Putin absolutely couldn’t let Prigozhin walk, nobody could have. It’s not just about the semi-autonomous mercenary army, if a government lets someone get away with an attempted coup d’état they’d effectively encourage others to give it their best shot as well because there was no effective punishment. Assassination is, well, a very Russian approach to the issue, but every government on this planet would have taken some form of action.
I’m not really surprised. They got more and more open about their assassination attempts for years. They’re not meant to covertly get rid of enemies, they’re very public warnings to other dissidents. It’s rule by fear.
Putin absolutely couldn’t let Prigozhin walk, nobody could have. It’s not just about the semi-autonomous mercenary army, if a government lets someone get away with an attempted coup d’état they’d effectively encourage others to give it their best shot as well because there was no effective punishment. Assassination is, well, a very Russian approach to the issue, but every government on this planet would have taken some form of action.
It is the method used that has me baffled, if this happened as reported then they did not even try for any sort of plausible deniability.
I’m not really surprised. They got more and more open about their assassination attempts for years. They’re not meant to covertly get rid of enemies, they’re very public warnings to other dissidents. It’s rule by fear.