The only surprising thing about the news that Yevgeny Prigozhin has been killed is how long it has taken, and, I suppose, that no windows appear to have been involved. Prigozhin, the Wagner chief who led a mutiny against Putin in June, perished when the plane in which he was flying was (it seems) shot down over Russia.
“Putin’s chef” appears to have been cooked.
Prigozhin was renowned for his cruelty. He deserves no mourning.
The Daily Telegraph:
Eight bodies have been recovered after a private jet reportedly containing Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed in the Tver region north of Moscow, Russian agencies have reported.
The Wagner mercenary boss was on board the aircraft when it came down, authorities have said.
Russian media outlet Baza said eight dead bodies were found at the scene, all of them so badly burnt it would take a DNA test to confirm their identities. One of the bodies has a missing head.
According to Russia’s federal air transport agency: “An investigation of the Embraer plane crash that happened in the Tver Region this evening was initiated.
“According to the passenger list, first and last name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was included in this list.”
The flight appears to have been travelling between Moscow and St Petersburg. Wagner-linked Telegram channels have reported that the plane was shot down by Russian air defences.
The curious gentleness with which Prigozhin was treated after the mutiny was a sign of weakness on Putin’s part, and the fact that he has now been disposed of in such a demonstrative fashion (assuming Prigozhin was indeed aboard and that the military downed the plane) is a statement that Putin is now (whatever may have happened behind the scenes in recent weeks) unequivocally in charge. Many of the political killings associated with Putin have been shrouded, however implausibly, in a certain mystery. Here, there can be no reasonable doubt that Putin gave the order. And, by using the military to carry it out, he also signaled that he has the armed forces (where Prigozhin had some support) firmly under control.
Perhaps significantly, Reuters has reported this today:
Russia has removed Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon“, as head of the air force after he vanished from public view during a Wagner mercenary mutiny against the top army brass, two Russian news outlets reported on Wednesday.
A recipient of Russia’s top military award, Surovikin is the most senior Russian military figure to lose his job over the June 23-34 [sic] mutiny, which President Vladimir Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war.
Surovikin was said to be relatively close to Prigozhin and, according to some accounts, knew about the mutiny ahead of time, even if he was not involved in its planning — something that Putin would probably have regarded as a distinction without a difference.
According to some reports, Dmitry Utkin was also on the plane. As I noted the other day:
Utkin, a former colonel in the GRU (Russian military intelligence, which has its own troops) is usually described as the co-founder of Wagner, which may or may not be true. Indeed “Wagner” may well have originally been his call sign, a nod to his alleged neo-Nazi sympathies. The irony of a supposed neo-Nazi having taken a prominent role in the so-called denazification of Ukraine has been lost on no one. The GRU has historically been close to Wagner.
For obvious reasons, there had been reports that he too had fallen out of favor after the mutiny.
Putin is not only cleaning house but, no less important, he is also being seen to clean house. Under the circumstances, he would be expected to get rid of Utkin. It will be interesting to know who else was on that plane. It will also be interesting to see what happens to Utkin if he was not on that plane.
It’s also worth noting that Prigozhin had only just returned from Africa. That he felt sufficiently forgiven by Putin to risk coming back to Russia was . . . unwise.