An Embraer Legacy plane belonging to businessman and founder of Wagner PMCs Evgeny Prigozhin crashed in the Tver Region. Seven passengers and three crew members were killed. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, among the dead are Prigozhin himself, the commander of the PMCs Dmitry Utkin (“Wagner”), his deputy Valery Chekalov and several other mercenaries. The possible death of the leadership of the Wagner PMCs, although it seems to be expected after the mutiny in June, still raises many questions. Here are the main ones.
Why did the plane crash?
There is almost no talk about bad weather, pilot error or equipment malfunctions, although the UK has initiated a case on violation of the rules of safety of air transport operation (Article 263 of the Criminal Code). The representative of the Flightradar24 service, Jan Petchenik, notes that everything was fine with the plane until the last moment, but then it immediately dropped by 2.4 km in 30 seconds. “Whatever happened happened quickly,” he notes.
The main versions of experts, OSINT researchers and Prigozhin’s supporters are that someone shot down a plane or a bomb was planted there. Some pro—military channels wrote about the first one – for example, Grey Zone. For the air defense version — Ruslan Leviev from Conflict Intelligence Team. According to him, the contrail (apparently from a rocket), traces on the wreckage from something similar to anti-aircraft shells and the number of explosions speak in favor of this. He draws attention to the fact that if a bomb had been on board, there would have been one explosion, but eyewitnesses claimed that they heard two or even three explosions.
But there are those who do not believe in the rocket version. According to military expert Yuri Fedorov, if the plane had been shot down by an air defense missile, “then a smoke trail would have been visible on the video.” “If the eyewitnesses did not see the rocket taking off and the trace of it, then the air defense version is questionable,” he noted. “If it falls like that, there could have been an explosion on board or what can be called a terrorist attack.”
Who could be involved in the disaster?
“Traitors to Russia,” writes Grey Zone. True, all the “traitors” are different, and the channels close to Prigozhin do not name them directly, they only promise “catastrophic consequences” and believe that those who gave the order “do not understand the mood in the army.” Only the Alex Parker Returns channel (former AP Wagner) directly accused Vladimir Putin of killing Prigozhin and reminded everyone about the deaths of other mercenaries and field commanders in the Donbass.
In the West and in Ukraine, most politicians are sure that Putin is behind Prigozhin’s death. For example, US President Joe Biden and the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) are inclined to this version.
In Russia, some Z-channels think about the Ukrainian trail or at least about the benefits for Kiev and even the African special services — recently, Prigozhin’s structures helped the military junta in Niger, and the businessman himself was in Africa the day before. Vladimir Putin called Prigozhin “a man of difficult fate” and expressed condolences to the loved ones of the victims. A journalist of “Present Time” asked Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about Prigozhin, who swore in response.
Was Prigozhin on board?
Prigozhin has already been buried prematurely twice: in 2018, he allegedly died in the Congo, in 2022 — in Ukraine. And then there’s the second plane of the businessman, who circled over Moscow after the disaster in the Tver region, and the passion of the head of the mercenaries for changing clothes and changing passports.
The bodies of the victims, according to Fontanka, “do not lend themselves to visual identification,” they were badly burned. The fact that one of the victims is most likely Prigozhin was found out “by indirect signs.” At the same time, Dmitry “Wagner” Utkin was allegedly identified by tattoos (he has Nazi tattoos). Another of the indirect signs — according to Al Jazeera, Prigozhin’s phone was found at the crash site.
In the structures of Prigozhin themselves, according to journalist Andrei Zakharov, they began to report the death of the businessman last night. Sources of Ksenia Sobchak and Fontanka are also sure that Prigozhin was on board. Grey Zone also reported on the death of the head of the mercenaries: “Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia. But even in Hell he will be the best!” the authors exclaim.
What will happen to Wagner’s PMCs?
Most likely, this structure will cease to exist. Even after the alleged death of Prigozhin, she inspires fear on the authorities — in Rostov-on-Don last night, the security forces were alerted in case of another riot. Be that as it may, there were severe problems with mobile communications at the Wagnerians’ base in Belarus, the village of Tsel, last night. And today satellite images showed that the mercenary camp is being dismantled. Meanwhile, in Africa, the structures of the Ministry of Defense are gradually taking resources from the Wagner PMCs, and the department is hiring Prigozhin mercenaries.
What Prigozhin’s supporters will do is unknown. While they mourn him and carry flowers to the offices of “PMCs Wagner” in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg. It is unclear whether there will be protests. On the one hand, channels and bots connected with Prigozhin are calling supporters to rallies. On the other hand , unknown representatives of the PMCs went to the company ‘s office yesterday and told reporters: “We are waiting for instructions. We are not holding any rallies or anything at the moment.”
And, most likely, they won’t. The Kremlin completes the destruction of Prigozhin’s structures. In the absence — because of the death or not — of their boss, the mercenaries will quickly run away, and the “angry patriots”, demoralized by Strelkov’s arrest, are unlikely to stage a riot.
Source: I Don’t Get It newsletter (Mediazona), 24 August 2023. Translated by Yandex Translate, with no editorial interventions on the part of the Russian Reader, who after nearly sixteen years on this beat is tired of trying to show you that it matters what Russians other than Vladimir Putin—and, lately, Yevgeny Prigozhin—say and do. You’ve finally convinced me I’ve been wasting my time.
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