Putin, the Hard Bastard of Global Politics.

 Well, Yevgeny Progozhin, the leader of the Wagner Mercenary Group has apparently come to an untimely demise in a private jet. Unsurprisingly, I hasten to add, because it was only a matter of time until Progozhin came to an untimely end at the hands of Putin's secret Service.

The video of the <cough> "Accident" shows the tailess plane uncontrollably spinning into the ground.

Here's a picture of the area of the sky the plane fell out of:

You can see in the top left the puffs of smoke that appears to mark the initiation of the event. (A long trail, then a fainter puff of smoke). 

Now that appears to be to show that something happened, then the plane broke up quickly. The initial smoke trail is quite short. One can imagine the plane experienced some event, then travelled a very short way, then lost control. I would expect a sudden nose up attitude due to the loss of the tail and it's horizontal stabiliser. 

One thing to note is there will not be a vapour trail from any missile as it hits the plane, if it was indeed shot down. Air to air missiles tend to make trails as they get up to speed and then don't necessarily make one at the point they hit the target. 

The immediate and sudden pitch up virtually stopped the plane in it's tracks. It then began to free-fall as denoted by the trail markers. 

Anyway, not sure if that is indicative of a shoot down. There were jet noises in the background of the video, but the jet noises ended when the plane hit the ground, so it could have just been the engines of the doomed jet rather than a fighter jet circling round it's target. 

Anyway, if Progozhin was dumb enough to be taking flights after crossing Putin, that's on him. I know he had at least one meeting with Putin after the supposed coup, but I don't know what happened during the meeting or how it went between the two men. 

Whether Progozhin convinced Putin his beef was with the generals, or if Putin took it as an attack against himself at that meeting, I guess we now know that it's the latter.

It also shows that yet again Putin is happy to dispense with people that are a threat to him at the expense of innocent lives. I'm sure the pilots of the jet had done nothing to anger Putin, other than ferry Progozhin around. I suppose in the mind of a Psychopath, they're aiding the enemy and also fair game.

There have been a number of plane crashes in Russia and the ex-Soviet states. It makes you wonder whether aircrews would start to refuse to fly certain targets.

It would be interesting if Progozhin wasn't on the aircraft though...