Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch whose Wagner Group mercenary army mounted a brief mutiny against the country’s military leaders in June, was on the passenger list of a private jet that crashed Wednesday during a flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing all 10 people aboard.
The country’s Federal Air Transport Agency confirmed that an investigation was opened in the crash of the Embraer Legacy 600 business jet that reportedly belonged to Mr. Prigozhin. The plane crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino, about 215 miles northwest of Moscow, according to Russia’s state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.
“There were ten people aboard including three crew members. According to preliminary information, all on board were killed,” Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said in a statement. Russia’s primary aviation agency said Mr. Prigozhin was on the official passenger list and was almost certainly aboard the craft. It added that there were no survivors.
“The flight of the Embraer-135 jet (EBM-135BJ) was performed in accordance with a flight permit issued in due order,” the Federal Air Transport Agency said late Wednesday.
The crash is the latest chapter in a strange and twisted tale involving the blunt and brutal Mr. Prigozhin, a man once so close to President Vladimir Putin that he was known as “Putin’s chef.” In recent months, however, he was caught up in a vicious power struggle with Mr. Putin’s top generals regarding Russia’s stalemated invasion of Ukraine.
The other names on the passenger manifest were not released. According to unconfirmed Russian media reports, Wagner Group co-founder Dmitry Utkin also was on the jet. While in Moscow, Mr. Prigozhin met with officials from Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
SEE ALSO: Wagner Group members vow revenge for death of mercenary army founder Prigozhin
The White House and U.S. intelligence officials said they had no information on the mysterious crash or whether Mr. Prigozhin was aboard, although officials said they were not surprised that Mr. Prigozhin’s life might be at risk given the Russian regime’s history of dealing with dissidents and troublesome rivals to power.
Mr. Putin did not comment on the crash and appeared to follow his usual agenda.
Mr. Prigozhin’s fate has been the subject of intense speculation since he orchestrated the rebellion on June 23. The uprising was called off the next day, and Mr. Prigozhin agreed to move to Belarus. Charges were dropped against him, and the mutineers were told they could either sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry or join the Wagner Group chief in Minsk.
About a month after the mutiny, CIA Director Williams Burns told the Aspen Security Forum that Mr. Putin, a former KGB officer, would likely find some way to exact revenge against his former ally.
“Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback. I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this,” he said. “If I were Prigozhin, I wouldn’t fire my food taster.”
The Grey Zone, a page on the Telegram social media site with links to the Wagner Group, accused Russia’s military of shooting down Mr. Prigozhin’s jet. Video reportedly posted by witnesses shows the jet spiraling to the ground.
“Before the plane crash, local residents listened to two bursts of characteristic air defense,” the Grey Zone posted. “This is confirmed by contrails in the sky in one of the videos, as well as the words of direct eyewitnesses.”
Investigators searched the scene for evidence, including the black box flight data recorder. They also gathered information about the training of the crew, the mechanical condition of the plane and the weather situation along the flight route, according to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.
Placing blame
Some analysts say it’s too early to point the finger at Mr. Putin. If the Russian president wanted to eliminate the Wagner Group commander, he had easier ways than shooting his plane out of the sky. Kremlin opponents have been known to fall out of windows, and opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent.
“First of all, Prigozhin met with Putin four or five days after the coup in Moscow. He could have taken him out right there,” said retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a senior fellow with the Defense Priorities think tank.
Given the byzantine nature of Russian politics, it is prudent to be skeptical, said Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor of national security and international affairs at the University of New Haven. Even if Mr. Prigozhin was killed, he said, he doubts it will change the dynamic of the fight in Ukraine.
“In the end, he’s replaceable. So if this were a hit job or an accident, I wouldn’t expect much effect except to reestablish Putin’s control insofar as his commanders have to worry it was a murder, whatever the truth,” Mr. Schmidt said.
The Wagner Group founder insisted that the target of his mutiny wasn’t Mr. Putin but the country’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu. He accused Mr. Shoigu of incompetence. Analysts said Mr. Prigozhin’s popularity with the Russian public as a “truth teller” could backfire against Mr. Putin.
“A lot of people view [Mr. Prigozhin] as a war hero,” Col. Davis said. “He was one of the few really successful field commanders that Russia had in the war. If they think Putin ‘did it,’ it could cause a lot of trouble.”
The Moscow Times reported that independent journalist Andrei Zakharov, citing an unidentified source, said Mr. Prigozhin was returning to Russia from a trip in Africa, where Wagner mercenaries have operated for years and where Mr. Prigozhin recently appeared in a recruitment video.
The Investigative Committee of Russia has opened a criminal case on violation of traffic safety rules and the operation of air transport, RIA Novosti said, and a team was sent to the crash site. Video on Telegram showed an aircraft with a registration number linked to Wagner Group executives crashed and burned in a field.
Extraordinary
If Mr. Prigozhin was on the doomed plane, it would be an extraordinary end to an extraordinary life. The former convict and street thug used a St. Petersburg hotdog stand in the 1990s to build a massive catering and supply business and cultivate a former KGB agent and young city official named Vladimir Putin.
In part through lucrative contracts given his enterprise by the Putin government over the years, Mr. Prigozhin built a substantial fortune and helped strengthen the Wagner Group, a shadowy private security force of mercenaries that became an unofficial arm of Mr. Putin’s foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, the Crimean crisis of 2014 and, most recently and most controversially, the invasion of Ukraine.
He boasted of having assembled the Russian hacking team blamed for attempted interference with the U.S. presidential election in 2016, one more reason the U.S. government levied sanctions and brought criminal charges against him as his wealth and business portfolio expanded in Russia.
Mr. Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny in June stemmed from his rising public clashes with Russia’s top generals over supplies and strategy in the Ukraine conflict.
At one point, he accused Mr. Shoigu and senior Ukraine war commander Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov of withholding ammunition and supplies from his fighters to undermine his army.
A move to force Wager Group fighters to accept the overall command of the official Russian army was widely seen as the catalyst for Mr. Prigozhin’s coup launch.
Why Mr. Putin tolerated Mr. Prigozhin’s criticisms for so long has been a mystery for Western analysts. Why he decided to move against his former confidant, assuming he did, is equally murky.
Mr. Prigozhin’s movements after the abortive coup are also mysterious. He was reportedly persuaded to travel to Belarus and given immunity from prosecution in exchange for ending his rebellion. Afterward, he was seen on video at a Russian event that Mr. Putin attended.
He was actively promoting Wagner Group contracts and activities in Africa. On Tuesday, he appeared on video recruiting fighters for deployment at an unidentified country on the continent.
President Biden, asked by reporters whether Mr. Putin played a role in eliminating his adversary, told reporters at Lake Tahoe in Nevada, “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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