Photo of dead Wagner chief Prigozhin on a train sparks controversy in Russia

Gulf Today Report

On the 23^rd of last August, most Russians were sitting in front of the television, waiting for the results of investigations into the truth about the people who were killed on a plane that exploded over Moscow.

The plane was known to be the private plane of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Special Military Group, which led a military mutiny against the Russian military leadership two months before the accident.

Five months after the confirmation of the death of the leader of the famous Russian military band, pictures circulated by social media users who said they were of the leader of the Wagner Group sparked widespread controversy on social media pages, to the point that some believed that the Russian leader who rebelled against Russian President Vladimir Putin was still alive.

The pictures show a person who very much resembles the leader of the Russian group sitting on a seat on a train, and even on his arm was the logo of the Wagner organization itself, Wagner PMC, which led to confusion on Russian social pages.

While some considered that the person in the picture is definitely Yevgeny Prigozhin due to the great similarity between him and the person shown in the picture of the train, others confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin has died and there is no room for doubt about this matter and that if he were alive, he would not move around freely in public and in the Public transport.

Others believed that the photo might actually be of Yevgeny Prigozhin, but it was old and someone reposted it to create confusion, while some also confirmed that he was just an ordinary person who resembled the rebel leader and nothing more.

Yevgeny Prigozhin was close to Putin, and publicly criticized the Russian Ministry of Defense for corruption and mismanagement of the war against Ukraine, as he described it. In the end, he stated that the reasons for launching the war against Ukraine were lies.

On June 23, 2023, he launched a rebellion against the Russian military leadership. Wagner's forces captured Rostov-on-Don and advanced towards Moscow. After mediation with authorities, the mutiny was called off the next day, and criminal charges against Prigogine were dropped after he agreed to transfer his forces to Belarus.

On August 23, 2023, exactly two months after the rebellion, Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in Tver Province, north of Moscow, along with 9 other people, and his death was officially confirmed on August 27, 2023, after genetic analysis was conducted on the remains recovered from the wreckage.

Putin, in his first public statement about 24 hours after the accident, described Yevgeny Prigozhin as “a talented person” and that he “made serious mistakes in life but achieved results.”