by Politico.eu
The mercenary leader’s name was on the manifest of a plane that went down between Moscow and St. Petersburg
Exactly two months after his failed coup, Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin died on Wednesday after his private jet crashed in flames on an internal flight within Russia, the country’s aviation authority said.
Speculation is rife that Russian President Vladimir Putin — who is notoriously unforgiving of traitors and accused Prigozhin of “treason” in June — ordered the downing of the aircraft. It comes only a day after Russian media announced the firing of Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, who has not been seen in public since the aborted Wagner coup.
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A former loyalist who was dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his role as a catering executive supplying the Kremlin, Prigozhin became embittered toward the Russian government’s handling of the war. In late June, his uprising commanded 24-hour global coverage after he seized the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and ordered a column of troops toward Moscow.
Since the coup, Putin and Prigozhin appeared to have reached an uneasy truce until the crash. On Wednesday evening, Russia’s aviation regulator named the warlord as one of 10 people killed on a business jet en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg that came down in the Tver region. Dmitry Utkin, a central Wagner figure and its alleged founder, was also among the passengers.
Putin himself appeared cheery on Wednesday evening after Russian media suggested Prigozhin was dead, opening remarks at an event commemorating the Battle of Kursk in World War II with a broad smile. “Devotion to the homeland and loyalty to the military oath is what unites all participants of the special military operation,” he said in his speech, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Wagner Orchestra, a Telegram channel, posted a photo of what appeared to be the burning wreckage of a plane, saying the Embraer jet had been shot down by Russian air defenses. Russia’s investigative committee says a probe into the crash in under way.
The well-connected Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU commented: “Wagner has been decapitated.”
Former tycoon turned political dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky wrote he had no sympathy for Prigozhin, but denounced what he described as “yet another extrajudicial killing.”