrath after the war is over.
I think Putin just waited for some Wagner bosses to be on the same plane. Prigozhin has been successful in Niger and felt safe to fly with Utkin. The leftovers of Wagner will now be integrated into the Russian military.
That doesn't sound right. I'm pretty sure you can't get there by boat either. I can't really imagine him walking to Russia that fast so this sounds like fake news.
Yay! 🥳 So “denazifying” Ukraine while having SS/nazi tattoos says everything about Wagner, Russia, Putin and all of these fascist cowards. Rest in piss, nazi scum!
I don't even know how to react to this news: On one hand Wagner Prigozhin is a person who is ideologically much worse than Putin (basically full-blown fascist as opposed to imperialist), but on the other hand he could have helped with increasing unrest in Russia which could technically mean chaos on Russian side of the front and opportunity for Ukraine to make some gains, but of course that's long time due, due to giving up on march on Moscow.
My question is does this create a vacuum, and if so who fills that void? Time will tell.
it was shared online that wagner Prigozhin had a die hard following of people within his private army, and that they may retaliate in some way.
What I'm concerned about, is that further destabilization of putin and his power, only increases the likelihood of him resorting to nuclear weapons. To people in power, their greatest fear is losing said power. I just hope whoever is in charge of turning the keys and pushing "The button," is strong enough to disobey orders.
Wagner is the name of the organization.
His death might cause an unrest
Wagner isn't a person.😅
Wagner was Dmitry Utkin's pseudonym. But I'm sure the guy was talking about Prigozhin.
This for real? Figured it was coming but haven't seen any mention of it elsewhere.
Just hitting bbc.
While i dont like people being killed and everyone should get a fair trial, the world certainly isn't a worse place with this guy dead and i aint gonna shed a tear for him
His mercenary army is going to be run by a Putin stooge. I'm not completely sure that's better. Not exactly bawling over here, but I would have rather seen him march on the Kremlin instead.
Meh. He doesn't need a 'fair trial.'
9 other people.... show me other coup members!
One of them is Utkin, the Nazi who coined the name Wagner.
Imagine living in Russia and pretending it's fine to just go about your day instead of marching on the Kreml with millions of others. Russians will have a very hard time in the world in the next couple of decades, similar to Germans after WW2.
These Russian characters sure are dramatic. When this is all over I hope we get some good documentaries and movies about this whole special military operation fiasco.
It may have taken 64 years but at least we got The Death of Stalin out of that one guy's enthusiastic genociding, it isn't all bad
Russia 2: Prigozhin Boogaloo
Team Fortress 2, Electric Boogaloo update
Putin will personally head the investigation.
Ok, I'll do it...
He's alive and well and this is a bit of theatre agreed upon between Putler and him to save face in all directions.*
*This is a conspiracy theory and not at all based on facts, don't quote me or take it too seriously
liveuamap.com reports there was a second plane owned by Prigozhin in the air, so my conspiracy theory is he got wind of the impending assassination, swapped the passenger lists, and will be announcing his "March of Justice" 2.0 shortly.
I think he will more likely be quietly arranging his plastic surgery and brushing off his new passport.
"She fell funny"
Now you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling...
Well, Putin rigging an airplane crash is a bit more creative than the usual "jumped out of a hotel window" scenario...
Already second hard impact of a Russian envoy this week...
Such an unfortunate “accident”.
Any predictions for how Russia will spin this?
My guess, they’ll spread a conspiracy theory about him still being alive. They’ll claim this is a coverup so that he can appear dead and go into hiding.
I guess that will go with drone from Ukraine or blame the west, maybe a F-16 mysteriously appeared over Russia.
Sad that 9 other (potentially innocent) people also had to die for this “accident”.
If it’s any solace, anybody voluntarily riding in a plane with him was probably just as bad as he was.
It was a private plane with a guy onboard that everyone in Russia knows is a dead man walking. Every person on that plane knew that being within 500m of the guy was a constant hazard.
