Roving Periscope: Prigozhin, who rebelled against Putin, dies in ‘plane crash’
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: “It took longer than I expected,” Elon Musk said, reacting to the PMC Wagner mercenary army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s suspicious death in a ‘plane crash’ near Moscow on Wednesday.
That sums up what many who know about Russia and its long-time President Vladimir Putin, already knew. Even Moscow merely announced the so-called crash and refrained from commenting on the ‘accident’ that claimed the life of the one who was the right-hand of President Vladimir Putin for years, until June 2023.
All 10 people, including three crew members, died in the private plane crash which was on its way from Moscow to St. Petersberg. Prigozhin’s name was also on the passengers’ list, the media reported.
The Kremlin, where Prigozhin served as a head chef for years before he became the blue-eyed boy of the President, has given no cause of the crash—it only announced it! Many believe that he had been killed like those who ever crossed swords with Putin.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, some of Putin’s critics have “died” under mysterious circumstances in and out of Russia, including two in India, the reports said.
The media reported, quoting Russian officials, that Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a revolt in June against military generals and Russian President Vladimir Putin, was killed in a plane crash on Wednesday.
President Putin had denounced the Wagner rebellion as “treason,” but the militia leader appeared to escape immediate retaliation after striking a deal with the Kremlin to leave the country and move to Belarus.
Reacting to Prigozhin’s death, Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk said it took “longer” than he expected. “Slight chance this is a psy op,” he added.
The private army of Prigozhin, 62, was allegedly funded and sponsored by the Kremlin for unofficial use elsewhere, mainly in the Middle East and Africa. Since September 2022, it fought alongside the Russian army in Ukraine where its chief developed differences with the serving Russian generals.
After an acrimonious fight against the generals, his militia, composed mostly of criminals freed from Russian prisons, trooped out of Ukraine and crossed into Russia to topple Moscow’s military leadership, but stopped midway and headed to Belarus for ‘surrender.’
Russia’s aviation agency, Rosaviatsia said it set up a special commission to investigate the crash of the aircraft belonging to MNT-Aero.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said it opened an investigation into the crash.
The bodies of eight people have been found so far at the site of the crash, RIA Novosti said citing the emergency services.
Ever since he launched an unprovoked “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 20022, President Putin has largely become an international pariah. The ongoing conflict, which he fancied would end in “48 to 72 hours” has continued unabated, even after wanton destruction in Ukraine, and has created food insecurity for some 40 nations that depended on grain imports from the two countries.
Even the International Criminal Court (ICC), The Hague, had, in March this year, issued an unbailable arrest warrant against Putin and some of his close associates, meaning they could be arrested in any member country of the ICC. To avoid it, President Putin refrained from attending the ongoing BRICS Summit in South Africa and sent his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov instead.
