Nikolai Patrushev, who was called by the media one of the leading ideologues of the war against Ukraine, is probably responsible for the liquidation of the Wagner Group founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
New details of Prigozhin's murder have emerged
According to the newspaper, Patrushev warned Putin as early as the summer of 2022 that betting on Prigozhin and his mercenaries in the war with Ukraine would give them much influence and threaten the Kremlin. The President of the Russian Federation did not listen to Patrushev at first because the "Wagner Group" was successful on the battlefield.
Everything changed in October 2022 — Prigozhin called Putin and allegedly rudely complained about the shortage of ammunition, showing that he had become dangerous and no longer respected the Kremlin's authority.
After Prigozhin's mutiny, Patrushev "took leadership upon himself." He allegedly called officers who sympathized with Prigozhin and asked them to convince the head of "Wagner group" to stop the mutiny. Patrushev also looked for mediators to resolve the conflict in neighboring countries — among the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan. Oleksandr Lukashenko responded, but Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev refused, media reports.
Patrushev wanted the Kazakh army to come to his aid under the collective security agreement in the event of Prigozhin's success on his way to Moscow.
After the mutiny ended, Patrushev began developing a plan to assassinate Prigozhin. According to sources in Western special services, Putin was shown these plans and was not opposed to them.
On August 23, 2023, a bomb was planted under the wing of Prigozhin's plane with the number RA-02795 before takeoff at the Sheremetyevo airport. It exploded when the aircraft was at an altitude of 8,500 meters. Ten people on board, including Prigozhin and the co-founder of Wagner Group Dmitriy Utkin, died. The Kremlin officially denies its involvement.
The death of Prigozhin: what is known
On the evening of August 23, the Russian mass media and Rosaviatsia reported that a plane crashed in the Tver region. Among the passengers was the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin. It is reported that all ten souls on board died, including Prigozhin's right hand, Dmitriy Utkin, with the callsign "Wagner".
The plane crashed near the residence of Vladimir Putin on Valdai.
On August 29, Prigozhin's press service announced that the mercenary leader was secretly buried at the Prokhorovsk Cemetery in St. Petersburg.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov said that one of the versions of Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane crash is "deliberate theft."
The White House does not rule out that Putin may be involved in the death of Prigozhin since the Kremlin has a long history of killing opponents.
