2023-08-24 19:12:12
The Russian oligarch and head of the paramilitary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died yesterday following the plane in which he was traveling from Moscow to Saint Petersburg was shot down by air defenses a few minutes following takeoff, according to the Rosaviatsia aeronautical service and the group. from Telegram linked to Wagner “Grey Zone”.
LOOK: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, died in a plane crash, confirms Russia
A total of 10 people were traveling on board the ship. Initially it was unknown if the paramilitary chief had boarded the plane, but later the agencies themselves confirmed that he had. It should be noted that at the time of writing this article neither the Kremlin nor the Russian Ministry of Defense had officially confirmed Prigozhin’s death.
The incident occurred on the same day two months following the start of the 24-hour mutiny led by Prigozhin once morest Russian military chiefs over disagreements over operations in Ukraine. This has led to the suspicion that the plane crash would be a government retaliation ordered from the highest levels, that is, by President Vladimir Putin himself.
From chef to warlord
Born on June 1, 1961 in present-day Saint Petersburg, Yevgeny Prigozhin had a criminal past that led him to serve 10 years in prison for fraud and theft, before being pardoned in 1990. Once released, he set up a food business that brought him closer to both the army and the then-rising local political figure, Vladimir Putin.
Already in power, the president’s confidence in Prigozhin, and the number of catering contracts he was awarded with both the army and schools, led to his being dubbed Putin’s personal chef. In this way, little by little, Prigozhin became a new oligarch who in 2010 guided the president through his newly opened factory.
Prigozhin with President Vladimir Putin during a guided tour of his newly opened food factory.
Four years later, however, in the midst of the crisis over the annexation of Crimea, the chef hung up his apron and put on his boots. He founded the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organization willing to serve the interests of the Kremlin both in the nascent conflict with Ukraine and in the campaigns it maintained in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Mali and Syria.
Despite denying it for years, Prigozhin ended up admitting in September 2022 that he had founded the military company, something illegal in Russia but which he justified as a group of patriots. This organization has been denounced on multiple occasions for violating human rights in the conflicts in which it has participated and, in specific cases such as the Ukrainian one, they have been accused of maintaining neo-Nazi ideologies.
Along with his operations with Wagner, Prigozhin set up different companies that served the Kremlin, such as the Internet Research Agency, sanctioned in 2018 by the US Department of the Treasury because it was a troll farm that sought to interfere in the 2016 elections. The same fate befell his other companies Concord Management and Concord Catering.
Prigozhin’s companies were sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2018 for trying to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
the traitorous friend
Putin’s trust in Prigozhin was so great, and Wagner’s closeness to the Kremlin so obvious, that few were surprised when the group of mercenaries became involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.
The conflict, which Putin hoped to resolve in a couple of weeks and has just turned a year and a half, ended up revealing, however, a series of disagreements between Prigozhin and other Russian military commanders.
In February 2023, he complained that his fighters did not have enough ammunition during the invasion of Bakhmut, for which they were key in May of the same year. This led him to clash with the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff, Valeri Guerasimov.
There is a Russian saying that “you don’t die twice if you don’t escape death once”. The first time for Prigozhin happened on June 24 this year, when he ordered his troops to march on Moscow in an unprecedented challenge to the Kremlin that brought the country to the brink of civil war.
In June, Prigozhin led his troops into Moscow to stage a mutiny once morest Russia’s top military leaders for their mistakes during the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin described the rebellion as a “betrayal” and was on the verge of “ordering it to be crushed” if his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, had not intervened as a mediator to convince Prigozhin to give up his coup in less than 24 hours.
The end of the revolution included Prigozhin’s exile in Belarus along with his troops, or at least those that remained following Putin gave Wagner’s members the opportunity to join the Russian Army if they did not wish to go into exile.
After his exile, Putin met at least once with Prigozhin, although he never publicly referred to him once more. As for the head of the Wagner Group, he was seen a couple of times in Russia and it is known that he maintained an office in Saint Petersburg. Last Monday he appeared in a video allegedly recorded in Africa inviting new mercenaries to join his ranks. The next thing that was heard from him was that he had died in the accident.
“Prigozhin lost control of the Wagner Group in Ukraine following the riot. He might have been in control of the forces fighting in Africa, but no longer on Ukrainian soil. So it wouldn’t make practical sense for him to assassinate him, he was no longer a danger to Putin. However, it might be a murder that would serve as a sign that nobody messes with him,” international analyst Roberto Heimovits told El Comercio, in response to one of the theories that emerged from the Wagner Group itself, that the accident was a order to kill anyone who dared to challenge Putin.