I feel bad for the three crew who were just doing their job.
It would have been really nice if he had gotten a life sentence in prison instead of that. Just too simple escape for the terrorist. Also it was very stupid to trust dictator's words when you are half way through the coup of his country
Who could have seen this coming? Shocked, I tell ya!
I'm surprised Putin still has ghouls that will carry out these blatant political killing sprees, I mean, accidents
Where were you when prigozin die?
I was at home.
Mom call
"Priggy is kill."
"No"
Things are getting worse in the Kremlin. Let Russia destroys itself from within.
Purely accidental, of course. No further questions.
Wow, I’ve been browsing Twitter, Reddit and Lemmy for the past few hours. I’m surprised to see such breaking news first in Lemmy instead of Twitter or Reddit.
Awesome! Hope the Fidiverse keeps on growing to become bigger than Reddit and Twitter.
Look at me
Lemmy is the frontpage of the internet now
Damn right it is!
Good point. Really good sign for users if we can get breaking news stories here like this.
literally the only reason i keep going to reddit to sort by rising every now and then.
Reddit hot sorts more by popular, so things take a long time to rise up.
Lemmy hot seems to be (too much) biased to new. Can be a bad thing because it looks like things don't get popular. They do but you don't see it by hot, you see it by top 12 hour.
Early 2010s Reddit was so addicting, if there was something in the world it was on the front page in 15 minutes. I remember being excited to check on Reddit after waking up to see that was the event of the day.
After 2016 the algo was screwed up and it became a cesspool of reposts and news were late to show up.
I think the algorithm for Lemmy's hot sorting is just based on interactions within time unit. The newer the post, the more valuable an upvote is.
Lemmy "hot" seems to function a lot like reddit's "rising"
The one thing current Reddit seems to do right is give smaller subreddits a chance to show up on Hot. Lemmy tends to be a little too simple, and the frontpage gets dominated by the one or two big groups.
Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the sorting algorithm in general for the way content gets presented, but some weighting to better include smaller communities would be great. Lemmy is still struggling with getting a critical mass in users to support niche interests, and a better post sorting could help a bit at least.
On Reddit you want to sort by "Rising" for this sort of breaking news stuff.
Now I learn this, 2 months after tossing that platform in the bin.
After years of wondering where the hell the breaking news went…
No problem, let's have Hot 1 and Hot 2!
Hot 1 is Hot
Hot 2 is Top 6 hours
At least how I use it.
Yesterday i switched to active for a while, because hot was almost identical to new.
The Future is Federated.
old man
I saw it first on YouTube and got really mad about that
I think it's only a matter of time. The enshitification of reddit is guaranteed, it's really inevitable and it's going to keep getting worse. Long live the Fediverse!
Who would have expected this? Surprised pikachu
But the only one who opposed Putin (with any military power) being dead isn't necessary a good thing (imho)
Yeah, but he was stripped of all of his power. Wagner group is being rolled into the state military. The opportunity for Wagner to push back and or give Putin the boot has passed.
And, this dude was also an evil corrupt piece of shit. If he overthrew Putin, Russia would’ve still been an authoritarian disinformation state.
He was a straight-up Neo-Nazi and named the group after Hitler's favorite composer. So yeah, he would have been infinitely worse than Putin... and that's saying something.
Yep Prigozhin was a monster. My only regret is that he and Putin didn't die together with their hands around each other's throats. And in other news, I think I'll have tacos for lunch from my favorite local hole-in-the-wall...
When the short insurrection by Wagner was going on, I had hoped so much that Prigo and Putin somehow annihilate each other, or at least the hardliners in military and mercenaries perish in infighting. Sadly, all we got was confusion on that day.
At least if Prigo's death now ends up being confirmed, there won't be that much confusion on why it happened, only some details will remain unclear.
