Musk bought twitter, Lee Sukbae and Kim Ji-Hoon didn't know half as much about superconductivity as they thought, Stockton Rush made a submersible out of composite, Putin declared war on Ukraine, Prigozhin tried a coup.
Wagner mutinied because Putin barely has control over anything anymore, and Prigozhin was getting a little fame, and had a legitimate army at a time where Russia couldn't even defend it's own territory from a raving band of humvees, real mad max shit.
The Wagner mutiny was not some plan. At least not for Putin.
Getting up in the morning and following dictatorship 101 rules like the day before is not being a "master planner".
Authoritarian rulers fear coups. They use paramilitary entities to keep the regular military under control. When they fear an imminent coup, they continue to use such entities, because it is the real military which could have enough popular support to succeed.
The simplest possible explanation for the publicized events is that Prigozhin never stopped doing his job, never changed his role, nor failed to follow orders. A not-so-public, but not completely hidden purge occurred. And when Prigozhin was done, he exited stage left.
That seems to me the correct application of Occam's razor in this case. Everything else, in my opinion, is the wild speculation without evidence.
b) While some Wagner troops relocated to Belarus, Russia has been visibly neutering them and discrediting them. Coupled with apparent conflicts of Lukashenko not wanting to fund them
c) Ukraine is at war
d) they did not purge or reorganize their high command. They doubled down on the same dumbasses
So… no
But it is not so unbelievable that he never betrayed Putin and his expectations were irrelevant, because he was following a path with no forks or alternatives.
He was also stupid enough to get in a private plane and fly over territory that has Russian SAMs. With the crap going on in Moscow from those drones, and the absolute inability for Russian air defense to de-conflict an airspace, pretty much nobody should feel safe in a plane in the air in Russia.
Considering how many planes, helicopters and other various bits of equipment were destroyed I doubt it.
Those couple days represent some of the worst days in the Russian air forces history for loses.
This complete speculation and mostly goes against the traditional narrative (i.e. Putin's legacy is now staked on the Ukraine invasion) but it would have accomplished the following, basically giving them more options and room to maneuver (both on the battlefield and in the political sphere):
a) Allow Russia to disengage/extricate itself from Ukraine with a plausible/save face reason ("internal security reasons") b) Let them re-position Wagner forces to Belarus or along other boarders c) Lull Ukraine/the world into a false sense of security d) Purge/re-organize their military high command
I wonder if this plane crash is part of it?