this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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This is a guy who was known to hire body doubles and he had numerous passports.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Probably exactly what has been reported. Putin waited for things to settle, weakened Wagner troops by taking their weapons and splitting their numbers, then they killed leadership. Occam's razor certainly points to this.

But, of course, the way it was done certainly leaves the door open for conspiracies.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Even if he's not dead, his mercenaries believe that he is. If they're getting paid, they'll do what leadership tells them. If not, they won't. Simple as, he's not an elected leader, his death just means his company has shit to figure out, but his non-death means shit will keep going as it was.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wagner is not a PMC and wagnerites not real mercenaries. Most of them are ultra-nationalists and that's their primary motivation to fight. There are some weird Nazi/cult elements. Prigozhin has built up that cult, he's not easily replaceable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Not necessarily. The mercenaries are spreading a lot of these conspiracies through Telegram. I don’t have polling available, so idk how many of them think he’s alive.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Given the current state of Russia, almost all of the (conspiracy) theories are currently not completely impossible and nothing can be said with certainty.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Russian politics is a bit like watching a couple of pitbulls fighting under a carpet. You can certainly see movement, and hear that something is happening, but you don't really know what happened till you see the bones of the loser tossed back out.

That was said in the 30s or 40s by Churchill, and I probably butchered the quote, but it leads me to believe that this has been the state of Russia for a long time