Wagners are straight up fleeing into neighboring countries and Africa. They must have read the history books about what happens when one warlord assimilates another's forces (they kill them quietly and easily now that they're disarmed).
i don't think, russia and historical knowledge can come together
Replacing one dictator with another who has the support of something like the Wagner group would not have been good for anyone but the Wagner group.
There would be no clean replacement. It would get very bloody and chaotic. Not a bad hypothetical scenario. But that ship has sailed when Prihozhin surrendered (he didn't stand much of a chance anyway).
The most surprising thing here is that nine people were willing to get on a plane with Prigozhin. That's arguably much closer to actual suicide than any of the convenient window deaths that keep happening.
Good thing for Africa for sure.
Not really. Meet your new boss, same as your old boss. Russia isn't pulling out of Africa.
Clearly more missiles are needed.
Somehow I always thought they would poison him. More personal. But if he brought his own water, I suppose this saves everybody some time.
It's not too late for them to identify the body by the "Polonium-210 tracer" he got during check-in.
I honestly thought he’d go via the classic window fall, but this was far more original.
It's not like Putin and his closest cronies are in any way competent. They are removing anyone who dared to criticize. Before the coup Prigozhin, Girkin were allowed to say whatever they wanted as long as they did not undermine the general effort. Now Putin's inner circle will ultimately disconnect themselves from reality: govern the country and the war from a bunker filled with scared yes-sayers with no alternative voices.
I'm pretty sure Ukraine still opposes Putin so at least we got that.
Lotta windows in airplanes.
Tragically the plane crashed into a surface to air missile.
Edit: yeah, this is actually what happened, no subtlety here, damn.
Like, fucking literally.
"Crash" my ass, BBC, you say it got shot down in the article, how is that not a more accurate and sensational headline?
"Prigozhin got blown the fuck up, like everyone knew he would the moment he pussed out, the Nazi coward."
He needed to take Moscow, only chance he had to survive.
Technically, they just say that a Wagner linked Telegram channel said it got shot down. They're probably waiting for better proof/additional sources before they take the full step of saying it was shot down themselves (at which point I think it'd get added to the headline).
Because the only source for that (at present) is the Wagner Group, who have a (dead) dog in the fight and are not bastions of truth. NYT will be trying to confirm it before saying so.
Well, it did definitely crash at the end.
So he fell out of a window created by a surface to air missile.
Damn, so he started the uprising again, beginning by brutally slamming a plane into a defenseless russian SAM? /s
Totally an accident of course
I didn't know airplanes couldn't handle their polonium.
I'm honestly surprised that he lasted this long
I feel like when the attempted coup fizzled out there was a Russia expert who predicted he's be dead within 90 days. Sounds like that guy was right.
Honestly didn't need to be a expert on Russia to predict that
No kidding, literally everyone figured he'd be dead soon. Not sure how he didn't realize that.
Yeah I just read an article two days ago where he had sent out some videos via telegram showing he was still alive. Kinda surprising, then boom.
"Person vaguely aware of how Russia works predicts Prigozhin will be dead in 90 days". That headline doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Weirdly enough, it's exactly two months between the mutiny and his death. Interestingly enough, the invasion started on 24th as well. Weird.
Damn I was hoping he would be able to cause more chaos inside Russia before Putin had him killed.
That window of opportunity closed. Wagner got folded into the state military.
No window is ever closed in russia
How else would people fall accidentally out of them?
Makes it easier to
push peopleaccidentally fall out of.Harder to push people out of a closed window.
They have windows in the basement?
golf claps
One of the cardinal rules of power struggles is "If you're gonna shoot for the king, don't miss."
Man didn't even miss, he just got scared halfway through
From what I gather, he backed down because all his top men's families were being threatened. Prigozhin's family was kept safe, of course, but I don't think they expected Russia to threaten the families of those further down the ladder.
This all just makes him seem naive and unprepared for the position he was in.
