The plane crash on Wednesday, in which Russian mercenary chief and his top officers are presumed dead, has left us with more questions than answers.
So far, the Wagner chief, who had staged a short-lived coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin, is presumed dead in the crash.
The crash itself is being widely seen as an assassination, since it comes just two months after the mutiny that dented Putin’s authority.
Moreover, such assassinations of Putin’s critics are not uncommon in Russia.
But the sheer mystery surrounding the jet crash, which took place north of Moscow on Wednesday, has sparked several rumours.
First, here’s what happened exactly
Prigozhin and six top lieutenants were listed as passengers on a business jet that crashed Wednesday, soon after taking off from Moscow.
The jet also had a crew of three.
Rescuers quickly found all 10 bodies, and Russian media cited sources in Prigozhin’s Wagner company who confirmed his death.
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Police cordoned off the field where the plane crashed as investigators studied the site. Vehicles were seen driving in to take the bodies, reportedly badly charred, for a forensic exam.
Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone showed a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting wildly as it fell.
Tracking data available for the crashed plane appears to show it rise to around 29,000ft, before suddenly disappearing and dropping to 0ft.
Such freefalls can occur when an aircraft sustains severe damage, and a frame-by-frame AP analysis of two videos was consistent with some sort of explosion mid-flight. The images appeared to show the plane was missing a wing.
Was Prigozhin really in the plane?
Russian authorities have said that the Wagner boss boarded the flight, though there has been no absolute confirmation of his death.
Yet, frenzied speculation also suggests Prigozhin may have faked his own death after a second aircraft, with links to Wagner, was seen on flight radar zigzagging over the same Tzer region, 60 miles north of the capital.
Soon after the plane crashed, the second plane turned back to Moscow, flight tracking data showed, and later landed.
In case this is true, it won’t be the first time Prigozhin had succeeded in disappearing: he was officially declared dead in Africa in 2019, before re-emerging before Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Moreover, sources close to him said that while the aircraft belonged to him, he usually flew on another plane.
Keir Giles, from the London-based think tank Chatham House, warned that even though a passenger by the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board – it is also known that multiple individuals have changed their name to Yevgeny Prigozhin, as part of his efforts to obfuscate his travels, Daily Mail reported.
Bombs smuggled in fine wine crate?
Meanwhile, Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately downed, including suggesting it could have been hit by an air defence missile or targeted by a bomb on board.
Russian social media channels are also awash with speculation that a case of fine wine onboard may in fact have been a bomb in disguise.
Security sources said they expect the Kremlin to attribute the crash to a bomb placed on board the aircraft by Ukrainian special agents.
However, it is considered far more likely that Prigozhin’s jet was targeted by the Russian government, either by using a surface-to-air missile or planting a bomb onboard.
‘Putin never forgives’
While the news of the jet crash has raised some concerns, not everyone is surprised that it actually happened.
Numerous opponents and critics of Putin have been killed or gravely sickened in apparent assassination attempts.
Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speech writer turned critic whom the Russian authorities have branded a “foreign agent”, suggested the Russian leader, who is expected to run for another term in office next year, was behind the crash and had strengthened his authority in the process.
“The establishment is now convinced that it will not be possible to oppose Putin,” Gallyamov wrote on Telegram. “Putin is strong enough and capable of revenge.”
Bill Browder, a businessman with years of experience in Russia and another Kremlin critic, agreed.
“Putin never forgives and never forgets. He looked like a humiliated weakling with Prigozhin running around without a care in the world (after the mutiny). This will cement his authority,” Browder wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said on Telegram that “no matter what caused the plane crash, everyone will see it as an act of vengeance and retribution” by the Kremlin, and “the Kremlin wouldn’t really stand in the way of that.”
Stanovaya said that Prigozhin was needed for some time after the mutiny to painlessly complete the dismantling of Wagner in Russia, but was never forgiven by Putin.
Reacting to reports of the plane crash, US President Joe Biden also said that he is “not surprised”.
“I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised,” Biden said.
A rare mutiny
Prigozhin, 62, spearheaded the mutiny against Russia’s top army brass on June 23-24 which Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war.
Wagner fighters shot down Russian attack helicopters during the revolt, killing an unconfirmed number of pilots, infuriating the military.
He has also spent months criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine, something Moscow calls a “special military operation”, and had tried to topple defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff.
Many Russians had wondered how he was able to get away with such brazen criticism without consequence.
The mutiny was ended by an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But in practice he had appeared to move freely inside Russia after the agreement which had reportedly guaranteed his personal safety.
(With inputs from agencies)Watch Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin who rebelled against Russian President Putin presumed dead in a Moscow plane crash