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Radio War Nerd EP #392 — Prigozhin Kaput (Patreon)

Published:
2023-08-25 00:06:54
Imported:
2023-08
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Recorded: August 24, 2023

We look back at the events leading up to yesterday's apparent assassination-by-aircrash of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, why he was taken out the same day that Surovikin was demoted & run down a brief history of assassinations-by-aircrashes both in Russia & around the world.

*Check out RWN EP #384 — Prigozhin's Mutiny, feat. Anatol Lieven

Total time: 1:06:00

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio Studios

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

*Buy John Dolan's comic memoir "Pleasant Hell" now available in both audio and ebookformat.

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Comments

NYCM&AHole

He got senator wellstoned. Or his pilot was polish

Jon Spiegler

I’ve been waiting 24 hours for this

PostmasterFenian

Hope y'all are all eating Dawgs for our boy. Do feel a little sorry for his family then I remember he did stuff like crack open convicts skulls with a sledgehammer hopefully this awful war comes to a ceasefire soon

NYCM&AHole

Lol a brutal meritocracy -> “a Brutocracy” (say it like you’re in a death metal band)

Ander Pierce

Thanks for the episode! Rest in piss Prigozhin!

square coats

Why do you guys basically take it for granted it was someone in Russian leadership who killed Prigozhin? I'm not saying it's not plausible or likely, but it seems like there's plenty of other possibilities to consider instead of just foreclosing on alternatives right away. Also you mentioned Utkin early on but didn't talk about him too much. I've seen here and there that Prigozhin hasn't been like the absolute top leader of Wagner and was basically brought in and placed as their PR guy, so whoever was actually making decisions (like maybe Utkin) wasn't Prigozhin. I would be interested to know the sources you're getting your info about Prigozhin and Wagner from (I'm a pretty new listener to this pod so apologies if you've discussed this in previous episodes. I'm working my way forward chronologically so far so I haven't listened to many of your recent episodes about Ukraine). It seems like Wagner and Prigozhin are ideal characters for Western narrative spinning. Also I'd really like to know more about Shoigu. I know he's been around since Yeltsin. I hear both that most Russians rate him as second or third most trustworthy after Putin and that this idea is totally made up. It seems like there were definitely some legit grievances with him over the past year and a half but that Prigozhin was also completely making stuff up. Since Shoigu doesn't actually have any military experience, it seems like his role isn't as a like supreme tactician/strategist, so I'm not sure why he would be threatened by Surovikin, though obviously I get why Gerasimov would be. And I do see Prigozhin as at least making appearances like he was trying to rival Shoigu from a sort of peer position. Also apparently in the earlier part of the operation prior to Surovikin being brought in there were a lot of problems with the Russian military command West, or named something like that. Like I think they have (or had then, I haven't followed all the restructuring going on closely) West, East, and South command sections broadly, and that all the major problems were coming from the West section, which was finally addressed conclusively when Surovikin was brought in. I don't think that it's a sufficient explanation that Prigozhin just like got unhinged from being around so much traumatic stuff on the front lines. I mean it totally could be I guess, but after his attempted coup thing, I saw some speculation that its timing could've lined up with an (unsuccessful) attempted Ukrainian offensive which, if successful, would've potentially made his actions much more compelling. I can't remember more specifically right now but it was pretty involved speculation, not just some throwaway statements. Also just FYI I remember seeing on twitter that people were tracking Prigozhin's private jet movements pretty much right after the agreement that he'd go to Belarus and people being like uh why is his jet going back and forth to Russia so many times? So that all was out in the open right away.

Soda enthusiast

Can't believe that prigozhin would fly his plane into a missile like that

Lorcan Mullen

Walter Reuther another suspicious one

Phil Harrison

Anyone got a link to that letter by Alexei Navalny mentioned at the start?

a clash of purple

Who are the other suspects? I mean, I just assumed that everyone involved in plotting the coup attempt is a dead man walking, if they haven't been killed already. I can't really see any reason why Putin would let them live after that, regardless of any other internal political factors involved. I do agree that it seems unlikely that Prigozhin went for the coup just because he's "crazy" or whatever. I assume that he (and the people around him, more importantly) received an offer from NATO, did the risk-reward calculations taking into account their current standing in Russia, and decided that it was worth the gamble. I'm skeptical of any attempt to psychoanalyze his decision (using "him" as a metonymy, as RWN would say), just as much as all the psychoanalysis of Putin's decision to invade Ukraine in the first place.