I have a theory.
I think the Slavic Russian Nazi a total dictator let run a private army might have been a little dumb.
It was just a prank, bro!
Furthermore,
-- Machiavelli in the Prince
Not to call out Putin's Russia for being amateur hour, but the Prince is probably the first thing to read for an aspiring dictator.
He just stopped. It was the most bizarre coup attempt, really.
I mean he had to know, right? With guys like Putin if you go hot, you either kill him or he has you killed. There is no in-between. His entire image relies on that. Maybe they had Prigozhin's family or something?
It might be that he was counting on the support of one or more Generals. That fizzled at the last minute, and then he didn't know what to do.
When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
"When you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die. There is no middle ground."
The guy wasn't stupid. He knew going against Putin meant death if he failed. At some point during his attempted coup, he realised it wasn't going to work and was faced with a choice: die now, or "back down" to scheme his way out of an almost certain death later. Turns out he couldn't. ¯\_༼ •́ ͜ʖ •̀ ༽_/¯ Oh well, nothing of value was lost.
I have nothing to add to your comment other than the fact that your text person clearly has a large nose and I think that's a stylistic choice and I appreciate that as someone who also has a large nose.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
I also don't have anything to add other than that I really appreciate comments who pay respects to details of other comments. I don't know, just makes me happy, so thank you for that!
Oh, and fuck this fucking asshole named Putin, may he die a painful and slow death.
consider yourself rewarded for that comment ... thx for the smile
I'm not sure he couldn't have done it if he'd kept driving into Moscow. The defenses of the city were just in shambles. Almost as bad as Denmark in 1940.
However, having tucked tail he should have known better than to come back.
Now there are rumors that Wagner would stage a second coup attempt if the deaths were confirmed (which they are now).
That would be a complete suicide mission now. 2500%.
Still, interesting times.
Yeah, there's pretty much no chance with the leaders dead, their camp far from Moscow, no surprise factor, and the potential allies like Surovikin pushed from power. It seems like Putin has completely outplayed them.
When was that, exactly? Putin fled, reserve forces were standing by and not fighting Wagner, and he was a day out from an undefended Moscow. Worst case scenario was a protracted civil war, but he still would've lived longer than this.
Honestly, none of this makes sense. The fact that he aborted in the first place makes the idea that he was conspiring with Putin the whole time to flush out disloyal elements within the Russian armed forces seem credible... but then why kill him after? I'm not ruling out the possibility that either this was a genuine accident, or it was another false flag and he and his second in command just faked their own deaths.
To think he avoided drinking polonium tea and falling out of a window and self inflicted gunshot wound to the head for all this time just to die in a freak tragic accident.
Reports are that Moscow's anti-air fired on the jet..... "accidentally."
Really? Got a source for that?
Supposedly this.
I haven't reviewed the veracity myself, I never do until the dust settles. It's usually a waste of time unless you're directly impacted.
Kinda seems like they threw the whole plane out the window of the plane.
*self-inflicted gunshot to the back of his head
I love how anyone who is against Putin always gets into "accidents"
Right, definitely a total "accident" How very sad, comrade. If only the pilot had checked for leaking oil lines on the motors before takeoff.......
Hey Putin! I heard Trump talking shit about you.
The whole Western political apperatus has been saying Putin doesn't have the guts to release any of the compromat he holds on them and that he needs them more than they need him.
I wonder if there is a correlation between drop height and importance of the persons he's killing.
Oh that's why I fell over my kids' toys. I'm unimportant but it WAS Putin!
dude, wtf? That literally happened to me today. I was bringing my kid a bowl of strawberries when I stepped right on top of a little toy house. Me on the floor. Strawberries all over the place. And all my kid could say was "wow, that was scary," and then went back to playing. Savage.
Your kid is metal af
4 year olds, man. They're ruthless.
