This was no normal flying accident. Saying it matched Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics,” US intelligence officials say the explosion that destroyed the plane carrying the head of the Wagner mercenary force in Russia was intentional, the Associated Press reports.
To demonstrate how obvious that assessment was, even President Biden’s response didn’t try to couch his reaction in the typical diplomat-speak. The fact he wasn’t shocked by the incident that caused the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who just months ago undertook a coup to topple Putin, was evident. “I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised. There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”