William

When they find his teeth, I’ll believe he’s dead. Mostly because it doesn’t matter or impact my life either way

Jess

When you get on the party bus in the sky with your boys but somebody doesn't like to party 😔

Gordon Schmidt

Well the case for the Tutsi shooting down Habyarimana's plane is a lot more complicated than "the Tutsis won so they must have done it". Firstly, the Tutsis who would have shot down the plane were RPF- these are NOT the same people as Rwandan Tutsi- their cadres had spent most of their lives in Uganda fighting with Museveni, and therefore they were not only physically separate from their fellow Tutsi in Rwanda, but they and their families were safe from the genocide. Furthermore, some former RPF cadres have claimed that they were part of a strike team ordered by RPF leader Paul Kagame to shoot down the plane. This is not open-and-shut evidence- lying to outsiders is something of a pastime in Rwanda, apparently. However, these claims should still be taken seriously. Given how ruthless Kagame has been both before and after he took power in Rwanda, I wouldn't put anything past him. Furthermore, there just isn't a lot of evidence that the Hutu shot down the plane. The best that I've heard is largely circumstantial- i.e, Hutu extremists in the capital seemed ready to execute the opening stages of the genocide as soon as they heard the news. Compelling evidence, but as I said, circumstantial. I'm currently reading Michela Wrong's latest book, Do Not Disturb, which deals directly with these questions. I know you've mentioned her book on Eritrea on this podcast before. Unfortunately I haven't gotten to the part about the Habyarimana assassination, but I'm eager to hear her take on it. That assassination, along with the death of Fred Rwigyema, is one of the great mysteries of the Rwandan conflict. Overall, given everything we know about Kagame I think it's more likely than not that he ordered the shootdown, but we may never know for certain.

David Andrews

It's impossible to believe that a showman like Prigozhen would stage his own death, go into hiding and keep his mouth shut. Good discussion once again.

Jaime Christley

the 9 other people on the plane were his squad? that's some 47 Ronin shit right there, if so

MoldyTolge

First JFK Jr. and now Prigozhen? This is why you let the professionals fly the plane folks, stay safe out there.

MoldyTolge

Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but a hotdog vendor just set up shop across from my workplace.

drizzly_november

John Denver too. Weirdly, he had passed NASA flight training and had been a runner-up for Christa McAuliffe's seat on Challenger.

xxx

Conspiracy brain detected

Kevin Hickey

Senator John Tower was another one.

Anatoly Kir

Holding out for Prigozhin pulling a Babchenko

Mark Ames

You’re right forgot about that one

JoR

Could you do an episode on the Rwandan Civil War?

Al Goehring

This man escaped the dirty fates, Knowing that he died having asked for ‘fucking unsalted sunflower seeds and how many times do I have to remind you,” as he died. Darkness, nothingness of human after-death, be careful with this guy he’s a handful

PW

The smart money says Yevgeny most likely has a new face and is laughing all the way to his Panamanian Bank. Maybe you'll bump into him in Italy John. How much longer do you think the war would last without Zelensky? If he had an accident at home? Like Trotsky did.

Red Herring McGuffin

helicopters dont just become a rock if you lose power, look up helicopter autorotate videos, they can stay airborne for quite a while

PostmasterFenian

Kagame has been pretty destabilizing for the congo correct?

PW

Spatial Disorientation is a thing. Military have the best pilot training and even they can succumb to it once it starts. Juan Brown on the yt Blancolirio channel does great analysis of air accidents and the likely causes. More than half are due to spatial disorientation.

