On Thursday evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin only indirectly confirmed the death of his former favorite, who had mutinied against him two months earlier as head of Wagner’s private army. However, the US government also apparently assumes that Prigozhin died on Wednesday evening.
As of Friday, the Russian authorities had not officially identified Prigozhin’s body. Putin, however, already spoke in the past tense of the “talented businessman” and mercenary leader. “He was a person with a difficult fate and he made serious mistakes,” he said. During the Wagner fighters’ mutiny against the Russian leadership in June, Putin accused his longtime military henchman Prigozhin of treason, but then allowed him and his followers to travel to Belarus.
Ten people died in the plane crash. Mourners laid flowers at Prigozhin’s headquarters in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities. Prigozhin and his Wagner troupe did not have a good reputation at home because of their covert operations abroad and because of their brutality. But his criticism of mistakes made by the Russian military leadership also made him a hero to many Russians. The allegation was raised on social media that the alleged plane crash was actually an assassination attempt on Prigozhin – an assessment shared by many Western politicians and military experts.
Video: OÖN TV spoke to Russia expert Gerhard Mangott
The “New York Times” and other US media reported, citing US intelligence circles, that an explosion on board the plane probably caused the crash. A final conclusion has not yet been drawn, but an explosion is currently the most likely explanation, wrote the New York Times. A US Department of Defense spokesman said there was no evidence the jet was hit by a surface-to-air missile. Websites and social media channels close to Prigozhin had suspected this.
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The commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), Denis Kapustin, urged the fighters of the Wagner mercenary group to avenge the deaths of Prigozhin and their commander, Dmitry Utkin. “You now face a difficult decision. You can stand in a Russian Defense Ministry guardhouse and serve as watchdogs for your commanders’ enforcers, or take revenge,” Kapustin said in a video address released late Thursday. In order to take revenge, however, they would have to switch to the side of Ukraine. The RVC is a group of Russian fighters fighting on the Ukrainian side.
Video: Further speculation about plane crash
