Note: I do not ordinarily post more than one item per day. But an unexpected news event has caused me to break with custom and issue this extra “Extra” a couple of days early, with an explanatory postscript. - Brendochka

Remember a series of books first published in England around 1986 originally called “Where’s Wally?” (the name was later changed to “Where’s Waldo?” in the U.S. and Canada), in which readers were challenged to pick out the Wally/Waldo character in drawings of large crowd scenes?

Well, forget about Waldo. What the whole world wants to know now is: Where on earth is Yevgeny Prigozhin?

This scary dude — who just a few short weeks ago was almost single-handedly directing the most successful (and brutal) campaigns of Russia’s “special military operation” against the sovereign nation of Ukraine — is suddenly everywhere . . . and nowhere. “He’s in Rostov.” “Now he’s in Belarus.” “No, he’s in St. Petersburg getting his money back.” “Or is he in Moscow meeting with Putin?” “Maybe he’s been arrested.” “His plane is in Belarus, but is he on it?” About the only place he hasn’t been spotted is in Tupelo, Mississippi, with Elvis. Maybe he’s using body doubles, or disguising himself with some of the hairpieces he allegedly kept in his St. Petersburg mansion.

As time passes, the real question becomes, not where is he, but whether he is still alive. No one is talking. But one thing is becoming clear: he no longer appears to be in charge of his “private military company,” the Wagner Group — a collection of some of the most brutal, murderous, inhumane barbarians imaginable. So, if not Prigozhin, then who is in charge?

According to Vladimir Putin himself (as reported by The Telegraph in this week’s news), that would be a stocky, middle-aged, grey-haired, former Russian army artillery colonel by the name of Andrei Troshev. Oh, goody — another brute for the world to get to know, hopefully before he too gets carried away with his presumed position and tries to acquire more power than Putin is willing to allow. It’s business as usual in Moscow.

Meanwhile, we’re still left asking, “Where’s Yevgeny?” Perhaps he’s alive and well, being “recycled” for some as-yet-unrevealed, nefarious purpose; or perhaps, as the ultimate irony, he’s locked away with his two polar opposites, Kremlin nemeses Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza. Is it possible that the Fates really have such a diabolical sense of humor? Time will tell . . . perhaps.

Just sayin’ . . .

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Postscript: This “Extra” was scheduled to be published on Friday. But since completing it (I thought) yesterday, a news alert has appeared on CNN concerning the alleged appearance of Yevgeny Prigozhin speaking to his Wagner troops in Belarus at dusk yesterday (7/18) or dawn today (7/19). The video of the event is “grainy and filmed in low light so CNN cannot definitively say the speaker is Prigozhin or when it was filmed. CNN has so far been unable to geolocate the footage.” But the speaker — and let’s assume for the moment that it is Prigozhin — first explains why they are in Belarus, and that their stay there may only be temporary. Then he adds, “We should prepare, get better and set off on a new journey to Africa.”

Sounds like “recycling” to me. Or could it be a means of making him “disappear” into deepest, darkest Africa? Again, only time will tell. And in the meantime, we keep our eyes open for any sign of this latter-day “Waldo.”

Brendochka
7/19/23