SB

I remember the emergency episode when Soleimani got killed. It was important as the world was suddenly on the brink of a war between U.S. and Iran. This case is different. No real urgency or possibility of a global impact. Rehashing rumors and insinuation, some rather ridiculous, didn’t add much value IMO. It seems to me that Mark got stuck mentally in Russia of the 90s, where he rubbed shoulders with criminals and gangster businessmen, some of them getting occasionally whacked. He didn’t notice that Russia has changed since dramatically, with a whole new generation having replaced the one of the 90s. They are much more law abiding and disciplined. Mark is seeing ghosts of the past instead of the reality filled with mostly decent people in the military that wouldn’t even consider executing an illegal order. The times are different there. Yet in Mark’s head they are all just thugs, criminals, and incompetent leaders at all levels. BTW, I found this analysis of Prigozhin’s death much more relevant (and shorter) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGTe9Bwq9kg

PW

Traumatic Brain Injury may be the story of Yevgeny's mutiny. I know a number of people who have it and they can make very illogical and self-destructive decisions and then are willing to die on that hill.

a clash of purple

The whole world is run by criminals and gangster businessmen, not just Russia... what are you talking about? And since when would any military in the world refuse to execute an illegal order? I can't think of a single instance in all of history where that happened.

SB

I understand the attractiveness of the postmodernist idea that "the whole world is run by criminals". When living among criminals it is comforting to believe that everybody else does as well, even worse. It's a false comfort though. Forget Russia for a second. Is China run by criminals and gangster businessmen? Cuba? Venezuela? Iran? Singapore? Even in My Lai there was Hugh Thompson. In Iraq there were instances of soldiers refusing to execute captured suspects when ordered. The other 'popular' way to disobey a questionable order is to demand it to be given in writing, which usually defused the situation as superiors don't want to implicate themselves that way.

Gordon Schmidt

For his first few years in power, definitely. Rwandan forces blazed the trail to Kinshasa to take down Mobutu, and then when the RPF decided they didn't like Kabila they tried to do the same thing all over again! IDK how involved they are in the current Congo conflicts but Kagame's Rwanda was one of the key agents behind the First and Second Congo Wars

Gordon Schmidt

The world is a complicated place but most leaders in most places have at least some ties to organized crime if you look hard enough. That's just how clandestine state power works in the modern world. Saying the whole world is run by criminals is certainly *reductive*, but there is much more truth in it than I think you're allowing.

SB

My point is that Mark's 'analysis' of Prigozhin's death was reductionist to a nearly absurd level. "They are all thugs, they are all driven by envy of successes of others, they are all incompetent, they would whack anybody for these reasons, etc., etc." Even Zaluzhny admitted that he has a great deal of respect for Gerasimov as a military strategist and that he had read all of his books. Yet in Mark's version Gerasimov is just a primitive gangster that was failing where Surovikin succeeded (another absurd claim). Reductio ad absurdum indeed.

a clash of purple

PRC? Cuba? Venezuela? Iran? Singapore? Yes. All these leaders are indeed corrupt. Running a nation-state is a dirty business, and there's no way of doing it without soaking your hands in innocent blood. That's the world we've made. I'm not trying to make a moral equivalency here; the U.S. leadership is clearly the nastiest syndicate in the world, while, say, Cuba's is relatively benign. But you can't be in that position of power if you're overly concerned with morality. Certainly a lot of them feel bad when they commit crimes or atrocities, but they'll go along with it if it serves their agenda, or if they're afraid of the alternatives. Anyway, the main reason Prigozhin was killed was because he led a mutiny against the Russian government. As even Navalny pointed out, it's not like he has the moral high ground against Putin (though the West certainly thinks he did). Having him killed isn't the same as ordering the deaths of unarmed civilians or something. Why would Russian soldiers or officials balk at executing a traitor?

