[ad_1]
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propagandists have pulled out all the stops in a media blitz to deflect any blame away from the Russian leader for the plane crash that allegedly killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary Wagner Group.
On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in a briefing with reporters, rejected claims that the Kremlin might have been involved in Wednesday’s crash of the Embraer business jet carrying Prigozhin and other top Wagner leaders.
RELATED STORY: US intelligence assessment determines intentionally caused explosion killed Wagner chief
The official TASS news agency reported Peskov said:
“Now, naturally, there are many speculations over this plane crash and the tragic death of the passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. Of course, the West is selling these speculations from a certain angle. All of them are absolute lies. Here, of course, in covering this issue it is necessary to be based solely on facts.”
Peskov added:
“Yesterday, speaking on this subject, the president [Russian President Vladimir Putin] said that he was waiting exactly for the results of the investigation, which will be completed in the foreseeable future, and you and I will learn the details.”
Asked whether Putin would attend Prigozhin’s funeral, Peskov sidestepped the question by saying it was premature to talk about this because authorities were still awaiting the results of DNA tests to confirm Prigozhin’s death, TASS reported.
Peskov was referring to an unusual video released Thursday in which Putin delivered what amounted to a de facto eulogy for Prigozhin while he offered his condolences to the families of the plane crash victims. Putin spoke at a meeting with Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a Ukrainian province under Russian occupation.
Putin then praised the Wagner leaders for their accomplishments in Ukraine. Of course, he made no mention that Wagner mercenaries have been accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine (as well as in Africa) and lost thousands of fighters in human-wave attacks in the monthslong campaign to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
“I would want to note that these people made a significant contribution to fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine,” Putin said. “We remember this, we know it, and we will not forget it.”
Putin then recalled that he had known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s in St. Petersburg. At the time, Prigozhin, a former convict, began his business career by running a hot dog stand, only to go on to operate a fancy restaurant and catering company.
“He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life. He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months,” Putin said. “He was a talented person, a talented businessman — he worked not only in our country and worked with results, but also abroad in Africa, in particular. He was involved in oil, gas, precious metals and stones there.”
That was a euphemistic explanation of Wagner’s role in furthering Russian interests in such African countries as Mali and the Central African Republic by providing military support and spreading propaganda for Kremlin-backed strongmen. In return, Wagner fighters were accused of committing human rights abuses while raking in huge profits from contracts that enabled them to export mineral resources and gold to Russia. Putin omitted the social media campaign waged by Prigozhin’s St. Petersburg-based troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, to meddle in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump.
Well, those were kind words from Putin for a man whom Russia watchers had considered to be a “dead man walking” ever since Prigozhin led a mutinous march on Moscow in late June. He aborted his mutiny under a deal with the Kremlin that exiled him and thousands of his mercenaries to neighboring Belarus.
Prigozhin said his mutiny was never intended to topple Putin but that it was intended to force the removal of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov who were trying to take control of his mercenary force. But Prigozhin clearly struck a nerve with Putin when at the start of his mutiny he accused the Kremlin of lying to the Russian people about the justifications for invading Ukraine and even said the war could have been avoided by negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was “ready for agreements.”
And so that led to speculation about how Prigozhin might meet his demise. Would he fall out of a window or be poisoned as was the fate of others who had run afoul of Putin?
On Wednesday, an executive jet en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed in the region of Tver, leaving no survivors, Russian authorities said. The 10 people aboard allegedly included Prigozhin and other Wagner leaders as well as three flight crew members.
In a report Thursday, the Institute for the Study of War referred to Putin’s “almost certain assassination of Wagner’s leadership.” ISW has assessed that “Putin’s demonstrative assassination of Wagner’s leadership was meant to reassert his dominance and exact vengeance for the humiliation of Wagner’s rebellion.”
President Joe Biden said Thursday that he “didn’t know for a fact what happened” but that he was “not surprised” that Prigozhin may have died in the plane crash. Biden added that “there’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”
Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ABC News on Friday that the crash of Prigozhin’s plane was likely caused by a bomb placed onboard. The U.S. Department of Defense said there was no indication that the plane had been brought down by a surface-to-air missile, ABC News wrote.