Great, so we already have two data points now!
time to interpolate
Insert "I like to extrapolate" meme here
EXPONENTIAL
would that mean your child is a Russian spy?
Not spy necessarily, but ruthless tool of the Russian system.
it's cause your kids ain't putin their toys away
Here's hoping he had a dead man's switch that releases tons of kompromat.
Well, Navalny didn't fall, but Putin attemped to poison him
World’s most expected accident victim.
I'm surprised anybody was getting in vehicles with him after the coup attempt.
I know right? Wtf??? I wouldn't want to be caught dead within 50 square miles of this guy after his coup attempt.
and caught dead, they were
but his tea is amazing. it's quite hot.
Epstein levels of expectation.
Thank you for flying Prigozihn Airlines. We know you have a choice in airline, and today you chose the wrong one.
Plane must have accidentally ran into a surface-to-air missile. Y'know, as you do.
Classic MH17'd
I heard the plane had marital issues and gambling debt, no surprise it tried to end things on its own. Its unfortunate all the passengers were innocent victims and in no way targeted. /s
Please note that the official title of the article is:
Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner chief presumed dead after Russia plane crash.
Decided not to delete this post due to the many comments and discussions.
The whole thing is sus:
...just a couple days later...
...wait, what? How? Why? Wasn't he just in Africa, and not welcome in Russia?
You know you can rename posts with clickbait titles right? Maybe just ask the user to rename and kick or ban him if he does not comply.
I’m so shocked right now. He didn’t fall out of a window?
I mean it's pretty similar to a really high window
The plane crashed after jumping out of a window.
They are getting more creative...
Everyone was seated next to a window
He survived the crash, and on the way to the hospital he fell out of a window.
Plot twist: the stewardess had a parachute, "fell" out window after hearing "red team go".
Kind of interesting to note how the United States deals with an attempted coup versus Russia.
Perhaps we should take notes
I mean, everyone deserves due process, but the constitution does seem to provide for executing traitors.
Can we find a medium place?
I'd settle for a good ole-fashion court appointed hanging.
I think we all saw this coming.
Not me, I thought he was going to be overtaken with remorse and bludgeon himself to death from behind in a tragic suicide.
After shooting himself in the back of the head twice, then jumping out the window.
Wtf was he thinking, flying back into Russia after being given an out? 😂
did he ever get out of Russia though?
Welcome to Hotel Russia-onia, you can check out but you can never leave.
Wasn't he in Belarus recently, threatening to take a large contingent of the Wagner group to "sightsee" in Poland?
Hey what is the last thing that went thru his mind?
Metal.
Jetfuel
He should have gone all the way when he started the mutiny against Putin. He would be dead either way but at least he had the chance to take Hitler's disciple with him to hell.
Somehow I doubt Russia would have been better off with Prighozhin in charge. I mean he was the one who did Putins dirty work for him.
Their MO is to threaten family members, threaten subordinates family members, etc.
His fate was sealed when he (very briefly) went up against Putin. Right then and there he had a target on his head.
Yep. This was always going to happen. There's no way he didn't know this was going to happen.
If you swing on the king, you'd better not miss. He missed.
A blind man could have seen that coming.
He survived the last plane crash he was in by boy actually being on the plane. I assume there's a chance it's happened again.
Prigozhin allegedly had a massive influence on 2016 USA elections with his troll farms.
I don't think Kremlin gave up on the 2024 elections, it's just now they have Musk.
Yep Putin and Musk are clearly trying to weaponize the stupidity of a little less than half our nation. If Republicans fail to win, Russia and Putin's special snowflake operation will fail.
The airplane itself mysteriously fell out of a window.
It mysteriously acquired an additional window.
Selenskyj was right: Prigozhin will be dead after two months. And he isn't the only hardliner. I think within the last month six out of ten of the hardest hardliners fell out of the window. Or out of the sky.
