Best in Hell: Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Quintessentially Modern Russian Hero

Scott Ritter Aug 28, 2023

…

Don’t tell that to Joe Biden, however. The US President, vacationing in
Lake Tahoe, was asked by reporters to comment on news of Prigozhin’s
passing. “I don’t know for a fact what happened,” Biden said, “but I’m not
surprised. There’s not much that happens in Russia that [Russian President
Vladimir] Putin’s not behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”

The White House continued this pattern of back-hand blaming. “We have seen
the reports,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
“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.”

…

Biden’s comments, however, along with those of his National Security
Council, provide interesting yet disturbing insight into the tendency on
the part of the Biden administration to jump to conclusions based upon a
dearth of data and preponderance of prejudice. “I don’t know” combined
with “there’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind”
represents a disturbing pairing of ignorance—the first derived from the
lack of fact-based information, the second from the absence of
intellectually-driven analysis. Biden simply drew a conclusion based upon
the same Russophobic foundation of belief that prompted him to declare
during a March 2021 interview that he believed Putin to be a “killer.”

No evidence.

No analysis.

Pure Russophobia.

…

Putin’s well-known aversion to those who betray him or Russia, however,
does not automatically translate into Putin being involved in any aspect
of Prigozhin’s death—far from it. Anyone who has studied the words and
deeds of the man who has, in one form or another, been at the helm of
Russia for nearly 23 years, knows that Valdimir Putin is not someone prone
to precipitous action. Every word he utters, every action he directs, is
the byproduct of a process involving structured consultation and
deliberation.

Moreover, the decisions taken by the Russian President are never about
shaping perception for personal political gain, but rather exclusively
about furthering the best interests of the Russian nation and its people.
This last point is particularly important, given the tendency in the
United States and elsewhere in the collective West to project onto the
Russian leader the motivations and ambitions of our own political leaders,
who are often willing and able to manipulate events in a way that accrues
political favor and advantage, even at the expense of their respective
constituencies.

…

For those who believe Prigozhin was targeted by the Russian government,
the timing of the action needs to be addressed. Given the broad monopoly
that the Russian government has on violence, the fact is Prigozhin could
have been killed at any time, and anywhere. As such, why would a Russian
government-affiliated entity decide to kill Prigozhin when Russia had
achieved a major diplomatic victory at the BRICS summit in South Africa,
where the economic forum that helps empower Russia’s main foreign policy
objective of promoting a multi-polar world that challenges American global
hegemony had just agreed to expand its membership by six new members?
Prigozhin’s death sucked the oxygen out of the news cycle, killing every
other story. Such a result could be easily anticipated, and as such
avoided simply by carrying out the act at a time that did not disrupt
Russian national interests in such a manner.

…

Some have speculated that Prigozhin’s plane was brought down by a foreign
intelligence service. Putting aside the issue of competency (the CIA has
shown a particular inability to engage in successful human intelligence
operations inside Russia over the past decade), the fact is that such a
high-profile assassination on Russian soil constitutes a clear act of war,
and more than likely would be viewed by the Russian government as such. No
matter how hated Prigozhin was in the ranks of the CIA, MI-6, or French
intelligence, the risk-benefit analysis that would accompany any decision
for such a major undertaking would overwhelmingly fall into the “do not
attempt” category.

…

https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/best-in-hell-yevgeny-prigozhin-a

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