Russian President Vladimir Putin broke his silence Thursday on the presumed death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group militia.
Putin expressed condolences for those aboard the private jet that crashed Wednesday, praising Prigozhin as a talented businessman. He made the remarks in a televised interview while speaking with Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed leader of Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk region.
The plane crash came exactly two months after Prigozhin led a mutiny against Putin, marching a band of his mercenaries toward Moscow with the demand that Russia’s defence minister resign.
Putin promised retribution toward Prigozhin, who had once been a close ally.
Ten people were aboard the downed aircraft, which was on its way from Moscow to St. Petersburg when it crashed in the small town of Kuzhenkino, about 300 kilometres northwest of Moscow.
Among the passengers were six of Prigozhin’s Wagner lieutenants, according to the Associated Press. They included Dmitry Utkin, the right-hand man of Prigozhin, who was said to be the brains of the Wagner Group.
Three flight crew were also on board, including a pilot, co-pilot and flight attendant.
So far, anonymous sources in Wagner say that Prigozhin is dead, according to the Associated Press, but there has been no official confirmation.
What happened?
A Russian investigation has opened into how the plane crashed, with investigators combing through the wreckage on Thursday.
The remains of those on board are said to be burned or disfigured beyond recognition, according to several Russian social media channels, and may need to be identified by DNA. The reports were picked up by independent Russian media, but the Associated Press noted it was not able to independently confirm them, nor has Global News.
Video of the crash shows the plane swirling toward the earth, with smoke trailing from its fuselage.
Kuzhenkino resident Anastasia Bukharova, 27, told the Associated Press she was walking with her children Wednesday when she saw the jet, “and then — boom! — it exploded in the sky and began to fall down.”
Bukharova said she feared the plane would hit houses in the village and ran with her children, but it crashed in a field.
“Something sort of was torn from it in the air, and it began to go down and down,” she said.
A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment found that the plane crash was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to officials who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. One of the officials said the initial assessment determined it was “very likely” Prigozhin was targeted and the explosion falls in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.”
Two U.S. officials previously told Reuters they believed a surface-to-air missile within Russia shot down the plane, but later reports from the Associated Press relayed that U.S. officials had no information to suggest such a missile was used, according to one official.
Flight-tracking data reviewed by the Associated Press shows a private jet previously used by Prigozhin took off from Moscow Wednesday evening and that its transponder signal disappeared minutes later.
Putin said Thursday that it is necessary to await the outcomes of the investigation, which he said would take some time.
Who was onboard?
Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on the jet, according to Russia’s aviation agency.
He shares a long history with Putin going back to the early 1990s, which Putin recalled on Thursday.
“He was a man with a difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life,” he said.
The two share a similar rough background and both come from St. Petersburg. Prigozhin grew to be an oligarch in Russia, making a fortune fulfilling catering contracts with the Russian government.
He became known as “Putin’s chef.”
However, he also built a shadowy reputation, University of Toronto history professor Aurel Braun previously told Global News.
“He became an oligarch thanks to his close relationship with Putin,” Braun said. “You are looking at a very sordid, unscrupulous, extremely nasty, corrupt, vicious individual.”
Prigozhin had become an increasingly vocal critic of Putin in recent months, chastising the Russian army and its generals for the strategy taken in the Ukraine war. Putin appeared to tolerate the criticism, which Braun said was in line with his leadership style of pitting one group against another.
The Wagner lieutenants on board the plane reportedly also include Valery Chekalov, described by Wagner Group expert Lou Osborn to The Associated Press as Wagner’s logistics mastermind.
According to the Dossier Center, an investigative group in London funded by Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky, other Wagner leaders on the flight included Yevgeny Makaryan, linked to activities in Syria, and three others about whom little is known: Alexander Totmin, Sergei Propustin and Nikolai Matuseiev.
At least one of the men fought in a unit that became Prigozhin’s source for securing bodyguards, according to the Dossier Center.
Utkin had previously fought in Russian special forces and in both Chechen wars, as well as Syria. The European Union listed him as the leader of Wagner in previous sanctions, while Prigozhin was described as a financier.
The mutiny
Prigozhin orchestrated an attempted military mutiny against the Russian state on June 23-24, saying in an audio message after the attempt that it was in response to an attack on a Wagner camp that killed about 30 soldiers.
“We started our march because of an injustice,” Prigozhin said in an 11-minute recording.
Wagner mercenaries had left Ukraine and seized a Russian military base in a southern Russian city. The procession to Moscow turned around after less than 24 hours as a deal was struck to provide Prigozhin and his soldiers with amnesty under the condition that he move to Belarus
While it appeared the matter had been settled, Putin reportedly said he wanted to “wipe out” Prigozhin for the action, according to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. The Russian leader has previously said the one matter he can’t forgive is “betrayal.”
He called the rebellion “treason” and a “stab in the back.” It was the most serious challenge to his authority in 23 years of rule, and he vowed to punish those behind it.
Although the details of Wednesday’s plane crash are still murky, Western leaders have their suspicions.
U.S. President Joe Biden said he’s “not surprised” upon learning of the possibility Prigozhin was dead.
“There’s not much going on in Russia that doesn’t have Putin behind it,” he said.
“It is no coincidence that the whole world immediately looks at the Kremlin when a disgraced ex-confidant of Putin suddenly falls from the sky, two months after he attempted an uprising,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
“We know this pattern in Putin’s Russia — deaths and dubious suicides, falls from windows that all ultimately remain unexplained.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also made suggestions. “We have nothing to do with this. Everyone understands who does,” he said.
It is unclear what will happen to the Wagner Group, whose influence extended beyond Ukraine and into other hot conflict zones in the world, including in Africa and Syria.
Although the group has had a big influence on the war in Ukraine, with an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 troops there at one point, Prigozhin’s death is unlikely to have an effect on the war given his forces pulled back from the frontline after capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut in late May.
After the rebellion, Russian officials said his fighters would only be able to return to Ukraine as part of the regular army.
— with files from the Associated Press, Reuters and Stewart Bell.
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