(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



This is wild speculation but . . . could Putin be dead? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-06-23  

Like everyone else, I’m watching with bated breath the events unfold in Russia with Prigozhin and his Wagner PMC forces attacking and seizing Rostov on Don. There are also various reports that Lukashenko has fled Belarus. These seem like they should be unrelated events. Wagner isn’t threatening Belarus. Yet both happening within the same 24 hours.

This is a big ‘IF’ (and probably wishful thinking) and I’m assuming that I am most likely wrong, but my speculation goes like this:

Russia and the Soviet Union (and most authoritarian regimes actually) are notorious for hiding the death of an authoritarian leader as much as they can, as long as they can. This short time period is used by the various other players in the power structure to try and consolidate their own influence quickly as everyone makes a play for the throne or gets behind someone they think is the strongest successor candidate.

This might explain why an arrest warrant was finally issued for Prigozhin now and/or they tried to take him out while in the field. If a small circle was aware that Putin was out of the picture, this would be an attempt to take out a potential wild card rival before the word gets out. It would also help incentivize Prigozhin to make his move if he found out about it.

This would also explain why Lukashenko would choose the same moment to get out of dodge; if he found out, he might realize that it is very unlikely he would have any kind of future protection as the power struggle would likely leave him out in the cold and left to his own devices.

It could help explain the apparently paralytic response to Wagner’s actions, if there is no one who is ‘in charge’ enough to coordinate a response.

All of these things could easily be explained by the current and obvious dysfunction we’ve seen so far from the Russian government and leadership, however, so that is the explanation with the most probability. But the thought popped into my head that things would also all look very similar if Putin was dead or otherwise seriously incapacitated (i.e. dying).

I’m 95% certain Putin is still alive, but I’ll be honest, I wanted to get this out before anyone else did. Just in case. hehe. ;-)

Edit: Also, yes, I’m totally aware of the irony of publishing a story like this the same day of the new Dis/Misinformation policy. But, hey, world events made that incredibly ironic first. Haha!

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/23/2177290/-This-is-wild-speculation-but-could-Putin-be-dead

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/