Prigozhin and Putin’s payback

Revenge is a dreaded forte of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He deals the hand coldly and assuredly. In the wake of the mutiny in his country last June, Russia watchers branded Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin a ‘dead man walking.’ Prigozhin had led his Wagner mercenary troops to rebel again Russian military command, seized a southern Russian city and threatened to overrun Moscow – coming within 250 kilometres of the capital before the mutiny was pulled at the instance of a hurried pact that wrung humiliating concessions out of Mr. Putin. The Russian leader survived the rebellion appearing demystified and weakened. The Putin mystique was dented, but pundits predicted it wasn’t the final word. The final word, as is seems, was Prigozhin’s mangled remains in a plane wreckage, unless fate wrought a chilling coincidence on the mercenary warlord. 

Prigozhin, 62, was a longtime ally of the Russian strongman and Wagner, his 25,000-strong private army, has been a major fighting force for Russia in her invasion of Ukraine that elicited worldwide condemnation. When Prigozhin led his army in the June mutiny, Putin termed the action a betrayal and stab in the back. Russia watchers projected the warlord had a short life expectancy thereafter, given Putin’s reputation for vengeance. That projection appeared borne out last Wednesday with Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash in which all seven passengers and three crew perished. The Embraer Legacy business jet belonging to Prigozhin was travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg when it crashed in Tver region, mid-way between Moscow and St. Petersburg and some 50 kilometres away from a countryside mansion of Mr. Putin in northern Russia. The aircraft was airborne for less than half an hour before it dropped from the sky.

Wednesday’s crash occurred exactly two months after the Wagner mutiny that Prigozhin led on 23rd June. The mercenary army fought alongside the Russian military in Ukraine and was associated with some of the worst atrocities of the conflict. But Prigozhin’s relationship with the Kremlin soured over the war’s high mortality rate, poor equipment and unpaid wages. He questioned the Kremlin’s motives for the invasion and accused Russian military bosses of incompetence. Prigozhin demanded  the sack of the military high command but was spurned by Putin, which was what ostensibly prompted the Wagner rebellion. After taking Rostov, the mercenary army marched north towards Moscow, forcing the capital into a lockdown before Belarus President Alexsandr Lukashenko brokered a deal that ended the standoff on 24th June. That deal shielded Prigozhin from direct reprisal from the Kremlin for the rebellion and allowed his fighters to move to neighbouring Belarus, join the Russian army or just retire home. Prigozhin himself agreed to relocate to Belarus, but he apparently was able to move freely within Russia with his plane reportedly flying back and forth. Reports said following the botched mutiny, he was warned his life was in danger. He was advised not to go into high buildings for fear of accidents, and he took painstaking care over his security including using body doubles and staging decoy itineraries. Besides Ukraine, Wagner is active in the Mideast, Central and West Africa. Early last week, Prigozhin posted a video in which he claimed to have just visited Africa and touted his army’s exploits, saying it was “making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free.”

“Prigozhin was only a victim of cannibalistic dynamics of power.”

With his elaborate security measures, however, the mercenary chief couldn’t avoid his waterloo. His Embraer jet crashed and crushed all 10 souls on board after taking off from Moscow en route to St. Petersburg. Reports cited tracking data that showed the Prigozhin-linked plane rose to an altitude of some 29,000 feet after take-off from Moscow, before data transmission stopped as the aircraft plunged to zero feet. A burning wreckage of the plane was located in a field. Russian aviation authorities affirmed that Prigozhin’s name was on the manifest, but there was uncertainty as to whether he definitely was  on board as he reportedly was in the habit of checking-in for a particular flight while taking another flight as security precaution. Moreover, there were reports of a second Prigozhin-linked plane that air-returned after zig-zagging in Moscow sky following the crash of the other jet. There were speculations the warlord cheated death by travelling in a different plane, or even that he staged a ruse to escape into peaceful exile. A pro-Wagner medium said it was “premature” to say he had died because he regularly “confused everyone” by changing his travel plans at the last minute. But optimism about the warlord’s chances of survival waned when close associates couldn’t reach him in the crash aftermath.

As for the crashed plane, images showed plumes of black smoke bellowing into the sky from the fireball wreckage. Responders said eight bodies were recovered and were in horrible state of mutilation, with one having the head totally severed and another with the face smashed in. A Wagner-linked social media channel reported that the jet was shot down by air defences, and that nearby residents heard loud bangs and saw vapour trails just before the crash. Inside sources in Russia, however, denied evidence of smoke trails in visuals of the crashing jet. Intelligence reports also refuted claims that the plane was downed by surface-to-air missile, arguing more for the likelihood of an explosion on board the aircraft before it bowed to gravity.

On the day of the crash, President Putin who rarely travels to the Russian regions was in Kursk, near the Ukrainian border, on an unannounced trip to speak at an event marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk in World War II. There were reports that sometime before the news of the crash broke, he was observed anxiously checking his watch on one arm, only to discomfittingly realise it was on the other arm. And as the news of the crash made the rounds, the Russian strongman stood in front of an orchestra. Russia experts ruled that ominous because a nickname for Wagner forces is ‘the orchestra.’ When he broke his silence some 24 hours later over the crash, Mr. Putin confirmed the death of Prigozhin. He lauded the warlord’s record as leader of Wagner that he said had “made a significant contribution to our common cause.” The Russian leader said “initial data” indicated that top Wagner figures were on board and expressed condolences to the families of all 10 people who died. “I knew Prigozhin from a long time, from early 1990s. He had a difficult path and made serious mistakes in his life. But he got results – for himself, and for the common cause when I asked him, like in the last few months,” he added. Prigozhin, according to him, was a “talented businessman…with a difficult destiny.”

To be sure, there was nothing concrete showing the Russian leader had a hand in the crash that killed Prigozhin. But many Russia watchers would argue the mishap was retributive for the June mutiny – if not at the direct instance of Putin, at that of the Russian military generals the Wagner boss took upon. It was instructive, for instance, that the mercenary chief got killed exactly two months after the rebellion. Besides the factor of sheer retribution, there was suspicion Moscow aimed at decapitating Wagner to strengthen the hand of Russian military. After all, weakening Wagner inside Russia need not significantly affect its activities in foreign countries where it remained an important arm of Kremlin power. Besides, tighter Kremlin control over the group could also allow for integrating its non-military operations, such as lucrative mining contracts in African countries, in Russian budget. All these, however, isn’t to rule out the possibility that Prigozhin’s many foes may have orchestrated his death without a direct order from Mr. Putin.

But Prigozhin was only a victim of cannibalistic dynamics of power. He was not like former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who fled Russia on exile and was pursued to the United Kingdom where lethal polonium was slipped into his drink and he died of acute radiation in 2006. That killing fostered a diplomatic row between the UK and Russia. Neither was Prigozhin like Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was abused in Moscow prison leading to his death in 2009, and in whose memory the United States enacted the Magnitsky Act (2016) to sanction rights offenders across the world. Prigozhin was a former Putin propagandist and cook, now served his patron ‘for dinner.’ He rode the tiger and has ended up in its belly.