Seems like Putin is currently liquidating the hardliners so there will be no negative feed back when he ends his "special operation" in a couple of weeks. Message at home will be: Wow, we did great, nobody objects and the world is in awe! And who disagrees will find an open window to jump through...
Putin is not ending his special operation.
A single party can start a war. Stopping, however, ...
Buried the lede a bit with that title, considering the plane was actually shot down
Checklist to become an accident in Russia.
So he releases a video of himself in Africa. Then a plane with his name on the roster flies from Belarus to Moscow gets shot down. Anyone know if any planes belonging to Wagner flew from Africa to Belarus recently? This might be trick.
The likelihood he was anywhere near the location where he was filmed is slim to none. These guys are always moving after they record something, and are long gone by the time it is released.
Why he was dumb enough to re enter Russian airspace is a separate matter.
Yeah my wife is convinced he wasn't on the plane and this is subterfuge. I think Putin had him shot down to make a point, as he's done with pretty much every other real threat he's encountered.
We may never know...
How do you know when the video from Africa was filmed? Also, if it's really Africa?
I just heard on the news the plane was confirmed to have been in Africa just recently. Also please explain, why a trick since both the Russian government and the Wagner leftovers confirmed it? The guy signed his death certificate once he cancelled his little Moscow tour two months ago and we all know it.
Faking his own death is the only way to keep living after signing his own death certificate.
Good.
He was a fucking dumbass piece of shit who deserves this for not following through on his coup.
This is not surprising at all lmao.
the only surprising thing is that it took so long after mutiny
Took longer than I expected. Hopefully the same thing happens to Putin next.
One thing that can't happen to Putin is getting assassinated by Putin.
If anyone can manage to assassinate himself, it's Putin. I believe in him!
Remember the Onion?
Thoughts and prayers
"What could have possibly caused this crash killing a totally insignificant and unimportant person?!" -RT
Who put that surface-to-air missile there?
[Thick Russian accent]: Foolish man, should not have gotten on a private plane, bad reputation private planes have. Very unsafe in these parts. Oh well, accidents happen...
Taking down a private plane in civilian airspace with Russian air defense is a surprising escalation, even for Putin. Even Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed by surrogate forces offering a certain amount of deniability.
There’s no going back from this. This was a state sponsored killing (well deserved) but now the masks have been ripped away. There will NEVER be any official relationship from any democratic government with Russia under it’s current leadership. Any business should look at the smoldering wreckage and think twice
I’d like to think you were right but look how people and countries are cozying back up to Saudi Arabia now. There is a lot of people who would sell their soul for a little bit of money.
Was that actually confirmed somewhere? It's not that easy to train people to use the AA system and IIRC they shot down plane within days of the system arrival in Ukraine, which would suggest that it was controlled by russian forces.
The Dutch investigation was pretty conclusive, with the call recordings and such. A lot of rebels were Russian vacationers, though.
No. You're right. I should have typed "surrogate forces" in quotations or 'supposed surrogate forces' or something. Point being, at the time and for a few news cycles after there was a story used to interject and/or some attempt to introduce uncertainty. That story was bullshit, it was even pretty obvious at the time, but they tried. This is much more cut and dry. That Putin wanted to send a message is obvious, but there was no concern this time about that message being too loud or it sending warning signals to unintended targets.
This could spook business from returning, as mentioned by another response below. This could have knock on effects. Putin didn't even try to act like he cared about any of that. That could mean a lot of things. I don't think any of them are good.
Of all the planes in the country he just happened to get on the one that lost a wing. Terrible luck!
Where, oh where are all of our apologists?
Maybe still figuring out what the "talking points" will be?
We're all waiting for the inevitable bullshit.
They were here early in the thread and are just arguing with people pages back in there. Whatabouting about the US over and over.
The thing I find strange about this is, why was he in Russia to begin with? I thought he was last seen in Africa just a couple days ago. How'd he end up on a plane flying between Moscow and St. Petersburg?
I'm not sure but I think they might have some airports in Africa.
