The reported death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash has sparked a firestorm of speculation as to whether the Wagner Group chief was killed intentionally.
The crash, the cause of which remains unknown, occurred almost two months after Mr. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny that had briefly appeared to threaten Moscow itself.
“The head of the investigative committee reported to me this morning; they have already initiated a preliminary investigation,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Aug. 24 in his first public remarks on the incident.
“We’ll see what investigators have to say in the days ahead.”
Criminal Probe Underway
On the evening of Aug. 23, Russian media reported that an Embraer-135 jet had crashed in Russia’s Tver region north of Moscow.According to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, Mr. Prigozhin’s name, and those of at least two other Wagner leaders, was listed among the passengers.
The agency confirmed that everyone aboard the ill-fated aircraft—seven passengers and a three-person crew—had been killed in the crash.
The jet had reportedly been flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg when it crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino at about 6:20 p.m. local time.
Eyewitnesses on the ground reportedly heard an explosion before the crash, which is being investigated by multiple federal agencies.
According to Russia’s TASS news agency, the jet was owned by the MNT-Aero company, which “specializes in providing private jet services.”
TASS further reported that federal investigators had opened a criminal probe into “potential violations of air-transport safety and operation rules.”
The crash site has since been cordoned off by authorities, while investigations are being overseen by Igor Rudenya, Tver’s regional governor.
‘Complex Fate’
For the first 24 hours after the crash, Moscow, which is currently focused on a landmark BRICS summit in South Africa, remained tight-lipped about Mr. Prigozhin’s fate.But on the evening of Aug. 24, Mr. Putin made his first public remarks on the issue, expressing condolences to the families of the victims.
“Forensic investigations are now underway, including both technical and DNA examinations,” he said at a meeting with leaders of the Moscow-recognized Donetsk People’s Republic. “These will take some time.”
In reference to Mr. Prigozhin, he said: “He was a man of a complex fate. He made some serious mistakes in his life. But he also achieved the needed results—both for himself and ... the common cause.”
Mr. Putin went on to note that the controversial Wagner chief had “returned from Africa only yesterday.”
Meanwhile, the incident has prompted a flurry of conjecture in both the Russian and international media.
Russian daily Kommersant cited aviation experts who speculated that the crash may have been caused by a missile or onboard explosion.
They noted that the tail of the plane had been torn from the rest of the aircraft, lending credence to the latter hypothesis.
They also pointed to holes reportedly found in the downed plane’s wings and fuselage, which, they theorized, could have been caused by a missile or rocket.
Nevertheless, investigators who examined the wreckage told the newspaper that there was no evidence—as yet—of any foul play.
Blaming Putin
Leaders from across Russia’s political spectrum have generally refrained from commenting on the incident, preferring to wait for investigation results.Western leaders and pundits, meanwhile, have been considerably less circumspect in their statements.
U.S. President Joe Biden was quick to suggest that his Russian counterpart may have been indirectly responsible for Mr. Prigozhin’s apparent death.
“There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind,” Mr. Biden said. “But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was even more outspoken.
“The demonstrative elimination of Prigozhin and the Wagner command two months after the coup attempt is a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections [in Russia]: Disloyalty equals death,” Mr. Podolyak said.
Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA operations officer and station chief in Moscow, voiced similar sentiments.
“I don’t have any doubt that [the plane crash] was on Putin’s orders,” he said. “You cannot allow a guy you called a ‘traitor’ in late June, when he launched a mutiny, to live.”
Fraught Relationship
It’s no secret that, in recent months, Mr. Prigozhin and Moscow had a fraught relationship.Under Mr. Prigozhin’s leadership, Wagner fighters spearheaded much of the fighting in Ukraine. In May, they captured the flashpoint city of Bakhmut (Artemovsk in Russian) after nine months of intense ground combat.
But Mr. Prigozhin’s battlefield successes were accompanied by strident—and public—criticisms of Russia’s military leadership. His criticisms were chiefly aimed at Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Military Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov.
On June 24, Mr. Prigozhin, along with hundreds of Wagner fighters, occupied Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don. From there, they began marching on Moscow to demand that Mr. Shoigu and Mr. Gerasimov relinquish their respective commands.
The crisis was quickly averted, however, after the president of Belarus, a Putin ally, brokered a de-escalation deal. The deal allowed Mr. Prigozhin to relocate to Belarus, where he would avoid prosecution for his transgression.
Lavrov: Just ‘the Facts’
The Minsk-brokered deal enraged many pro-Russian critics of Mr. Putin, who accused the latter of being overly lenient with the mutineers—especially Mr. Prigozhin.Now, numerous Western commentators are asserting—with scant evidence—that the plane crash must have been belated “payback” from Mr. Putin.
According to Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Prigozhin was allowed to go free after his aborted rebellion “to give him a kind of false sense of security ... so they could snipe him.”
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking from South Africa on Aug. 24, warned against jumping to hasty conclusions.
“We’ve launched an urgent investigation, a case was opened, investigators are working,” he said in televised comments.
“I recommend focusing on the facts—not what the Western media says.”
