It is not so much whether Vladimir Putin ordered the elimination of the owner of the private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose plane fell from the sky a week ago – exactly two months after his short-lived rebellion and march on Moscow, some analysts believe, but rather the demonstration of the additional power that the Russian president received with this exit from the stage of his rival.
Prigozhin’s private plane, in which he was traveling with cronies and bodyguards, crashed on August 23 near the village of Kuzhenkino in Russia’s Tver region. As soon as the identity of the deceased was confirmed, the independent Russian news site Meduza spoke of a “special funeral operation” prepared for Prigozhin, referring to the secrecy surrounding the organization of the funeral rite and the uncertainty about the time and place of his burial. Local media described how journalists and those wishing to say goodbye to Prigozhin had been pranked and left wondering where the farewell to the popular mercenary leader would actually be. In addition, the funeral was almost not covered by Russian state television, and only one channel, Rossiya 1, devoted almost a minute to it, indicating that Prigozhin was buried in a close circle at the request of the family.
According to the Russian researcher Tatiana Stanovaya – an analyst at the Carnegie Russia-Eurasia Center, quoted by the magazine “Newsweek”, the secret burial of Prigozhin “became the last phase of the special operation to eliminate him”. Stanovaya’s prediction is that there will be no new man at the helm of Wagner, nor a unified command of the private army. The PMC will be absorbed by various structures, not necessarily the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Prigogine was buried for no more than 40 minutes in a private ceremony with no more than 30 people present, his press office announced the same day.
The British weekly Spectator commented that the strange behavior around the funeral and the maneuvers to divert mourners suggested that the Russian authorities, and therefore the Kremlin, did not want to allow a popular complaint against Prigozhin. Perhaps a reason for this nervousness after the failed June riot is that any display of grief and outpouring of support can be seen as a challenge to presidential authority. The Kremlin clearly did not want to give Prigozhin’s supporters and admirers the opportunity to gather at his grave.
Just days before the crash, “hawks” in the Russian security forces were pushing for the same changes that Prigozhin demanded, calling for new military leadership and intensifying fighting in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported, as quoted by Radio Free Europe. The media noted that in the past few months, Prigozhin has won over the minds of many Russian pro-war propagandists, bloggers and nationalists – all supporters of the invasion who believe that Moscow is conducting it unprofessionally.
Now the Kremlin is busy with the delicate task of managing the potential anger of supporters of the deceased, according to the Washington Post.
The lack of any formality at the funeral that Putin allowed for Prigozhin, Spectator writes, is a strong indicator of how the president will try to stage the legacy of this “talented businessman.”
Photographs taken in July during a police search of Prizhozhin’s home after the riot revealed that he had a Hero of Russia medal. This means that Prigozhin was theoretically given a funeral with military honors, an honor company and a military band. Protocol for Heroes of Russia burials also requires them to be held at the Mytishchi federal military cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow – something Prigozhin was denied, the publication noted.
Curiously, according to an unnamed source quoted by Russian media, the burial was private, in accordance with the wishes of the relatives. The fact that the Russian state media is highlighting this is telling. And Prigozhin was buried at the Porohovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg, to be laid next to his father, whom he hardly knew. From here it is conveniently concluded that nothing about the funeral has anything to do with the circumstances surrounding the death of the owner of “Wagner”.
“Spectator” concludes that the secret burial suggests that the Russian authorities and the Kremlin wanted to quickly “expel” him, and with it the memory of the June events, from Russia’s memory. But the legacy of the man who became Putin’s biggest challenge during his decades in power may not be forgotten so quickly, the publication predicted.
In an analysis for Deutsche Welle, Andrei Brenner predicted that whatever happens from now on, one thing is clear: Prigozhinism will certainly outlive Putin. Brenner writes that the era of the late Putin is now inextricably linked with the founder of the mercenary army. And Prigogine’s death further cemented this connection. And the president will not be able to shake off the shadow of Prigozhin, nor the suspicions of involvement in the death of the leader of the mercenaries, nor the guilt of their crimes.
