Brave Sir Putin ran away.
("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")
Yes, brave Sir Putin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Putin!
Prigozhin not even reaching the capital isn't a great look either. Both men come off looking like feckless assholes. Oh well, not like I was rooting for either one.
the pilot better turns on ADSB if he does not want to collide with other planes. usually they send an ID with no other information, but if that ID is known… lemmy knows
I'm not saying that Putin is aboard the plane, but I don't think that Wagner has any substantial air-to-air capability. I know that they operated some ground attack planes in Ukraine earlier, but AFAIK, that's it. So there probably is limited risk to Putin in that information going out.
EDIT: Apparently it turned off its transponder later while in flight.
Any confirmation that he is actually on the plane? I saw on an OSINT discord server earlier that his plane attempted to enter Kazakhstan and was turned away.
Historically smart money is, far away from large population centers. There's a reason the French monarchy was forced to stay in Paris during the revolution.
Other smart moves would probably be - lose the controversial defense minister, blame it all on him, put Prigozhin in a prestigious but far-away position, wind the war down slowly while trying to find a "Mission Accomplished" moment to try and cool things down with the west, etc.
Almost nobody in a position of power actually does the smart thing in these situations, though. So, my popcorn is ready today. 🍿
Who expected Putin, who staged photo-ops with actors posing as regular people and who put a superlong table between himself and his own minions, to actually be brave?