I love how every Ukrainian soldier is somehow Azov, even though they're only a small percentage of Ukraine's forces, and most of Azov is currently getting ground into hamburger in Mariupol right now.
If Ukrainian security went after him for his bullshit being a propaganda or security liability, then he's not dead, just in a hole somewhere.
If some pissed off local offed him, well, he's dead. Imagine being in lower Manhattan on Sept 12th, 2001, dancing around happily shouting aloha snackbar, you might find some discarded rebar lodged in your skull.
I still put a good chance that he went and picked up a time-fused cluster bomblet so he could make a video about how superior Russian engineering is, and the timer ran out.
I'm pretty sure they don't generally care about the hostages themselves. They're sending a message. Fuck you and your threats to kill the hostages, you little bitches. We'll kill them ourselves just to show you how it's done, along with you. There's really no motivation to take hostages when the government does not give a single fuck about the lives of its citizens.
Yeah, after seeing what happened at Beslan and Dubrovka Theater, I don't know if I'd want to be "rescued" by the Russians.
The really retarded thing about the theater incident is that it could've actually turned out fairly well if they'd just fucking told the paramedics what they'd used so they could give everyone naloxone.