Quote of the Day (Christo Grozev, Foretelling the End of Russia’s Major Coup Plotter)

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin went on TV and called [Yevgeny] Prigozhin a traitor. Everyone knows what they do with 'traitors,' and Putin hasn't done that. He wants to see him dead. He can't do that yet. In six months, Prigozhin will either be dead, or there will be a second coup. I'm agnostic between the two, but I can't see neither of these happening."— Investigative journalist Christo Grozev, correctly predicting the fate of the late Wagner Group leader and coup plotter, quoted by Edward Luce, “Lunch With the FT: Christo Grozev,” The Financial Times, August 12-13, 2023

Now, I’d like to credit Grozev with the uncanny powers of Nostradamus, or what passes as such in the international intelligence community.

But I suspect that the journalist would be the first to tell you that it took no special soothsaying skill to know that Prigozhin would come to an untimely end. So many people, inside and outside Russia, who find themselves at odds with Vladimir Putin have suffered a similar fate, as itemized in Lauren Said-Moorhouse's CNN story today. 

The only real question was how Prigozhin would die. A plane crash was so convenient, and so poetic, in a sense. After all, his coup attempt of a few months ago never did really take flight, did it?