Very few were taken aback by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s presumed death, even if the means — plunging from the sky in a plane crash — were undeniably dramatic. Such an eventuality had been widely discussed in both Russian and Western circles ever since the mercenary leader’s short-lived mutiny in June. No matter that Mr. Prigozhin subsequently met with the Kremlin and seemed to come and go where he pleased. To many, it was only a matter of time until he got his comeuppance.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ferocious shadow army changed the course of Russian history. Few narratives have been as enigmatic as the story of how a convicted criminal turned catering magnate built the Wagner group into a brand to be reckoned with across the globe. But the plane crash that killed Prigozhin and nine others this week is proof positive that the more undeniable the Wagner group’s unhinged brutality became, the more president Vladimir Putin viewed Prigozhin as a liability.

As Vladimir Putin sits thinking in his bomb-proof office, he may come to regret the fact that the entire world is sure that he ordered the death of the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Kremlin is a Camorra, a mafia style parliament, running a gangster operation to fill Putin’s pockets and those of his oligarchs and elites. But as the Japanese found in Burma in 1944, if you prosecute a war with terror you will likely come unstuck against a well led, motivated and moral organisation like General ‘Bill’ Slim’s ‘Forgotten Army’.