On the night of June 23 to 24, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, challenged Vladimir Putin by sending his troops to Moscow. However, the uprising was short-lived. Over the course of Saturday, the troops paused and abandoned their positions in several Russian cities.
From that evening on, many observers agreed: the life of the head of the Wagner group was threatened. And they were right. Exactly two months after the failed uprising, on August 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private jet Embraer Legacy crashed in the Tver region, about 180 kilometers northwest of Moscow. His right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, and other officials of the paramilitary group also died.
What really happened that day? At the time, Vladimir Putin assured that he would conduct an investigation “that will take some time.” However, the international community doubted the Kremlin leader’s innocence. For example, Joe Biden said that “little happens in Russia without Putin having something to do with it.”
On Friday, “The Wall Street Journal” published an article that should confirm the Kremlin’s involvement in the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Citing Western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer as sources, “The Wall Street Journal” writes:
An overview.
Patrushev – the man in the background
The report mentions one man in particular: Nikolai Patrushev. The engineer, born in Leningrad in 1951, a graduate of the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute and former deputy director of the secret service FSB (successor to the KGB), is now secretary of the Russian Security Council.
Patrushev is also considered one of Vladimir Putin’s most important advisors. The two share a long history together. Putin and Patrushev have known each other for decades and appreciate each other. For example, it was Putin who recommended Patrushev as his successor as head of the FSB in 1999. And in this role, Patrushev also supported his colleague when he became the boss of the Kremlin.
In 2008, Putin appointed Patrushev as secretary of the Russian Security Council. In reality, its influence may be even greater. “The Wall Street Journal” writes that Patrushev is the “de facto head” of Putin’s security services and now “the second most powerful person in Russia.”
The relationship with Prigozhin
Yevgeny Prigozhin was targeted by Nikolai Patrushev long before the failed uprising in June 2023. Because when Vladimir Putin used the Wagner Group to support Russia in the war against Ukraine, “Patryshev quickly became alarmed by Prigozhin’s meteoric rise,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Although Prigozhin ensured Russian success in Ukraine, he also gained increasing influence. “Everyone told Putin it was a mistake to have a parallel army,” a former Kremlin official told the Wall Street Journal. This additional power also threatened to pose a threat to Putin. And Patrushev was also not happy with Prigozhin’s increasingly frequent criticism of Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Patrushev warned Vladimir Putin about the Wagner boss as early as the summer of 2022. These warnings initially fell on deaf ears for the Russian president, as the military advance of the Wagner group in Ukraine played into Prigozhin’s hands.
However, a few months later the situation would change. In the fall of 2022, Prigozhin began to openly complain about the lack of equipment on site. According to a former Russian intelligence officer quoted in the Wall Street Journal, he even reprimanded Vladimir Putin directly over the phone in October. An attitude that was seen as ‘disrespectful to the master of the Kremlin’.
From then on, the situation deteriorated: initially the relationship between Putin and Prigozhin cooled, then the situation continued to deteriorate, leading up to the events of June this year. And according to the Wall Street Journal, it was Patrushev, not Putin, who opposed Prigozhin’s plan on the day of the uprising. According to assessments of the Western secret services and the former Russian intelligence officer, it was he who finally managed to convince Prigozhin to resign and move to Belarus.
August 23
In the weeks after the failed uprising, the world didn’t really know what happened to Yevgeny Prigozhin. As a reminder, an agreement – the details of which are unknown – was concluded with the Russian regime through the Belarusian head of state Alexander Lukashenko.
Later it became known that Prigozhin would have traveled to Africa – the Wagner group is present there – and that he continued to work in Russia, especially in St. Petersburg.
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former CIA station chief, reports in the Wall Street Journal:
The American explains that Vladimir Putin had a clear plan: “keep the dead man alive” so that he could find out what really happened in June – that is, how exactly the uprising could have happened.
But Patrushev was not satisfied with this. According to the former Russian intelligence officer, in early August, in his office in central Moscow, he ordered his aide to continue planning an operation to eliminate Prigozhin. Patrushev then showed these plans to Putin, who reportedly “did not object.”
And so on that Wednesday, August 23, the eventual victim and nine other passengers waited aboard the private jet while a final security check was conducted. No one notices the small explosive placed under the plane’s wing.
Soource :Watson
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