SB

>All these leaders are indeed corrupt. Running a nation-state is a dirty business, and there's no way of doing it without soaking your hands in innocent blood. Sorry, couldn't resist - reminds me of the old saying that cannibals don't believe that other people don't eat human flesh. They are absolutely sure that they do, just behind closed doors. >the main reason Prigozhin was killed was because he led a mutiny against the Russian government. This is one of the possibilities. However, the method, place, and especially timing make it much less plausible. In the panel I posted Ritter, Johnson, and McGovern listed a few other potential scenarios. At the peak of Bakhmut there were 'news' that CIA was discussing with Zelensky assassination of Prigozhin. I'm personally skeptical CIA was capable of pulling it off though. DGSE was probably the most wanting him dead. But I doubt they have enough presence in Russia for that. MI6 though, especially in collaboration with Ukr GUR, I think are more likely. It's interesting that Ukrainians didn't claim credit for it even though they've done that in the past for acts they didn't commit. It may mean they were involved here. It may also mean nothing. An intra-Wagner conflict I think is even more plausible. Let's see if Russian investigators say something. They were very quick in the cases of Dugina and Tatarsky. We'll see.

Gordon Schmidt

After reading more of Wrong's book I'm now certain Habyarimana's plane was shot down by the RPF on the orders of Paul Kagame. Apparently it was treated as an open secret in many RPF circles. The book's subject, Patrick Karegeya, the former Rwandan intelligence chief who became an exile and was killed by Kagame's assassins in South Africa, was open about it as well. The most damning piece of evidence, though, is the missile itself. (Only a small part of this info is in Wrong's book) Two weeks after the shootdown, refugees discovered two missile tubes. The tubes were empty, which meant they had to have been used, and given the recent events in Rwanda it is almost certain that they were left behind by the team that shot down the plane. The serial numbers of these missiles were recorded and, after consultation via Moscow, it was determined that these missiles were from a batch that had been exported to Uganda. Given the RPF's extremely close ties to Uganda, this is basically a smoking gun- indeed, other missiles proven to be possessed by the RPF are from the same batch. This pdf, along with Wrong's book, lay out an open and shut case in my view. The RPF shot down the plane- nobody who studies the conflict gives any credit to alternative theories at this point. https://repository.uantwerpen.be/docman/irua/e6c298/reyntjens.pdf

G W

Lmao the military is filled with mostly decent people that wouldn't even consider executing an illegal order? The same military invading a sovereign nation in a blatant imperial grab for territory?

SB

Thinking that Russian motivation was to acquire more territory is very naive. They already have WAY more territory than they can develop. They don't have nearly enough population for what they already have. Trading population for territory would be a terrible deal for them. If you try to look from their perspective, they are fighting to: - Stop oppression and wanton killing of the Russian speaking population of the former Ukranian East and South by people proudly wearing Nazi insignia; - Restore strategic depth of the security zone to protect their core territory from the encroaching Empire's first strike capabilities. - Defend their country from the West's desire to destroy it and loot (again); - Defeat descendants of Waffen SS generals that are trying to rewrite the outcomes of WWII; Some would even mention a continuation of the Great Game with Britain fighting a second Crimean war by proxy. You don't have to agree with their rational. But it's useful to understand it to see why they are willing to sacrifice a lot, will not cave to threats and sanctions, why they have tens of thousands volunteering to fight, and even more people contribute money, time, and skills to equip their troops. For example, the whole industry of striking FPV drones, as I understand, was created by volunteers with no government involvement. People don't do such things to just grab some territory.

Nicholas Levis

At the insistence of the US, the United Nations' 1990s inquiry into the Rwandan genocide of 1994 began by excluding examination of the assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, and started its investigative timeline during the immediate aftermath. Surprise, surprise. Not a smoking gun, more of a plausibly deniable signal to the room by wink and nod. Second in command of the RPF, Kagame in 1991 was in a training program at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas when he received word of the death in combat of the leader of the rebel force, and had to rush back to assume leadership.

G W

You have moral justifications but I have the material reality. Territory has been conquered as a result of this war. It is an imperialist war of conquest.

SB

I said nothing about moral justifications, just tried to show that "blatant imperial grab for territory" is an assessment that contradicts the reality. It is also premature to talk about "result of this war" while it's in full swing with no end in sight. Some predict it may end with a dissolution of NATO and a new security structure in Europe. I have no idea if this is likely to happen. But if it does, that will be much more consequential than any "land grab" in the process.