The only surprise was the style of execution, falling in a plane rather than plunging from a window or suffering the slow death of poison. Prigozhin had many enemies, but whoever carried out the killing, it was sanctioned by the Kremlin.
Yet this shows Putin’s weakness again: he could not arrest his treasonous warlord. And now he is deprived of a key ally who has proved his value since the initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 with his atrocities in Syria, his savagery in the battle for Bakhmut and by advancing Russian interests in Africa.
Putin still controls almost one-fifth of Ukraine. Kyiv’s much-hyped offensive, backed by Nato-donated tanks and launched amid ridiculously gung-ho expectations, is inching forward butagainst heavily-fortified Russian lines. Initial attempts to breach them with frontal assaults by Western-trained brigades failed partly due to lack of air cover – a reminder of the West’s sluggish response to this crisis – and their understandable reluctance to take heavy casualties in minefields.
This was succeeded by a more cautious strategy to degrade Russian logistics routes by attritional attacks on enemy artillery systems, ammunition dumps and electronic warfare capabilities using superior Western weaponry.