Death of a Salesman

War criminals killing war criminals — the alleged murder of a hot dog vendor

As if yesterday could have been any weirder.

There were dipsomaniac mugshots, an explosive probe on anti-democracy wrecking ball Leonard Leo, and news that a plane was shot down with Russian war criminal Yevgeny Prigozhin aboard — all breaking simultaneously.

Kremlin File and EuroFile reporter Monique Camarra — our guest this Sunday at our upcoming ‘Speakeasy’ — and I were mulling whether or not to go live with a Bette Breaker, but we figured when dealing with the feudal state known as Russia, better to see where the day takes us.

If you have not watched RadPod’s interview with “Russia’s War on Everybody”author Keir Giles, please do. We discuss how we must frame Russia not as a modern state but as a throwback to the 1500s to better understand its motivations.

Our chat with Keir makes the events of yesterday far less murky.

I also encourage members to revisit my interview with reporter and author Zarina Zabrisky after Prigozhin’s coup or kayfabe koup or whatever it was that happened in Russia two months ago to soil Putin’s pristine fake image.

Lastly, for those of you just getting up to speed on who some of the characters are that are accelerating global authoritarianism, I invite you to read this report from my archives:

As I noted in my latest American Monster report on Mike Flynn — sixth in an ongoing series about US criminals accelerating global fascism — these mob stories never end well, as the evil people eventually turn inward and devour each other. In Unhappy Rabbits, you will find the original citation for that quote — yet another brave woman who stood up in the face of fascism and was the first to warn me to stay away from windows and banisters.

I will sleep easier tonight knowing that the figurehead of the online influence operation in St. Petersburg that helped install a Putin puppet in our White House by tricking Americans into believing the well-prepared woman was a criminal and the criminal was a savior may now be residing in that circle of hell Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr Demchenko spoke so eloquently about on RadPod.

Prigozhin’s Nazi wingman Dmitry Utkin was alleged to have gone down with him. They can keep each other company in the farthest circles.

Africa will be better off without Prigo, whose Russian military outfit Wagner was busy destroying the minds of people in various African countries in order to steal all their shit.

As my friend war correspondent John Sweeney noted in his War Diary Day 546 report:

“Putin is in trouble. Prigozhin was a very effective leader of the Wagner Group — he became a folk hero… the hot dog salesman who became an oligarch, but essentially he never lost his touch with the Russian working class. He talked like a Russian man of the streets, he acted like one — he was physically brave. He was a war criminal and a killer … but he won at least some hearts and minds in the Russian far right, which is normally Putin’s core constituency. His execution puts Putin in a dangerous place… the crocodile is crying tears, but I think it’s quite possible that one of the Wagner people might have a real go at Putin and the Kremlin over this.”

Cue AC/DC’s Highway to Hell, as Ukraine’s head of the Office of the President did on his Telegram channel yesterday when the news broke.

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“We just have to see that the battle for democracy is broader. It's deeper.”—David Pepper

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“The message should be a fair deal… fairness everywhere.”—Martin Sheil

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(Prigo in better days)