Plane crash which may have killed Wagner chief is seen as Russia’s revenge for Prigozhin’s mutiny

MOSCOW: Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and top officers of his private Wagner military company were presumed dead in a plane crash that was widely seen as an assassination, two months after they staged a mutiny that dented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority.

Russia’s civil aviation agency said that Prigozhin and six top lieutenants were on a business jet that crashed Wednesday, soon after taking off from Moscow, with a crew of three. Rescuers quickly found all 10 bodies, and Russian media cited sources in Prigozhin’s Wagner company who confirmed his death.

US and other Western officials long expected Putin to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny. “I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised,” US President Joe Biden said.

“There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”

Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately downed, including suggesting it could have been hit by an air defence missile or targeted by a bomb on board. These claims could not be independently verified. Numerous opponents and critics of Putin have been killed or gravely sickened in apparent assassination attempts.

Speaking to Lavian television, NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Director Janis Sarts said that “the downing of the plane was certainly no mere coincidence.”

The crash came the same day that Russian media reported that Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former top commander in Ukraine who was reportedly linked to Prigozhin, was dismissed from his post as commander of Russia’s air force. Surovikin hasn’t been seen in public since the mutiny, when he recorded a video address urging Prigozhin’s forces to pull back.

Police cordoned off the field where the plane crashed as investigators studied the site. Vehicles were seen driving in to take the bodies, reportedly badly charred, for a forensic exam.

At Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, lights were turned on in the shape of a large cross. Prigozhin’s supporters brought flowers to the building in an improvised memorial. While countless theories about the events swirled, most observers saw Prigozhin’s death as Putin’s punishment for the most serious challenge to the authority of his 23-year rule.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said on Telegram that “no matter what caused the plane crash, everyone will see it as an act of vengeance and retribution” by the Kremlin, and “the Kremlin wouldn’t really stand in the way of that.”

“From Putin’s point of view, as well as the security forces and the military — Prigozhin’s death must be a lesson to any potential followers,” Stanovaya said in a Telegram post.

In the revolt that started on June 23 and lasted less than 24 hours, Prigozhin’s mercenaries swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there without firing a shot, before driving to within about 200 kilometres (125 miles) of Moscow.