Lee Heidhues 8.23.2023
Who’s next?
The World knows who is leading the orchestra.
When even criminal thug mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin is brought down to earth. Dead. There’s no respite from Vladimir Putin’s wrath.
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 8.23.2023
Wagner paramilitary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a short-lived uprising that challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority in June, was killed Wednesday after the plane he was aboard went down northwest of Moscow, according to Russian authorities.
Russia’s civil aviation authority confirmed that the Wagner founder was on the flight.
Social-media channels close to Wagner said Russian air defenses shot down the jet, an Embraer Legacy 600. Video footage posted by onlookers showed what looked like the trail of a missile and the plane falling from the sky with one wing missing.
Images of debris published by Russian media appeared to have multiple small holes consistent with the damage that is caused by air-defense missiles.
If Prigozhin’s plane was indeed deliberately shot down, it would amount to a very public execution of the man who presented the most serious threat to Putin in the Russian president’s 23 years in power.
Lee's Perspective 