Founder of Wagner Private Mercenary Group and Russian President Putin’s former personal chief Yevgeny Prigozhin died on Wednesday in a plane crash. The plane, carrying three crew members and seven passengers en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, plummeted almost 300 kilometers. There were no survivors.
The reason for the crash is not yet known, and there has been no statement from the Kremlin.
Asked whether Putin was behind the crash, US President Joe Biden commented that “I do not know for a fact what happened, but I am not surprised.”
Earlier this year Prigozhin had launched an armed insurgency against Putin, with his forces moving against Moscow on June 23 in what Putin described as an “internal betrayal.” Putin previously brought criminal charges against the Wagner leader, after a rift developed between Prigozhin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu following a rocket attack ordered by the Russian top official on Wagner’s forces in Ukraine.
“We are patriots of our Motherland; we fought and are fighting,” Prigozhin said, commenting on Russia’s attack against his militia which is considered to be Russia’s best fighting force in Ukraine.
The Kremlin permitted the Wagner forces to evacuate to Belarus.
Prigozhin originally established Wagner as a mercenary military force that fought in Ukraine in 2014, the year Russia invaded Crimea and has since used it in support of Russian-backed movements all over the world, primarily in Africa and Syria.
The Wagner militia is currently on the ground in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Mozambique, Mali, Ukraine, and Syria. The future of the Wagner militia is uncertain and largely dependent upon Russia’s influence in Africa.