When President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia let the mercenary tycoon Yevgeny V. Prigozhin escape seemingly unscathed after launching a mutiny in June, critics around the world seized on the Russian leader’s apparent show of wartime weakness.
Two months later, Mr. Prigozhin is presumed dead in the mysterious crash of a private jet in a field between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Mr. Putin is securely in the Kremlin, publicly eulogizing Mr. Prigozhin as a talented person with a “complicated fate,” who made many mistakes in life.
In Mr. Putin’s Russia, fates can quickly change in a system where existential affronts to the leader are neither forgiven nor forgotten.
For more than two decades, individuals who have posed threats to the Russian leader have regularly found themselves exiled, imprisoned or dead, swiftly stripped of their power.
Persons:
Vladimir V, Putin, Yevgeny V, Prigozhin, Mr, ”, Wagner, Putin’s
Organizations:
Kremlin
Locations:
Russia, Moscow, St . Petersburg, U.S, Putin’s Russia