Yesterday — just four days after the devastating plane disaster, and less than twelve hours after posting my thoughts on the presumed death of Yevgeny Prigozhin — came the announcement from Russia that his remains, along with those of the other nine people aboard that doomed aircraft, have been positively identified.

Wow! That was fast!

Yes, I have read that rapid DNA testing can be completed in just days, or even hours, in some cases. But it boggles the mind to imagine that, in such a short period of time, the decimated and widely-scattered remains of ten people can have been gathered, sorted, contained, transported, DNA-tested, and the test results compared against family members of all ten — whose DNA samples would also have been gathered and tested during the same brief period.

Now, that’s what I call superhuman efficiency!

Okay, then. Let’s choose not to be naysayers, and instead take the word of the Kremlin that Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin, five other members of the Wagner Group, and three unfortunate crew members (a.k.a. “collateral damage”) have all been proven to have died in that crash and are now ready to be laid to rest. Closure is a good thing . . . right?

But will they all have closure? Or will the visage of the best-known and most controversial of those ten souls now be dredged up — either from memory or imagination — over and over again?

Not likely, you say. Oh, really? Have you forgotten Elvis, who died 46 years ago this month and is still being seen in the most unlikely places?

Or poor, beleaguered Bigfoot, who — if he ever existed at all — must surely have died several times over by now?

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But Yevgeny is different. He was no teenage idol; and he was certainly no hairy, oversized Yeti. He was, in the simplest of terms, a bad, bad person. He was a criminal, a blood-thirsty warmonger, a barbaric, amoral killer-for-hire: the worst kind of human being imaginable. But can we be sure that is how he will ultimately be remembered? People’s memories, you know, are often fickle.

Even before there was “proof” of his death, at least one memorial to him had been created, in front of the Wagner Center headquarters in St. Petersburg. And because of the manner of his death, my sense is that — correctly or not — he may well be remembered by some as the victim in this melodrama: the man who dared to revolt against a dysfunctional Russian military establishment and its leaders; was then banished for his efforts; and was ultimately blown to bits.

If that’s not the perfect launchpad for a martyrdom, then I don’t know what is.

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And in the meantime, the man in the Kremlin — despite all of the recent history, the available facts surrounding the plane’s destruction, and worldwide belief to the contrary — continues to vehemently deny having had any part in the murders of those ten people. And in doing so, he may actually be helping to perpetuate the widespread suspicions against himself. Because the longer and more forcefully he continues to deny, deny, deny . . . the more it becomes a case of “Methinks [Putin] doth protest too much.” Perhaps, then, in his solution of one problem, Vladimir Putin will have laid the groundwork for his own destruction.

And maybe Yevgeny — or his restless, evil spirit — will have had the last laugh after all.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/28/23