Strongman Putin shows weakness of regime rule by fear

'We know enough about Putin's Russia to see his calling card'

- Ross Clark

THE DEATH of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash on Wednesday was a warning for coup leaders everywhere. If you plan to remove a brutal regime by force, you really should finish the job. It is not a great idea to pull back and start negotiating with the monster you were aiming to overthrow.

That, inexplicably, is what Prigozhin tried to do after he began a march on Moscow in June with the apparent goal of overthrowing Vladimir Putin.

He attempted a deal with the Russian leader which involved him taking sanctuary in Belarus, under Alexander Lukashenko's Moscow-friendly regime.

It is a wonder that Prigozhin lasted two months. Of course, executive jets do sometimes crash usually, it has to be said, giving some warning before they plunge to the ground.

But we know enough about Putin's Russia to see his calling card in this.

As Sir John Sawers, former head of MI6, told Radio 4 yesterday, it is almost certainly an assassination. Putin, he said, "has reasserted his control. He is making clear to everyone both inside and outside he is not going to brook any challenge."

Few will mourn Prigozhin, a thuggish ex-hotdog seller who crawled out of the same fetid pool as Putin. For years he and his Wagner mercenaries have been doing Putin's dirty work for him, in Ukraine and Syria.