*gasp* but that's.... That's.... impossible! But I was told Africa was all mud huts and wooden spears!!!
Joking aside, I know Africa has airports, but since Wagner has been supposedly moving their operations to Africa to fight against groups like ISIS and al Qaeda I'm a bit surprised that he wasn't busy setting up operations there. I would think he'd want to be overseeing the operations there since it sounded like they were going to be making that their primary mission now.
Maybe daddy Putin got angy because the move was pulling soldiers out of Russia to fight in Africa. Then he called him for an in-person scolding, and when the scolding didn't get through to him, Putin had to make an example of him.
Another possibility is that it wasn't Putin, but instead another military leader who got pissy about Prigozhin being daddy's favorite, in which case we might see another person fall out a window.
Or maybe it's all a hoax because Prigozhin knows his life will probably end when his usefulness expires, so he faked his death to try and avoid Putin's wrath after the war is over.
I think Putin just waited for some Wagner bosses to be on the same plane. Prigozhin has been successful in Niger and felt safe to fly with Utkin. The leftovers of Wagner will now be integrated into the Russian military.
That doesn't sound right. I'm pretty sure you can't get there by boat either. I can't really imagine him walking to Russia that fast so this sounds like fake news.
I'm not sure but maybe him being in Africa was a lie? Maybe to make Putin think he's not in Russia anymore?
NICE! #SlavaUkraini 🇺🇦
🌻🌻🌻
Yay! 🥳 So “denazifying” Ukraine while having SS/nazi tattoos says everything about Wagner, Russia, Putin and all of these fascist cowards. Rest in piss, nazi scum!
I don't even know how to react to this news: On one hand
WagnerPrigozhin is a person who is ideologically much worse than Putin (basically full-blown fascist as opposed to imperialist), but on the other hand he could have helped with increasing unrest in Russia which could technically mean chaos on Russian side of the front and opportunity for Ukraine to make some gains, but of course that's long time due, due to giving up on march on Moscow.My question is does this create a vacuum, and if so who fills that void? Time will tell.
it was shared online that
wagnerPrigozhin had a die hard following of people within his private army, and that they may retaliate in some way.What I'm concerned about, is that further destabilization of putin and his power, only increases the likelihood of him resorting to nuclear weapons. To people in power, their greatest fear is losing said power. I just hope whoever is in charge of turning the keys and pushing "The button," is strong enough to disobey orders.
Wagner is the name of the organization.
His death might cause an unrest
Wagner isn't a person.😅
Wagner was Dmitry Utkin's pseudonym. But I'm sure the guy was talking about Prigozhin.
This for real? Figured it was coming but haven't seen any mention of it elsewhere.
Just hitting bbc.
While i dont like people being killed and everyone should get a fair trial, the world certainly isn't a worse place with this guy dead and i aint gonna shed a tear for him
His mercenary army is going to be run by a Putin stooge. I'm not completely sure that's better. Not exactly bawling over here, but I would have rather seen him march on the Kremlin instead.
Meh. He doesn't need a 'fair trial.'
9 other people.... show me other coup members!
One of them is Utkin, the Nazi who coined the name Wagner.
Good riddance.
Imagine living in Russia and pretending it's fine to just go about your day instead of marching on the Kreml with millions of others. Russians will have a very hard time in the world in the next couple of decades, similar to Germans after WW2.
Clearly he had a death sentence when he failed in his coup. Why he stayed though is beyond me. Did he think he was window-proof or he'd escape..
Maybe it would have been awkward if he fell out of a window immediately after the coup so they had to wait for him to take a plane.
"Yevgeny, It's Vladimir! Hey, no hard feelings buddy! Why don't you fly on over so we can put all of this behind us?"
I am going to wait a few weeks before I take this as confirmed
These Russian characters sure are dramatic. When this is all over I hope we get some good documentaries and movies about this whole special military operation fiasco.
