Prigozhin’s death in air crash triggers speculation

An Embraer private jet in which private army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was travelling with some of his aides had crashed near Moscow on Wednesday and there were no survivors. According to officials investigations are on and the dead were not identified as yet. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those who died, including Prigozhin.

Pravda Report quoted Putin as saying, “I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man of difficult fate. He would make serious mistakes and achieve the results that he needed – both for himself and, when I ask him about it, for a common cause, as in these last months.”

The US and British intelligence services believe that the air crash was planned to assassinate Prigozhin after he led a short-lived rebellion in June third week. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov refuted the speculation. He said, “All of this is an absolute lie, and here, when covering the issue, it is necessary to base yourself on facts. There are not many facts yet. They need to be established in the course of investigative actions.” According to Peskov, the identities of those who died in the air crash have not yet been established. As to the future of Wagner, the private army that Prigozhin led, and whether they would pick up contracts in Africa, Peskov said, “I can’t tell you anything now, I don’t know.”

Prigozhin has been a controversial figure, especially in the war in Ukraine, where he criticised the Russian military top brass for not conducting the war effectively. The June rebellion came on the issue of salaries. At the time, President Putin called him a ‘traitor’ and he said Prigozhin would be punished for the serious crime. But the rebellion fizzled out when Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko had a telephonic conversation with Prigozhin. And it was reported that Prigozhin went to Belarus. When the coup took place in Niger, Prigozhin offered the services of Wagner to the coup pleaders.

There was intense speculation in the days that followed the rebellion that it was a serious challenge to the unquestioned authority of Putin. But there was no trouble on the Wagner front though it seems to be the case that they withdrew from the fighting in Bakhmut in Ukraine.

There have been stories in the Western media as to how Prigozhin created a force for the Ukraine war from the criminals serving sentence in Russian prisons, and promised them that they would be free of their criminal charges if they serve in the war and survive. Earlier, Wagner was a presence in Africa. It seems to be the case that Wagner served in Africa on a commercial basis, and it would have had an informal consent of the Russian government.

Prigozhin came into the news because of the war in Ukraine and his strong criticism of the Russian military leaders. It was said that Prigozhin had nothing against Putin himself. He was considered close to Putin. But when the rebellion broke out, Putin took a clear stand against Prigozhin. But the Russian president’s statement after Prigozhin’s death in the air crash is sympathetic and it does not mention the rebellion.

It is possible that the Wagner soldiers would be integrated into the Russian military as was planned before the rebellion because it was felt that Prigozhin commanding the Wagner men was creating ambiguity. But Wagner troops did not become part of the Russian army. They remain an independent private militia. Their presence would always a pose a problem to the Russian authorities. With the death of Prigozhin, and possibly some of the top commanders of Wagner in the crash, the militia remains headless.