“Putin never forgets”, said British-American businessman Bill Browder, “Prigozhin made Putin look weak and for Putin, that’s the ultimate sin.”
LONDON
“Does one need to be able to forgive?”, an interviewer asked President Vladimir Putin back in March 2018. “Yes, but not everything”, came the reply. “What cannot be forgiven?”. “Betrayal”, said Putin with a chilling smile.
Days later, two officers from Russia’s military intelligence, the GRU, were spotted on CCTV in Salisbury, UK, walking in the direction of the home of Sergei Skripal, himself a former GRU officer. Skripal arrived in the United Kingdom in 2010 as part of a spy swap and the Kremlin had later accused him of betrayal—selling secrets to Britain’s MI6. The two officers, later identified by the investigative website Bellingcat as Colonel AnatoliyChepiga and Dr Alexander Mishkin, smeared a deadly Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok, on the door handle of Skripal’s Salisbury house, confident that it would kill him without a trace. It was only because of the quick action of Salisbury’s police and the local laboratory at Portland Down, which specialises in countermeasures to chemical and biological warfare, that Skripal luckily survived the Kremlin’s attempt to murder him.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was not so fortunate. Ten days ago, the 62-year-old head of the paramilitary Wagner Group was travelling with two top lieutenants and four bodyguards in a private jet—a Brazilian-made Embraer LEGACY 600 known for its excellent safety record—when it exploded and fell from the sky 300 kilometres from Moscow. Locals on the ground confirmed that they heard a loud explosion before the jet descended, suggesting that a bomb had been placed on board. Suspicions were heightened last Wednesday when Russia’s aviation authority told Brazil’s aircraft investigation authority that it would not be invited to take part in probing the accident, which is most unusual as aircraft manufacturers need to learn from accidents involving their planes. The Kremlin denies any involvement, but critics argue that by denying Embraer access to the wreckage it’s a sure certainty that Russia’s investigators will conclude that the aircraft was at fault and there was no evidence of sabotage.
This incident happened exactly two months after Vladimir Putin’s long-time associate launched his failed rebellion against the Russian state, an event that the Russian leader called a “betrayal”, “treason” and “a stab in the back”. From that moment on, Prigozhin’s fate was sealed. “Putin never forgets”, said Bill Browder, a British-American businessman who was once among the biggest foreign investors in Russia before becoming a fierce critic. “Prigozhin made Putin look weak and for Putin, that’s the ultimate sin”, Browder continued.
To widespread surprise, the biggest and most humiliating challenge to Putin’s twenty-three years in power ended with a deal under which Prigozhin and his mercenaries were allowed to travel to exile in neighbouring Belarus. Prigozhin had even been invited to a three-hour audience in the Kremlin at the end of June and later to a huge Africa summit in St Petersburg. But “Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold”, said CIA director Bill Burns at the annual security forum in Aspen in July. Burns knew it was only a matter of time before Putin ensured that Prigozhin would meet his maker.
Prigozhin’s critics will be gratified that the Wagner leader died in the air explosion. While en route to Moscow during the rebellion, Wagner troops shot down five Russian helicopters and a valuable Ilyushin aerial command plane, one that was used for coordinating Russia’s air war over Ukraine. Reportedly, 13 crew died in the shoot-downs. “Pay-back”, Prigozhin’s critics will claim.
