If true, the only surprise is why it would have been a surprise to him. I couldn't figure out why he felt so free to travel in Russia.
My guess is that he knew he was a dead man walking, wherever he was; he was just living out his last days/weeks recognizing that he was beyond saving.
He was going to military conventions trying to re establish Wagner as a local power in Africa…
It's like a really unsympathetic retelling of the myth of Icarus.
Hypothesis: he just faked his own death, to allow him to operate in Africa for a few years unnoticed. Of course, if his dental records are matched to a corpse later today, this will be a short-lived hypothesis.
That depends who is doing/reporting the matching. This could very well be an Epstein-like situation where we'll simply never know the verifiable truth.
The only surprise for me is that it took two months since the attempted coup.