Brenner summarizes that Prigozhin carried out in a geometric progression what the current head of state of Russia was purposefully going for years: the depreciation of all laws, the brutal removal of opponents and the establishment of purely criminal relationships.
Prigogine even managed to surpass the president in one thing: the brutal removal of his opponents. This is exactly why his attempt at a commotion made Putin cringe, the DV commentator believes, although in the end he does everything in one day. Prigogine’s death could do Putin a disservice if a cult begins to build around the founder of “Wagner” as around some kind of martyr. But it is more likely that the Kremlin will not allow it, predicts A. Brenner.
According to the British Ministry of Defense, quoted by the Associated Press, it is almost certain that the removal of Prigogine will have a profoundly destabilizing effect on PMC Wagner. His personal qualities of hyperactivity, extreme courage, drive for results and extreme brutality permeated “Wagner” and are unlikely to be possessed by his successor.
However, former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov believes, quoted by the Christian Science Monitor, that external enemies were more than motivated to kill Prigogine and no one in Russia wanted to do it. I really don’t see what Putin would gain from killing Prigogine other than a lot of bad publicity. No one in Russia needs this, Markov emphasizes.
American and European observers quoted by Politico are of the opinion that in the short term Putin will probably become stronger, but in the long term his grip will weaken. Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur wrote that the society of fear is growing rapidly in Russia and people are more and more afraid to go out to demonstrations or anything like that. So the dictatorship in the mafia state is growing, Havkur points out.
Politico also notes the emergence of online speculation that Prigogine is not dead and the crash was staged to help him disappear. However, the Russian media apparatus hastened to put an end to these rumours. And the administration of US President Joe Biden pointed out that after all, Prigogine was a “traveler” and lived a life on loan.
Russian journalist Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who continues to monitor developments in Russia, wrote in notes for an article submitted to the Christian Science Monitor that the traditions of the Russian and Soviet secret police were long and deep, and Prigogine’s removal after His “betrayal” against Putin was inevitable.
Extrajudicial killings in Russia have become the new normal, writes Kolesnikov. The system built by Putin is designed in such a way that it does not need public executions (as in other autocracies) or real trials (as in democracies). It is pointless to speculate whether Putin has strengthened his power as a result of the plane crash. The autocrat remained the supreme leader, and the winner takes all.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote in the Daily Mail that “watching the chilling footage of the plane spiraling towards the ground, we are witnessing something historic. This is the forceful liquidation – on television – of the enemies of the head of state. I can think of no other example of such ostentatious and unceremonious savagery by a world leader – not in our time.”
In this regard, Politico draws a parallel with 1934, when the prominent Bolshevik Sergei Kirov was killed in Leningrad – a Soviet statesman and political figure, secretary of the city committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and a close friend of Joseph Stalin. For unclear reasons, Kirov was shot at the heavily guarded party headquarters in Smolny by an unbalanced young communist. Despite the efforts of Soviet and Russian historians to look for the guarantor away from Stalin, according to the American historian Amy Knight, considered the best Western specialist on the USSR and Russia, there are quite convincing circumstances linking Stalin to the assassination of his popular and likely rival.
The circumstances surrounding the crime lead to the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs NKVD (the central law enforcement agency of the USSR for fighting crime and maintaining public order, directly implementing the supremacy of power of the All-Union Communist Party and closely related to the Soviet secret police) – the predecessor of the FSS, and Knight is convinced that the NKVD could not have acted without an express order from Stalin.
Like Putin, 90 years ago, Stalin also showed some nervousness. But in the end, he used Kirov’s assassination as a pretext to intensify political repression and begin the Great Purge, Politico summarizes.
Back in July of this year, in the late Prigogine era, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told a security forum in Aspen that Russia was pursuing an “open windows” policy, referring to how many prominent Russians appear to have died falling from high-rise windows . Two Russian oligarchs, Pavel Antov and Ravil Maganov, fell from windows last year, Politico recalls. Both criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Petya Gergova, BTA)
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2023-09-01 18:00:00
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