Not just Wagner leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin was believed to have been killed in the crash, but also his operations commander Dmitry Utkin and other senior members of the group — effectively decapitating the outfit
The presumed death of the high profile leader of Russia’s Wagner Group has not only thrown the future of the mercenary group deeply in doubt but also strengthened President Vladimir Putin’s hand, after its short-lived June rebellion left him looking weak and paralyzed.
Prigozhin and his commanders escaped charges when Putin made a deal, brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, to allow the mercenaries to either join the Ministry of Defense to continue fighting in Ukraine, retire, or go to Belarus. Without speculating on the cause, she said that “Putin had a strong reason to desire Prigozhin’s death.”
The plane crash comes as Putin has moved to restore his bruised authority, after weeks of hesitation, with the arrest of prominent hard-line nationalist, former intelligence officer and military blogger Igor Girkin, who attacked Putin over his handling of the war for not being tough enough. Some Telegram channels associated with Wagner mourned the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin on Wednesday, but others urged caution without official confirmation of their deaths.
Stanovaya, the analyst, said the fact that Prigozhin traveled around Russia and even met Putin with Wagner commanders in the Kremlin after the mutiny “was questioned by many and of course it was seen as a weakness of Putin. It looked like dependence on Prigozhin. And many asked me whether Prigozhin had some kind of kompromat [compromising material] on Putin.”
The group has been exiled to Belarus, where an abandoned military base in the village of Tsel became its home. Independent Belarusian monitoring Hajun project estimated that between 4,000-5,000 fighters have relocated to the country, most likely the most experienced, while the many convicts in the force, which numbered 50,000 during its time in Ukraine, have been let go.
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