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How Prigozhin Came Close to Ending Putin’s Regime — A Brief History of Putin’s Largest Threat
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s former leader, was arguably the most potent threat to the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, since his inauguration.
So, I thought that it would be good to analyze how Prigozhin came so close to storming the Kremlin. It’s questionable whether Prigozhin would have stood a chance against Putin’s security and military, even with the loyalty of Wagner, for reasons I’ll discuss below.
Nonetheless, it’s worth analyzing (1) why Putin considered him to be such a threat and (2) how Prigozhin’s life came to an end.
Let me explain.
We should admit one thing at the outset here. We still do not exactly have concrete evidence of the fact that Putin indeed killed Prigozhin.
However, we could make some safe assumptions based on Putin’s treatment of dissidents since his inauguration.
Consider the assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the 13th journalist killed under Putin’s regime. Politkovskaya prolifically covered Putin’s war on Chechnya. It was not journalism to Putin’s liking.
In fact, when learning of Politkovskaya’s death, Putin remarked that Politkovskaya was a “very minor” figure who had “no influence on…