CIA Director William Burns cautioned that "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold" when asked about the future of Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had just carried out a mutiny in Russia. On August 23, precisely two months after his brief uprising, Prigozhin was reportedly on a private plane that crashed in Russia.
Burns has already been given credit for foreseeing Prigozhin's collapse, but many watchers of Russia did not find it particularly surprising. Putin has a history of eliminating those who he views as traitors.
He has made it quite apparent throughout his political career that he places the highest priority on loyalty. He allegedly declined an opportunity to work for Mayor Anatoly Sobchak's adversary in the 1990s while he was deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg by saying: "It's better to be hanged for loyalty than to be rewarded for betrayal." When asked what "cannot be forgiven" in an interview from 2016, his response was "treason."
Many of those who opposed him have mysteriously passed away since he came to power in 2000, including businessman Boris Berezovsky, who supported opposition operations, and General Alexander Lebed, a much respected governor who was considered a potential Putin contender and died in a 2002 helicopter crash.
The assassinations of former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018 and Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 showed how far Putin will go for vengeance. State awards were given to one of the individuals whom British investigators accuse of killing Litvinenko for his "services to the motherland."
More retaliation has resulted from Putin's massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Over the last 18 months, there have been a number of strange deaths of former Russian politicians and businesspeople, both domestically and overseas. The gruesome trail of enigmatic high-profile persons discovered dead has even become the topic of a book. Victims range from people jumping from windows and ships to entire families being slaughtered.
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