The escalation in Russia’s war against Ukraine has featured a remarkable cast of characters since February 2022. Between Zelensky’s heroism, Putin’s civilizational delusions of grandeur, the incompetence of Shoigu and Putin’s other lackeys in the Russian Ministry of Defence, the rank jingoism of Dmitry Medvedev (in contrast to his previous image in the West as a “moderate” within Putin’s regime,) Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the strangest of those characters. In life, and now in death, Yevgeny Prigozhin was just plain weird.
Oh, how satisfying it is to write “was,” in regards to Prigozhin.
While the exact cause of the downing of Prigozhin’s jet is, as of writing, not exactly known (British officials have implicated Russia’s internal intelligence and security services, the FSB, and American officials say that the jet was more likely bombed or sabotaged rather than shot down) Prigozhin’s termination is far more theatrical than the nerve agent poisonings of the Skripals and Alexei Navalny, the usage of a TCDD on former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, or the death-by-polonium assassination of Aleksandr Litvinenko. As was said to the Financial Times by ex-Kremlin staff, bringing down a whole plane is a new and remarkable item on the menu of options. Bringing on Prigozhin’s downfall was a deliberate choice to send a – literally – explosive message to other Russian oligarchs. No matter how much money or how many loyal men you got, Putin can and will make you pay for crossing him and the regime.
Prigozhin’s story, which I will only quickly summarize due to the sheer volume of content about the deceased, was remarkable. Born in 1961 in St. Petersburg and jailed in 1979, Prigozhin was released from prison in 1990 and quickly made the most of perestroika by selling hot dogs. His hot dog stand eventually turned into a restaurant and catering empire that made him extremely wealthy, wealth Prigozhin put to good use by creating the Wagner Group in 2014 to assist Russian aggression in Ukraine. He also had, uh, peculiar sexual proclivities. A rags-to-riches icon, Prigozhin shows that one day, with the right ethic, any humble hot dog salesman can work their way into becoming a mass-murdering warlord.
In fairness to the deceased, who I’ll resume trashing momentarily, Prigozhin’s real achievement was showcasing the extent of the Russian state’s necrosis. Indeed, Prigozhin’s fate was sealed once the Wagner Group ended their mutiny on June 24th, almost two months exactly before his death. But that revolt, and the way it ended, was bizarre, through and through, much like Prigozhin the man. After unverified claims of the Russian military bombing Wagner units, Prigozhin ordered Wagner to rise up in the name of removing Shoigu and the rest of Russian defence leadership while insisting upon their loyalty towards Putin. This sentiment is strange, as had Wagner accomplished their stated goal in the rebellion, they would have rendered Putin a symbolic figurehead, a man who is technically in charge but is unable to appoint his own cabinet. Nevertheless, Wagner swiftly captured two Russian cities of a million each without a fight, killed Russian soldiers amid the military’s mad scramble to respond, and seemed well on their way to arriving in Moscow before suddenly stopping and turning around.
The Wagner convoy en route to Moscow contrasts with the image of the Kyiv-bound Russian convoy in March 2022 that never arrived. That was a convoy that had a clear destination and purpose, but was unable to advance on the Ukrainian capital thanks to Ukrainian resilience and Russian incompetence, whereas the Wagner convoy made a deliberate choice to not advance on the Kremlin. Putin’s speech was that of a tantrum rather than of leaderly defiance, and the response by the Russian military was weak and chaotic. While Wagner’s revolt ended inconclusively, it was a complete humiliation for Russia and for Putin, and a humiliation of Putin’s own making. While Russia has descended into a form of totalitarianism-lite over the past two years, Putin diluted his regime’s monopoly on violence, giving the once-nascent Wagner Group access to a pool of tens of thousands of Russian manpower so as to use them as shock troops on the frontlines with Ukraine. The end result? The bloating of Wagner into a militia of, at their peak, 50,000 men with arms and resources normally reserved for the Russian military. And when the regime tried to re-subordinate the Wagner Group, Wagner flexed their muscle and showed just how fragile the Russian state really is.
At any rate, Prigozhin should not be lionized. The New York Post, asininely, called Prigozhin a “Russian dissident” when they reported that his plane had crashed, thus insulting all democratic Russian dissidents in the process. Prigozhin and Wagner may have taken on the Putin regime – all while making the puzzling assertion that the Wagner revolt was about removing Shoigu and co., rather than Putin, thus reducing Putin to a mere figurehead of the Russian Federation – he and Wagner still barbarously fought against Ukrainians, and had their coup attempt succeeded, would have kept the war going and possibly would have expanded it. As aforementioned, Wagner was initially founded by Prigozhin to support Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2014, and has served Russian interests loyally and brutally since, including in Syria and throughout Africa. Much like Putin and his cronies, Prigozhin was a war criminal who deserved to be brought to justice accordingly. It is only tragic that Putin got to him first before the Ukrainians.
Now that Prigozhin,along with other members of Wagner’s leadership, are gone, what is next? I won’t speculate much on what his death means for the war, much for the same reason that I have tried to avoid play-by-play commentary on military affairs on the Murex; war is chaotic, and the fog of war makes good faith commentary difficult, especially when you are not an expert. I have no idea if Prigozhin’s death means that Wagner will be assimilated into the Russian military-proper, or if his death will prompt another uprising by the group, or whatever possible outcome could come from this. Only time will tell on those fronts.
However, I am deeply interested in discussing two things that could follow from Prigozhin’s death. First, without Prigozhin and company, Russia's influence in Syria and Africa may change. The Wagner Group has acted as much of the Russian muscle on the ground in places like Mali and the Central African Republic. If the Wagner Group simply crumbles without its leadership intact, that could threaten Russian interests in those areas. By contrast, if Russia has made progress in supplanting Wagner with people more amenable to the Kremlin, or if Wagner is simply absorbed into the Russian state apparatus, nothing may immediately change.
And second, while Wagner leadership has been beheaded and the Wagner Group potentially rendered into a non-threat to the Kremlin, the circumstances that led to the Wagner rebellion are still present within the Russian state. Putin diluted the state monopoly on violence by empowering people like Kadyrov from Chechnya, along with allowing other oligarchs to carve a piece of the pie that is military in Russia. While Wagner happened to be strong enough to mount some kind of viable rebellion against the Kremlin at the moment of June 2023, another rebellion by someone else is still conceivable in the future. Putin bringing down Prigozhin’s jet is a sign of strength in a way, but it is incredibly indicative of weakness that the regime felt compelled to take down a Russian plane over Russian territory. Putin’s Russia is kleptocracy and autocracy taken to its logical extremes. It has and will continue to feel the subsequent consequences.