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Prigozhin and other top Wagner leaders are presumed dead after their Embraer commercial plane crashed north-west of Moscow on Wednesday night, just two months after Putin branded him a traitor for leading a short-lived rebellion against the Russian army in June.
The memorials, while not a national outpouring of shock and grief, did show support for Prigozhin in hardline pro-war circles across Russia and highlighted the Kremlin’s delicate task of managing potential anger among its many-member supporters. of the Russian elite convinced of the alleged death of Prigozhin. It was a murder ordered by the Kremlin.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has strongly denied speculation about Kremlin involvement, calling it “all lies.”
Russian analyst and freelance journalist Dmitry Kolezev, who left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, said the Kremlin’s challenge was managing the anger of Prigozhin and Wagner supporters, including junior and mid-level military officers.
“Prigozhin, despite declaring allegiance to Putin, endangered his regime and showed his weakness for which he received the inevitable punishment. I think the elites understood this signal very well,” he stated.
“At the same time, there is a broader audience of military activists, supporters of Wagner’s PMC and Wagner veterans, among whom there is a Prigozhin cult,” Kolezyov said. “Putin needs to prevent these people from becoming his opponents and away from possible radical actions, paying tribute to Prigozhin and offering an alternative version of his death.”
That is why Putin praised Prigozhin on Thursday as a “talented person” who “achieved the necessary results” but “made mistakes”, referring to the riot, he said.
The tributes glorifying Wagner’s leader came despite a concerted Kremlin propaganda campaign in the aftermath of the riot to smear Prigozhin as a greedy criminal and a traitor to Russia, an effort that dampened Prigozhin’s runaway approval rating, which it reached 58 percent the week before the rebellion. according to the independent opinion pollster Levada Center.
People deposited flowers, photographs with the words “Hero of Russia”, Wagner flags and insignia, candles, religious images and even a violin, a symbol of the mercenary group that called itself “The Orchestra” and its “musician” members. Many wore Wagner camouflage with their faces covered or black shirts with the Wagner grinning skull logo.
Prigozhin inspired loyalty in his men because they perceived him to be defending them against hardline military bureaucrats, despite Wagner’s brutally high casualty rates, particularly among ex-convict fighters, and widespread accusations that those fleeing battle often they were executed.
A Wagner fighter from St. Petersburg, Pavel Shabrin, wrote a poem about Prigozhin in the following words: “He was with us at the front: in the trenches, in dugouts. He knew our problems and rejoiced with us. He slept in tents, ate porridge with a knife, and put candles for the dead in front of the icons.
Prigozhin refused to smile and flatter the room, he wrote, and “with every word, he cut through the air like a whip.”
During the war, Prigozhin increased his popularity with salty and brutally direct videos taken near the front lines, some of them apparently in Bakhmut, as explosions went off nearby, visiting his men in underground bunkers in the war zone. When Russia’s war effort faltered, he emerged for many as a trusted truth-teller, one of the few prominent figures willing to challenge Russia’s laws against discrediting the military, exposing military failures and heavy casualties.
On two separate days, he displayed dozens of fresh corpses of Wagner’s men killed in battle in Bakhmut, posted videos of him shouting obscenities at Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of treason and demanding more. ammunition.
The families of Wagner’s soldiers expressed their grief and loyalty in Telegram group chats in recent days and worried about whether they would receive the pay and benefits they were owed. Prigozhin had long been under US sanctions and his head of logistics and management, Valery Chekalov, was blacklisted by the Treasury Department in July. He was also on the plane.
“To be a warrior is to live forever!” wrote the sister of a deceased Wagnerian wrestler. “For me personally, he is a Man with a capital L, who won the fight against himself first and who created PMC Wagner, undoubtedly the most combat-ready army in the world, which has become a real family for many guys. . A true patriot of Russia, who loves the Motherland and who hated the countless hordes of bureaucracy and who, unfortunately, could never overcome it! She wished him a “bright and everlasting memory”.
Another woman expressed fears about the uncertain survival of Wagner’s fighters in the future without Prigozhin’s protection and the likelihood that they would be forced to join mercenary groups controlled by the Ministry of Defense or enlist as volunteer soldiers.
“Without the leadership qualities, without the connections, without the authority of Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who will protect the guys from signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense?” she wrote. “And who will guarantee his return home?”
In Moscow, people left tributes at the Church of St. Maxim the Blessed on Varvarka Street, and in Prigozhin’s hometown of St. Petersburg, they left tributes at his business center and a cafe associated with him.
State Duma deputy Vasily Vlasov of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party has proposed to rename Zolnaya Street in St. Petersburg, where his office center is located, after Prigozhin.
Prigozhin, 62, met Putin, a former KGB officer who worked in the mayor’s office, in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, shortly after his release from prison in 1990, where he served nine years of prison. a 13-year sentence for theft and fraud. and robbery, according to Russian media.
Prominent Russians chimed in with public praise, taking a cue from Putin’s praise. The nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin called him “the best of men”. Tula Governor Alexei Dyumin, Putin’s former security chief who knew Prigozhin well, called him “a true patriot, a determined and courageous man” who was not a traitor.
Sergei Mironov, head of the A Just Russia for Truth political party, said Prigozhin upset many people, but warned that “Russia’s enemies will pay dearly for the death of heroes.”
According to analysts, many members of the Russian elite are convinced that Prigozhin’s death was an assassination ordered by Putin. Paris-based Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said public comments by prominent figures followed Putin’s lead but also indicated her concern over the incident.
“This is all, of course, highly subjective. But now the feelings of people like Dyumin can be understood: they believe that figures like Prigozhin, despite his mistakes, do not deserve such a death, ”he wrote on Telegram.
Kolezyov, the analyst, said Dyumin’s comments indicated divisions within the elites over Prigozhin’s “punishment”. He said Dyumin, ostensibly positioning himself as a future defense minister, needed to secure the loyalty of junior and mid-level officers, “and they are likely to perceive Prigozhin’s assassination negatively.”
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed his belief that Putin ordered Prigozhin’s assassination, in a Daily Mail column, the most forceful statement on the incident by any Western politician yet.
“As we watch the chilling images of that plane spiraling towards Earth, we are witnessing something historic. It is about the violent liquidation –on television– of his enemies by an existing head of state. I cannot think of another example of such ostentatious and uninhibited savagery by a world leader, not in our lifetime,” Johnson, a staunch supporter of Ukraine as prime minister, wrote. He said the world was “destined to know” that Putin was responsible.
Western analysts say the true cause of the accident may never be known, given Russia’s politicized system of investigations. Russian and pro-Kremlin state media have focused on the official investigation of the crash, speculating that the plane was destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs or foreign intelligence agents.
The pro-Kremlin tabloid newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that Prigozhin’s plane was in the open and was repaired shortly before the fatal flight. He reported that two potential buyers of Prigozhin’s plane had been on board for an hour shortly before his departure.
Russia has made little progress in the war since Wagner conquered Bakhmut in May, and recent drone attacks on the capital Moscow have made Muscovites acknowledge the war. Earlier on Saturday, Russian air defenses shot down a drone near the capital, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo and Domodyedovo airports were closed for several hours overnight.
Russia’s far-right paramilitary group Rusich, which has also been fighting in Ukraine, announced late Friday that it would withdraw its fighters from the Ukraine war, after a leading member, Yan Petrovsky, was arrested in Finland, where he could be extradited to Ukraine. to stand trial on charges of participation in a terrorist group. Rusich claimed that Russian officials had done little to help Petrovsky.
“If a country cannot protect its citizens, why should the citizens protect the country?” the group posted on Telegram.
Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia contributed to this report.
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