FROM CORLEONE, SICILY

“YOU HAVE TO ANSWER FOR SANTINO, CARLO!”

The cold words of Michael Corleone to his traitorous brother-in-law at the end of The Godfather are perhaps the most chilling in the whole movie.

He kept Carlo Rizzi so close to him, buttering his ego, all the time knowing what he was going to do with him.

And the word is Vladimir Putin watched that over and over again after the Wagner coup a few weeks ago. And continues to do so.

“Perhaps Yevgeny Prigozhin should have watched that movie more often when he accepted Putin’s hand of forgiveness,” says Moscow Film Critic Pavlov Eisenstein. “Personally, I could hear the theme from Coppola’s masterpiece in my head the whole time. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

“It’s always the hope that kills you,” according to psychologist Marmaduke Massingbird-Topheavy. “In the movie, Michael kept Carlo’s hope alive right until the moment he was garotted. Putin, it seems, did the same with Prigozhin. Allowed him come and go inside Russia, fly around, feel comfortable. You’re my right-hand man again. No hard feelings. Then, ‘Hello Carlo!’ It’s going to cause a lot of people a lot of sleepless nights. Or maybe it was just an accident. What do you think?”