Prigozhin’s murder reminds us of Putin’s nature
Washington Examiner
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The killing of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, reminds us of Vladimir Putin’s essential nature. The Russian president is a calculating and remorseless killer.
The explosion of Prigozhin’s aircraft as it flew north of Moscow on Wednesday is deemed by Western intelligence services to be an assassination by Putin. He is certainly celebrating. Claiming ridiculously that he was briefed on the explosion only a day late, on Thursday, the Russian tyrant coldly observed that Prigozhin “was a man of complex fate. And he made mistakes.” Putin added that he had “launched an investigation into this incident, and it will be carried out in full. … Let’s see what the investigators say.”
YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN LEAVES BEHIND VAST BUSINESS EMPIRE
Yes, let’s see. It will probably be a chillingly amusing blend of fiction and dark Russian humor — similar perhaps to the fantasy concocted about Russian GRU assassins who brought murderous mayhem to an English country town in 2018 as “tourists” visiting Salisbury Cathedral.
Putin had good reason to want Prigozhin dead. The mercenary leader led a coup attempt against Putin’s rule in June. Since it was aborted, Prigozhin had seemed to taunt the president by gallivanting at high-profile events around Russia.
Nine other people were killed in the attack on Prigozhin’s airplane. While most were Wagner employees, the victims included an experienced pilot with two children, a co-pilot, and a young flight attendant. The father of the 29-year-old co-pilot told the Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper, “Before the flight, he called his mother and said that he was flying on this flight.”
The attack reeks of KGB willingness to destroy innocent lives in a semi-deniable killing of one target. Putin, a former lieutenant colonel in the Soviet spy agency, likes to pay homage to the past in that way. It serves his purposes that his denials are recognizably skimpy. He wants it to be known that he will kill anyone who crosses him. And it is important for Washington to recognize that this is both his nature and his calculation.
Putin skillfully deceived George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump during their presidencies. Bush memorably stated that at a meeting at his Texas ranch in 2001, “I looked the man in the eye, and I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.” Putin seemingly repaid the absurd compliment by attacking Bush at the 2007 G7 summit.
President Joe Biden also fell for Putin’s “tough but fair” pretense. In June 2021, Biden was optimistic about a pragmatic partnership, explaining, “We’ll find out within the next six months to a year whether or not we actually have a strategic dialogue that matters. We’ll find out whether we work to deal with everything from release of people in Russian prisons or not. We’ll find out whether we have a cybersecurity arrangement that begins to bring some order.”
Eight months later, Putin invaded Ukraine. Putin has also taken more Americans as hostages so he can extort concessions from Biden. And Russian cyberattacks continue. As the late Sen. John McCain said: “I looked in Mr. Putin’s eyes, and I saw three letters — a K, a G, and B.”
Americans should stop fooling themselves that Putin can be a pragmatic partner. His strategic interest is not to have hard-headed cooperation and mutual respect with Washington. His strategy is to undermine American power, threaten U.S. allies such as Poland, and degrade the democratic international order.
GOP presidential front-runner Trump thinks he had a good relationship with Putin. But Trump’s Russia-related successes flowed from countering Russian threats. Facing Russian arms control breaches, Trump bolstered U.S. nuclear forces. His shakedown attempt on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky notwithstanding, Trump rightly overturned Obama’s ban on providing anti-tank weapons to Ukraine. The only way to deal with Putin effectively is to counter his aggression.
GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy suggests the U.S. make concessions to Putin to reduce his cooperation with China. This misreads both the rationale for Putin’s deference to Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin’s nature. The Russian leader views America as his KGB forefathers did: as Russia’s “main adversary.” Prigozhin’s murder shows how Putin treats adversaries.
Washington doesn’t need to suspend dialogue with Russia or push for regime change in Moscow. But it must not look at him through rose-tinted glasses.