Did They Send the Families a Bill for the Missiles?
In its concerted effort to ensure that Yevgeny Prigozhin will not become a venerated martyr, the Kremlin consigned the late Wagner impresario’s funeral to an obscure cemetery in a gritty part of St. Petersburg, limited attendance to his family members, and deployed considerable police and military resources to prevent anyone from going to the cemetery. They also attempted to undermine the development of a shrine by requiring the burial of the three main Wagner figures who went down in flames–Prigozhin, Valery Chekalov, and Dmitry Utkin–in separate locations (although that risks the creation of three sites of veneration, no?)
Perhaps the families should be grateful that funerals were even permitted. In Soviet times, the NKVD and KGB would send the families of those they shot a bill for the bullets used to kill them.* Did the FSB send the families of the Wagner casualties a bill for the S-300 missiles used to shoot them down? Or for the bomb, if that’s what did it?
Indeed, the Wagner leadership may be considered lucky as compared to their employees. There are reports that at least one cemetery of Wagner soldiers KIA in Ukraine is being obliterated.
There are also reports of the Kremlin and the MoD moving rapidly to seize control of Wagner assets and operations in Africa. This would represent a reprise of the early Putin policy of eliminating the Russian mafias by incorporating them into the state structures: it was a takeover, not an elimination.
*Someone on X pointed out to me that Indonesia still does this.
No, the NKVD and KGB have never done that. I’ve read it used to be a common practice in Mao’s China but I am not sure if it is true.
Comment by LL — September 2, 2023 @ 12:54 pm
Dear Professor, I noticed that you often comment on Russian events.
Why are you interesting in Russia?
Comment by Ilia — September 2, 2023 @ 1:10 pm
Come off it prof, surely you’re not so naive to believe this urban myth nonsense.
Invoice $10 one bullet.
Reaction: widow or babushka disputes cost of bullet.
State has provided documentary proof of extra judicial murder.
Cost of issuing invoice – official time, stationery and stamp – >$10.
Widow claims for enhanced pension. (Yes, even Stalin’s Russia had courts for the people.)
But maybe I’m wrong. The People’s Democracy of the United Kingdom has just released an innocent man from prison after 19 years, ten years after the police had firm DNA evidence that he wasn’t the culprit.
And they want to reduce his compensation by charging him for board and lodging while he was banged up.
Now that’s proper Stalinism.
Comment by philip — September 2, 2023 @ 3:54 pm
King Lear: Act 5 Scene2:
‘No farther, sir, a man my rot even here.
What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all: come on.
And thats true, too.’
And even though it’s way too trivial after a Shakespeare quote, by the time of our departure, we’ve overpaid in taxes (esp. we that don’t live in Russia – am I wrong, it’s 15% in Russia vs. e.g. 45% in the UK or Germany and many other countries, talking about income taxes alone) and charges and social security and insurance and interest so many times, and then for the funeral also.
C’mon, hundrets and thousands of billions over billions of tax payers money spent on weapons, we’re all billed anyway already. And the Ukraine conflict just an excuse to sent us another and higher bill by our Western govs and the interests behind them.
But what does the circumstances of these men concern me, men that expected themselves to greet from h*** also after their deaths? I just guess they won’t be alone there…and others will follow…not just from Russia…
Comment by Mikey — September 3, 2023 @ 3:51 am
Typo: may rot, not my rot
Comment by Mikey — September 3, 2023 @ 3:53 am
“ten years after the police had firm DNA evidence that he wasn’t the culprit.” And the police promptly passed on the evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service, who in turn alerted the body (name escapes me) that is meant to investigate such things. So it looks as if the police (of whom I am not a great fan) are guiltless in this – it’s the bloody shysters and civil servants who are to blame. (Whom I tend to despise.)
Comment by dearieme — September 3, 2023 @ 8:58 am
@philip
“And they want to reduce his compensation by charging him for board and lodging while he was banged up.
Now that’s proper Stalinism.”
Let me know when that happens to a dozen million Brits, and the rest feel nostalgic for the “strong hand” decades after the atrocities are revealed. THAT will be proper stalinism.
@Mikey
“esp. we that don’t live in Russia – am I wrong, it’s 15% in Russia vs. e.g. 45% in the UK or Germany”
It gets even better: if you, like most Russians, have near zero income, you pay near zero taxes! Plus you can win a free trip to loot a washing machine from Ukraine (tax-free, but conditions apply).
I hear Karin Kneissl is having a helluva time dancing with Russia’s finest cows and chickens, since Putin is busy these days. But other than that, surprisingly few takers for the low taxes.
Comment by Ivan — September 3, 2023 @ 2:33 pm
@Ilia. I have long been interested in Russia for several reasons. Energy is one of my areas of expertise, and as a major energy producer Russia drew my attention. Moreover, as an economist interested in institutions, property rights, and the like, Russia represented a good example of the adverse consequences weak institutions and poor property rights. The interaction between the two (the resource curse) was also of interest to me. So that got me reading and writing about Russia in the mid-2000s. It was also the topic that generated the most feedback on the blog so that encouraged me to write more.
I’m also interested in military topics and so I followed and wrote about military developments there.
That, in a nutshell, is why I write a lot about Russia. Not so much as I used to thought. In the 2008-2015 period I often wrote multiple Russia-related posts per week.
Comment by cpirrong — September 3, 2023 @ 2:37 pm
Prof. are you serious?
These guys were staging an armed coup (during wartime, no less) and kiled russian servicemen in the process. That’s called treason and states since time immemorial have reserved maximum punishment for this act. always have, always will.
Your previous post left out an the most important part: Putin trusted Prigo first – that’s how he ended up with all the heavy weaponry in the first place (or do you believe they aquired them on AliExpress?).
Without heavy weapons he would be as dangerous as Nawalny (who is even allowed to hold press conferences from his prision cell).
I hasten to add that everything is speculative at this moment. After all, the missille thesis was launched by “western experts” 5 (!) minutes into the incident, the same experts who told us in March of 2022 that Russia has run out of missiles (Hey, maybe that’s the motive: overcharge Prigo’s family to finance the purchase of missiles…LoL)
It might well have been that the coup was staged, but took a moment for the worse when some rogue operator shot down the army helicopter…
Comment by viennacapitalist — September 4, 2023 @ 1:14 am
“These guys were staging an armed coup (during wartime, no less) and kiled russian servicemen in the process. That’s called treason and states since time immemorial have reserved maximum punishment for this act. always have, always will.”
Well, unless the traitors succeed.
Comment by Green As Grass — September 4, 2023 @ 4:08 am
“This would represent a reprise of the early Putin policy of eliminating the Russian mafias by incorporating them into the state structures: it was a takeover, not an elimination.” Exactly. When I practised law with an international firm in Moscow in the 2000s, clients would ask about organised crime and I would say “it was nationalised”.
Comment by Tom — September 7, 2023 @ 1:36 am