Many believe that Vladimir Putin runs Russia like the godfather of a crime family, littering the landscape with violent deaths, mystery illnesses, and dubious suicides. The list is long. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who defected with his family to the UK in 2000, died six years later after drinking tea poisoned with a radioactive substance called polonium delivered by a former colleague, Andrei Lugavoy. Lugavoy was later honoured by Putin with the medal “for services to the Fatherland” second degree and became a deputy of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. One of Putin’s most vocal critics, Alexei Navalny, is now in prison, having earlier nearly died after being poisoned by the same nerve agent used against Sergei Skripal. He only survived by being rushed to the German capital of Berlin, where he spent five months recovering from the poisoning. Pavel Antov, a Russian tycoon who criticised Putin following a missile attack on Kyiv at the start of the war in Ukraine, died after falling from a high-rise hotel window last December. Lukoil chairman, RavilMaganov, who had also been openly critical of Putin shortly after the war began, also died after falling out of a window of a Moscow hospital. Mikhail Lesin, founder of Russia Today, now called RT, was found bludgeoned to death. Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy Prime Minister of Russia under Boris Yeltsin who went on to become a big critic of Putin—accusing him of being in the pay of oligarchs—was shot four times in the back just yards from the Kremlin as he walked home from a restaurant in 2015. Just a few from a long list of those whom Putin considered his enemy.
While no one was surprised when Prigozhin met his death, the former Wagner leader remains popular among Russia’s nationalists and war hawks. His charismatic use of social media has made him something of a folk hero in Russia, where he was captivating audiences, in a grotesque vein, similar to Donald Trump. Prigozhin’s greater plan, had he survived, was to wait for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine to falter again, requiring him to bring his mercenaries in to save the day and possibly repair his relations with Putin. The Russian president clearly had other ideas, but Prigozhin’s strategy might still bolster his legacy in death.
What is this legacy? Few would disagree that Prigozhin had built one of the world’s most recognisable private military companies. He also pioneered the use of Russia’s troll farms, which many believe were used so effectively in bringing Donald Trump to power, and had shown that it was possible to defy, albeit briefly, the Russian president. “If Ukraine starts making gains, the Prigozhin myth will only grow”, Marat Gelman, a former Russian politician who once advised Putin told The Guardian. “There will be powers that mystify Prigozhin’s persona and present him as a martyr”.
British expert and commentator on Russia, Professor Mark Galeotti, told the Spectator last week that he believes that Russian elites are likely to see Prigozhin’s death as evidence not that Putin is strong, but that he is increasingly and murderously erratic. “That he flip-flopped so quickly from lambasting Prigozhin as a traitor to inviting him to his recent Africa summit to murdering him will do nothing to calm nerves about Putin’s state of mind and grip on the system”, he added. Galeotti believes that Putin’s greatest threats are likely to come not from the streets, let alone the remnants of the liberal opposition, but from “a pragmatic elite that is constantly weighing up the dangers of living under him against those of not doing so”. He also considers that “the so-called turbo-patriots who think Putin’s regime is too incompetent to win the war with Ukraine also pose a threat”.
Could Prigozhin’s death backfire? It’s certainly true that if it was a deliberate assassination, the message will be clear to all Russian elites that no matter how powerful they think they are, if they oppose Putin they will meet a similar fate. It’s also true that Prigozhin’s death and funeral will help Russia’s state media distract attention from a period of bad news. The optics of Putin’s remote attendance at the BRICS summit were embarrassing and the country had been humiliated in space after Russia’s attempt to land on the moon failed so spectacularly, whilst India’s was so successful.
It remains to be seen if Prigozhin’s supporters accept their leader’s death as an “accident” or seek retribution. Some Russian bloggers are already decrying what they call “Putin’s treason” in not keeping his word to Prigozhin. “The murder of Prigozhin will have catastrophic consequences, as those who gave the order to kill him do not understand the mood in the army and morale at all”, warned the pro-Prigozhin Telegram channel “Grey Zone”, last week. This is in line with Galeotti’s conclusion that the ultra-nationalists are furious, some already vowing revenge for the death of a man who, in their eyes, would do whatever it took to win the war. However, “the wider elite are much more circumspect”, he claims, “but they may well be getting closer to the point at which they consider themselves hostages rather than his supporters”.
If this level of discontent amongst the elite continues, Vladimir Putin could himself become a victim. He is well advised, therefore, not to sack his food taster, grab hold of a door handle, or walk past an open window of a high-rise apartment.