It may have taken 64 years but at least we got The Death of Stalin out of that one guy's enthusiastic genociding, it isn't all bad
Russia 2: Prigozhin Boogaloo
Team Fortress 2, Electric Boogaloo update
Putin will personally head the investigation.
Ok, I'll do it...
He's alive and well and this is a bit of theatre agreed upon between Putler and him to save face in all directions.*
*This is a conspiracy theory and not at all based on facts, don't quote me or take it too seriously
liveuamap.com reports there was a second plane owned by Prigozhin in the air, so my conspiracy theory is he got wind of the impending assassination, swapped the passenger lists, and will be announcing his "March of Justice" 2.0 shortly.
I think he will more likely be quietly arranging his plastic surgery and brushing off his new passport.
"She fell funny"
Now you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling...
Well, Putin rigging an airplane crash is a bit more creative than the usual "jumped out of a hotel window" scenario...
the plane collided with a passing-by missile, unfortunate accident
Well I can't say he didn't deserve it.
e:spelling
I just hope it won't discourage further infighting.
Indeed.
Am I the only one that thinks he staged his own death?
No, I think it's an oddly corpse-less death too.
Wouldn't be his first rodeo
If anyone thinks this is going to change a thing about Wagner group, they're taking stupid pills.
These things are designed like any other group, someone will take his place.
Someone was probably already lined up before he accidentally fell out of the sky
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin killed in plane crash in Russia, with nine other people on board also dead
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
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The original article contains 67 words, the summary contains 67 words. Saved 0%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Great summary!
Already second hard impact of a Russian envoy this week...
Such an unfortunate “accident”.
Any predictions for how Russia will spin this?
My guess, they’ll spread a conspiracy theory about him still being alive. They’ll claim this is a coverup so that he can appear dead and go into hiding.
I guess that will go with drone from Ukraine or blame the west, maybe a F-16 mysteriously appeared over Russia.
Well that's convenient.
Chuck Norris is on the case! 🚨
Surprisingly late...
I was about to say, took him long enough. I was expecting poison.
Amazing that Russia is shooting down aircraft inside their own borders.
This has to be a solid nomination for a Darwin award!
You don't seem to know what Darwin award is.
The purge has begun.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1694397010680361239
Sad that 9 other (potentially innocent) people also had to die for this “accident”.
If it’s any solace, anybody voluntarily riding in a plane with him was probably just as bad as he was.
It was a private plane with a guy onboard that everyone in Russia knows is a dead man walking. Every person on that plane knew that being within 500m of the guy was a constant hazard.
I feel bad for the three crew who were just doing their job.
It would have been really nice if he had gotten a life sentence in prison instead of that. Just too simple escape for the terrorist. Also it was very stupid to trust dictator's words when you are half way through the coup of his country
Who could have seen this coming? Shocked, I tell ya!
I'm surprised Putin still has ghouls that will carry out these
blatant political killing sprees, I mean, accidentsWhere were you when prigozin die?
I was at home.
Mom call
"Priggy is kill."
"No"
Things are getting worse in the Kremlin. Let Russia destroys itself from within.
Purely accidental, of course. No further questions.
He shouldn't have crossed Bane
This takes defenestration to a whole new level.
They found a higher window. And blew it up.
Opened it up.*
As expected
Must be sitting in a window seat
Who would have thought....
He trusted putins word. Rookie mistake.
And then fell out of the airplane window.
Wasn't he in Africa? I thought he'd recently been moved to Africa for the foreseeable future.
I'm actually surprised he was in a plane. If i was him, after doing what he did, I wouldn't even go upstairs in my house.
plane crash you
The thumbnail is quite unintentionally humorous
Clearly a case of Russian suicide. The kind only the state can arrange.
What a complete idiot.
Exploded and turned into scraps of mangled flesh strung across a hundred yards of debris, you say? Damn, hope he gets better.