Russians have all the time had a penchant for rumor and conspiracies, underpinned by the presumption that official information is deeply doctored by the Kremlin. So it isn’t stunning that inside hours of the primary studies of a airplane crashing with any individual as infamous as Yevgeny Prigozhin listed as a passenger, hypothesis unfold like a Siberian wildfire. Maybe he was not on the airplane and had staged his dying to vanish. Or possibly President Vladimir Putin now had Mr. Prigozhin in a secret dungeon. Or the Ukrainians on whom he unleashed his mercenaries blew the airplane up.
Nothing appeared unimaginable with Mr. Prigozhin, a racketeer-turned-caterer-turned-warlord and Putin crony who despatched his Wagner mercenary group on an audacious march on Moscow in June to settle scores with Russia’s navy leaders. There was no scarcity of people that in all probability wished him lifeless, together with those self same Russian navy leaders, or the Ukrainians, or the African and Syrian rebels savaged by his mercenaries.
However as is so usually the case with atrocities in Mr. Putin’s Russia, the airplane crash was in all probability precisely what it seemed to be: the assassination of a nettlesome rival by the ruthless ruler. Which will by no means be proved; Mr. Putin could select to posthumously honor Mr. Prigozhin as a patriot, or not less than guilty his dying on his pet villains, Ukrainian “fascists” and a deceitful and degenerate West. However for now, most observers consider the proof, motive and means level to Mr. Putin.
Within the brutal logic of dictatorial rule, Mr. Putin would have had no selection. Although Mr. Prigozhin was cautious to show complete fealty to the president even when he ordered his forces on a “march for justice” in June, it was an open riot in opposition to Mr. Putin’s rule, and the president’s first public response was to warn — with out naming Mr. Prigozhin — that those that ready the mutiny “have betrayed Russia.” In Mr. Putin’s lexicon, that’s a dying sentence. He’s Russia.
Mr. Putin performed the aftermath with the identical crafty that has saved him in energy for greater than 20 years, permitting the warlord to depart for Belarus after the mutiny, dropping formal expenses in opposition to him, inviting him to a three-hour chat on the Kremlin, then leaving him free to maneuver about Russia.
Mr. Prigozhin appeared to conclude that he had been forgiven. He claimed to have made an look at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, although there isn’t a agency proof he was there. Then, two days earlier than the airplane crash, he launched a brand new recruitment video for the Wagner group, purportedly filmed in Africa. Towards the backdrop of a naked subject, Mr. Prigozhin appeared decked out within the full commando equipment he favored for such movies earlier than the mutiny.
“We’re working,” he intoned in his tough-guy growl. “Temperature 50 plus, as we prefer it. Wagner is finishing up reconnaissance and search operations, making Russia even better on all continents, and Africa much more free.”
After that show of bravado, Mr. Putin apparently made his first transfer on Wednesday — two months to the day for the reason that mutiny — when Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of the Ukraine operation, was reportedly demoted. He had dropped from public view proper after the mutiny. And after 6 p.m. that night, Mr. Prigozhin’s airplane — an govt jet he often used, and stated to be the identical one on which he flew to Belarus after the aborted mutiny — dropped out of the sky.
An unconfirmed video of the incident posted on-line confirmed the airplane crashing to earth, evidently with just one wing. And witnesses reported listening to two explosions, elevating the chance that the jet had been shot down by an antiaircraft battery. Quickly after, official media reported that Mr. Prigozhin was on the checklist of seven passengers and three crewmen aboard. There have been studies that the navy commander of the Wagner group, Dmitri Utkin, stated to be an open admirer of Nazi Germany, was additionally onboard.
The seemingly unavoidable conclusion is that Mr. Prigozhin’s destiny was sealed two months in the past. No matter the reason for this crash, Mr. Putin’s military of sycophants and cronies are sure to know the message: No quantity of bootlicking, at which Mr. Prigozhin had been a grasp, and no lengthy historical past of loyal service, whether or not offering meals for the Kremlin or operating a personal military, can be sufficient to guard anybody who turned on the don.
It has lengthy been clear that in Putin’s Russia, betrayal is unforgivable. The radioactive polonium used to kill one Okay.G.B. defector, Alexander Litvinenko, and the Novichok nerve agent utilized in an try on one other, Sergei Skripal, have been meant to depart little question about who did it or why. And efforts to silence his most tenacious opponent, Alexei Navalny, by an tried poisoning, and a draconian jail sentence, are clear indicators of close to complete intolerance for any dissent.
The necessity to implement private loyalty has change into much more vital with the invasion of Ukraine, an operation linked on to Mr. Putin that’s amassing a horrible price in lives, treasure and worldwide standing.
Given Mr. Prigozhin’s sordid historical past, it stays attainable that new and maybe stunning revelations about this crash nonetheless lie forward. But when it seems that this was not Mr. Putin’s doing, it could solely be as a result of somebody beat him to it.
