Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
The announcement of a passenger list so soon after the explosion would seem to indicate intimidation is at play. No subtlety with Putin, who may have been fearful for his power. "Uneasy lies the head..."
@Crash- maybe you should edit your headline to put quotes around "plane crash" ?
Hello, @Old_Joe. You mean, because the incident was so obviously intentional? Certainly no accident! And the Poot-fart cares not at all about the OTHER lives lost, either. I wonder who they were? Wagner people? Or..... ?
@Crash- Yeah, your new hed is right on. This morning's WSJ reports that many inside Russia believe that the plane was taken down by a ground-fired missile. Seems like a waste of a perfectly good airplane. Some of the others were in fact Wagner high-rank people.
U.S. intelligence officials are considering the possibility that the plane believed to be carrying Wagner Group chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin crashed after an explosion aboard, according to a U.S. official familiar with the preliminary assessment. There is no indication thus far the jet was downed by a missile, according to three officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a preliminary assessment. An explosion was detected along the path of the plane, but there are no signs of a missile launch, two officials said.
I recall North Korean terrorists blowing up a KAL flight from the Middle East to Seoul in 1987. The apparent motive was to discourage attendance at the 1988 Olympics and to disrupt the South as much as possible. A Korean diplomat (whose sister I worked with) and his wife were on board along with 113 other innocent victims. Russia is simply a terrorist state no different from other countries who have attacked civilians in the name of their "revolution."
Yes, there was almost some hope with the collapse of the USSR in '90 or '91, and business interests everywhere wanted to glad-hand the Russians and include them and start doing business with them, without regard for the internal feces. And the country has devolved into a nightmare criminal mafia violent gang-ocracy. Including the terrorism and invasions of its neighbors. Georgia, Chechnya, Ukraine... others? Now the Baltics are feeling threatened. They have a right to feel that way. Meanwhile, the West is feeding weapons to Ukraine piecemeal.
"Meanwhile, the West is feeding weapons to Ukraine piecemeal."
Yes, true... and one reason for that is that the situation has revealed how totally unprepared we are to handle a military ground war of any magnitude. We have damned near exhausted our munitions supply, and the Ukrainians are using that stuff much faster than we can replace it. We had to send those anti-personnel bomblet cluster shells a while back because we didn't have much else left to send. 155mm shells are the basic backbone of any artillery operation, and we've run out of those?
I haven't seen anything reported on the reasons for this, but I have to wonder if we didn't use a lot of our stockpile in Afghanistan and Syria, and didn't replace it in a timely manner.
Don't think for a minute that Russia and China aren't watching all of this very closely.
(EDIT: OOPS, they are meeting in the Far East.....) @hank Very possible N.K. possesses no plane with the capability to fly as far as Moscow without stopping for fuel enroute. The Trumpster met Kim in Singapore, yes? That was a matter of airplane mileage, so I read......
Comments
https://apnews.com/article/russia-wagner-prigozhin-jet-crash-a7859e4e57f2efa2547dfbe5bdbaa1b2
As I recall, this is another scene from the Godfather.
Yes, true... and one reason for that is that the situation has revealed how totally unprepared we are to handle a military ground war of any magnitude. We have damned near exhausted our munitions supply, and the Ukrainians are using that stuff much faster than we can replace it. We had to send those anti-personnel bomblet cluster shells a while back because we didn't have much else left to send. 155mm shells are the basic backbone of any artillery operation, and we've run out of those?
I haven't seen anything reported on the reasons for this, but I have to wonder if we didn't use a lot of our stockpile in Afghanistan and Syria, and didn't replace it in a timely manner.
Don't think for a minute that Russia and China aren't watching all of this very closely.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/11/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korea-russia-meeting-intl-hnk/index.html
Err … ”It takes one to know one.”
@hank Very possible N.K. possesses no plane with the capability to fly as far as Moscow without stopping for fuel enroute. The Trumpster met Kim in Singapore, yes? That was a matter of airplane mileage, so I read......