The UK defence ministry says it is “highly likely” that the Wagner mercenary boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is dead, but that there is not yet definitive proof.
Prigozhin was believed to have been killed when his Embraer jet crashed north-west of Moscow on Wednesday, killing all 10 passengers and crew onboard, according to Russian officials.
“There is not yet definitive proof that Prigozhin was onboard and he is known to exercise exceptional security measures. However, it is highly likely that he is indeed dead,” the UK Ministry of Defence said in a daily intelligence update on Friday.
Prigozhin was known to have body doubles, multiple passports, and to regularly wear disguises when travelling abroad. He has been falsely reported killed twice before, including in a plane crash in Congo in 2019, before reappearing in public.
Yet in this case, the Russian government had an obvious motive to assassinate Prigozhin, who had clashed with its defence ministry and was behind an armed uprising in June that captured military installations and launched a “march of justice” on Moscow.
Vladimir Putin appeared to eulogise Prigozhin on Thursday evening, saying he had known the Wagner head since the early 1990s. He said Prigozhin had “made some serious mistakes in life” but praised him for his role in the war in Ukraine.
“We remember this, know this, and won’t forget it,” Putin said, referring to Progozhin in the past tense.
Alexei Dyumin, a former Putin bodyguard now governor of Tula, also offered condolences, calling Prigozhin a “true patriot” who had served his country faithfully. “I knew Yevgeny Prigozhin as a true patriot, a decisive and fearless person,” said Dyumin. “He did much for the country, and the motherland will not forget him. We mourn for all those killed in this catastrophe and to all the fighters of Wagner, who have died in the [war].”
He denied Prigozhin had betrayed Russia, part of a posthumous rehabilitation of the Wagner head’s reputation that closely followed Putin’s remarks the previous day. “Mistakes and even cowardice can be forgiven, but treason – never,” said Dyumin. “They were not traitors.”
Wagner fighters and a few dozen members of the public gathered at a makeshift memorial for Yevgeny Prigozhin in his home town of St Petersburg on Thursday. One man in full camouflage was filmed weeping in front of portraits of Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, a senior battlefield commander also believed to have died in the crash.
It was Putin who had first accused Wagner of treason during the short-lived mutiny in which troops captured a defence headquarters in Rostov and marched on Moscow.
US and western officials said it was likely an intentional explosion had brought down the plane, which crashed into a field 185 miles (300km) north of Moscow.
“A definitive conclusion has not been reached, but an explosion is the leading theory of what caused the plane to crash in a field between Moscow and St Petersburg,” the New York Times quoted the officials as saying. “The explosion could have been caused by a bomb or other device planted on the aircraft.”
The UK defence intelligence update predicted a leadership vacuum in Wagner without Prigozhin at the helm. “The demise of Prigozhin would almost certainly have a deeply destabilising effect on the Wagner group,” the agency said.
Wagner’s operations in Africa are expected to be captured by the Russian defence ministry, which had sought to force Prigozhin to sign up his mercenaries to normal contracts and submit to military leadership.
“His personal attributes of hyperactivity, exceptional audacity, a drive for results and extreme brutality permeated Wagner and are unlikely to be matched by any successor,” the Ministry of Defence said.
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