And it is that recent history has shown that those who have dared to challenge the leader of the Kremlin have not ended well. Whether it’s the case of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died following drinking poisoned tea in London; or ex-spy Sergei Skripal, who miraculously survived a novichok poisoning also in the English capital; or the activist Boris Nemtsov, shot to death near the Kremlin a few days before leading a protest once morest the war in Ukraine.
And the list goes on with Anna Politkovskaya, Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza or Viktor Yushchenko. All Putin critics who have died, suffered attacks or are being held in a Russian prison.
“Prigozhin and Putin were quite close, so we can think that the message would go to the entire oligarch environment. Putin wants to show that if he was capable of ordering the death of someone so close, no one would be safe if he did not follow his line, ”says the analyst.
Perhaps that is why the spokeswoman for the National Security Council of the United States, Adrienne Watson, assured from the beginning that “if (Prigozhin’s death) is confirmed, it would not be a surprise to anyone.” The Ukrainian presidential adviser Miajilo Podoliak referred to the incident assuring that “the spectacular elimination of Prigozhin (…) is a signal from Putin to the Russian elites before the elections [rusas] from 2024″.
“Historically whoever is in the lead can try to scare the others by ordering the death of one, two or three. But if the environment becomes convinced that anyone can die, there are two possible effects: submit to the will of the dictator or unite and defeat him. The effectiveness of such a policy is debatable,” concludes Heimovits.
The feared Wagner Group accumulates numerous complaints for human rights violations during the military campaigns in which it has operated in favor of Russia.
The “General Armageddon”
Prigozhin’s rebellion had another main name. While the mercenary leader was calling for the heads of Shoigu and Gerasimov ahead of his coup, he had also been full of public praise for General Sergei Surovikin, formerly in charge of military operations in Ukraine and known for his brutal battlefield techniques.
A native of Novosibirsk, Surovikin was part of the Spetsnaz special group and his first missions were in the Soviet-Afghan war.
In 1991, when he was a captain and battalion commander, he was involved in the Estad coup attempt once morest Boris Yeltsin, for which he spent seven months in detention during the investigations that ended up being freed following the president dropped the charges once morest him in once morest considering that he was only following orders.
Over the years he has served in Tajikistan, Chechnya and commanded operations in Syria. The brutal techniques he applied in that Middle Eastern country earned him the nickname “General Armageddon.”
At the end of 2017, he was appointed Commander of the Aerospace Forces and that same year he was decorated as a Hero of the Russian Federation for his role in the Syrian conflict.
On December 31, 2022, Vladimir Putin decorated Surovikin for his work commanding Russian troops on the Ukrainian battlefront.
By 2021, Surovikin had already become an army general and was profiled by many as Gerasimov’s successor. In the middle of the following year he was entrusted with leading the southern army during the invasion of Ukraine and in October Putin appointed him commander of all Russian forces within the special mission.
“Surovikin did not do badly as head of the forces in Ukraine, he rose when things were pretty bad following the initial failure of the invasion. What Surovikin did was to evacuate Kherson, but because there was no other alternative and rather he led the evacuation in an orderly manner. So all in all, he wasn’t a brilliant warlord but he didn’t do bad either,” says Heimovits.
In January of this year, however, in a surprise decision, Gerasimov was entrusted with full control of military operations in Ukraine. During the June coup, Surovikin might also be seen in a video where he did not appear with his military insignia, speaking to Prigozhin and asking him to abandon his march to Moscow.
Since then Surovikin disappeared from the public scene and it was rumored that he had been under investigation for possible complicity with Prigozhin, which would have led him to be placed under house arrest.
“The main reason for his dismissal would be suspicions of a certain connection with Prigozhin. One reason would be that he was not energetic enough during the riot. Although he tried to mediate or convince Prigozhin, Surovikin did not show the loyalty that Putin expected, ”says the analyst in this regard.
Yesterday, finally, the RIA agency reported citing an anonymous source that “the former head of the Russian Air and Space Forces, Sergei Surovikin, has been relieved of his position, while Colonel General Viktor Afzalov, chief of the General Staff of the Force Air Force, is temporarily acting as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force.”
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