The Daily Beast, citing a well-connected Telegram channel, reported that the body of Prigozhin’s top deputy, Dmitry Utkin, whose “Wagner” call sign gave the mercenary group its name, had been identified by his neo-Nazi tattoos.
The Russian Investigative Committee reported Friday that all 10 bodies had been recovered at the crash site along with the plane’s black boxes, according to the official RIA Novosti news agency. “All possible versions of what happened will be carefully checked,” the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee said. A criminal case has also been opened on violation of the rules of traffic safety and operation of air transport, RIA Novosti reported.
Well, Putin’s propagandists have already taken to the air waves to rule out one possibility—that Putin himself was responsible for the plane crash. CNN did speak to some ordinary Russians who speculated that the Putin regime was responsible for the crash without any proof.
Belarus’ leader Aleksandar Lukashenko, who brokered the deal between Putin and Prigozhin that ended the mutiny, joined in the effort. Lukashenko said Friday that he didn’t believe Putin was behind the plane crash, according to Turkey’s Andalou News Agency:
“I can’t say who did it. … But I know Putin. This is a prudent, very calm and even slow person, making decisions on other, less complex issues. Therefore, I cannot imagine that Putin did this, that Putin is to blame. Too rough, unprofessional work, for that matter,” Lukashenko said at a news conference in Minsk, according to state news agency Belta.
Zelenskyy denied that Ukraine was involved, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported. “We have no relationship with this. Everyone understands who has a relationship,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Thursday.
But that didn’t stop Putin’s TV propagandists from suggesting that the U.S., Ukraine, and NATO—everyone except the Putin regime—might have been responsible for the plane crash.
Here is some of that propaganda put together in a video by The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis, who monitors Russia TV broadcasts:
In an article for The Daily Beast, Davis wrote that Putin’s leading TV propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, went so far as to claim “that Putin had nothing to do with Prigozhin’s demise on his show “Full Contact” on Thursday:
“Prigozhin and Wagner did not present any threat to the Kremlin! None at all… They presented a colossal threat for the European countries! I’m trying to figure out who might have benefited from it. The very last person it would benefit is Putin!” he said. “Putin gave a word, he forgave all of them… Putin was never known not to keep his word! He is a man of his reputation… all about the laws,” he insisted.
Although he conceded that Prigozhin’s “march on Moscow” was indeed a “stab in the back” of the Russian president, the host brushed off any possibility of a revenge killing, asserting, “We’re not a gang! We are not the mafia! This is not Mario Puzo’s book The Godfather. We are a nation of laws!”
Solovyov then mentioned other “suspects” he claimed could have been behind the plane crash, including NATO and Ukraine. “For Ukraine, this is a major celebration! Yesterday, the Ukrainian segment of the Internet exploded in total happiness! … For them, Prigozhin is target number one!” Solovyov said. He even suggested that Ukraine blew up the plane to mark its Independence Day on Thursday.
Then Solovyov claimed that the Western media was trying to screw over Putin by attempting to shift the blame from the real perpetrators:
“The Anglo-Saxons are undoubtedly behind this crime!” he fumed. Solovyov went on to name France, Poland, the Baltic states, and NATO countries in general as other likely beneficiaries of the incident. “This does not benefit Russia at all!” he reiterated.
Davis noted that Solovyov was singing a completely different tune back in June, after Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny. Back then, Solovyov and guests on his show were saying that Prigozhin was “a traitor” who should have been killed by Putin rather than be allowed to go to Belarus.
Now Solovyov referred to Prigozhin as a “hero of Russia” and urged Wagner fighters to capture Kyiv in his honor, Davis wrote. But leave it to Solovyov’s weatherman Yevgeny Tishkovets to come up with an even better theory about the plane crash—he actually blamed the weather.
RELATED STORY: Ukraine Update: Prigozhin conspiracies run wild, as Ukraine finally focuses on a single front
[ad_2]
Source link
