Updated 17:27 | Published at 5:12 p.m
On Monday, Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared in a video clip where, according to him, he was in Africa.
Just days before the plane crash, Prigozhin is said to have fled the continent “impulsively and in panic”, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
According to the think tank, it was due to the Kremlin’s attempt to undermine Wagner on the continent.
On Wednesday evening, a private plane belonging to Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed in the Tver region northwest of Moscow.
Prigozhin, several other Wagner members and the crew died in the crash, according to Russian state news media and representatives of the Wagner Group.
Overnight, a memorial site sprang up in St Petersburg where supporters flocked to leave flowers and pay tribute to him.
Three days ago, on Monday, a video clip was published in several Telegram channels connected to the private army.
In the clip, Prigozhin stands in a desert area armed with automatic weapons. He says he is in Africa.
– It’s fifty degrees, everything is as we want. The Wagner group makes Russia better on all continents and Africa more free, he says.
The private army is active in several African countries and offers, among other things, security services to governments as well as military training and equipment.
But according to ISW, the Kremlin has tried to stop the group entirely from operating independently on the continent. According to sources, they plan to send 20,000 Russian soldiers there.
“Prigozhin was deeply critical of these attempts and did everything to prevent them,” writes ISW.
GRU’s plans behind escape
According to ISW, Prigozhin’s trip may have been an attempt to try to secure continued assignments and recruit personnel – completely independent of the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense.
But just two days after the video clip, he was, it seems, back on Russian soil. According to Russian sources, his “hasty” escape must have been due to the Russian GRU’s plans to undermine Wagner’s presence in Africa.
On the evening of Wednesday, he is said to have boarded a private plane in St. Petersburg, along with several other Wagner tops. At 6:11 p.m., the plane disappeared from Flightradar24 after losing 2.5 kilometers in altitude within 30 seconds.
Witnesses state in Russian media that the plane must have caught fire before it hit the ground.
Russian sources: The plane was shot down
There are many indications that Russia is behind the plane crash, Russian sources say they have images showing that the plane was shot down by two S 300 robots.
According to ISW, the aim is to regain control of the Wagner Group. That someone else, subordinate to Putin, would have acted without his approval is not likely, they say.
“Putin has almost certainly ordered the Russian military to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane,” writes the think tank.
There is still no evidence that Prigozhin is dead. A doppelganger may have been on board the downed plane, according to Russian analysts.
The bodies from the aircraft have been taken to morgues for identification.
FACTS The Wagner group • Prigozhin • The rebellion against Putin
The Wagner Group is a Russian paramilitary organization, a private mercenary company founded around the year 2013.
The group was founded by a former GRU chief, Dimitry Utkin, and is led by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman and former restaurateur from St. Petersburg with close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Wagner has long had unofficial connections with the Russian state leadership. The group is believed to have been allowed to carry out missions that the Russian state or the army, for various reasons, did not want to take responsibility for.
Prigozhin has been called “Putin’s chef” and is said to have earned millions on behalf of the Russian state.
The first time the Wagner Army received international attention was during Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, when it was noted that some of the Russian soldiers who entered there lacked insignia.
Later, the Wagner Army has appeared in many countries where Russia seeks influence, including Syria, Libya, Sudan, Venezuela and the Central African Republic. The efforts have been marred by accusations of war crimes.
The Wagner group led a shadowy existence for a long time, but during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it took on a more formal role, alongside and in some competition with the Russian army. In October 2022, a formal Wagner headquarters was opened in St. Petersburg.
In the spring of 2023, a conflict flared up between Prigozhin and Putin’s military leadership, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. The Wagner leader accused the Russian high command of corruption and incompetence, and of deliberately withholding weapons from the Wagner forces in Ukraine – thereby indirectly causing the deaths of thousands of Wagner soldiers.
On June 23, Prigozhin announced that 25,000 Wagnerian soldiers would march through Russia—armed. The next day, Wagner forces took over the city of Rostov-on-Don, then continued north towards Moscow.
The column reportedly came as close as 20 miles from Moscow before a showdown with Belarus’ Russia-allied leader Aleksandr Lukashenko caused them to turn back.
The settlement meant that Prigozhin and his soldiers would receive impunity and security guarantees, as well as free passage to Belarus. The war crimes charges were dropped.
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