Pro-war Russians are venting their anger over the presumed killing of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash on Wednesday, with some calling for a civil war and vowing consequences for those responsible.
Prigozhin is presumed dead after Russian authorities said he and nine others were on board a private jet that crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region, while en route to St. Petersburg from Moscow.
The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately apparent. However, many have been quick to point fingers at the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin. They said that the crash took place exactly two months after Prigozhin led a failed uprising against the Kremlin’s top brass, which posed the greatest threat to the president’s rule since he came to power in 1999.
VLADIMIR NIKOLAYEV/AFP/Getty Images
The Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported that Prigozhin was killed, but his death has not yet been officially confirmed.
“Military and conscientious citizens must take power into their own hands. Prigozhin was the only adequate person among all this s***,” one Telegram user wrote. “He managed to create a truly effective army that did an excellent job. And here is the result. He was killed by those who systematically corrupted the army, turning it into money laundering structure…”
Newsweek has not been able to verify these allegations immediately with so little known about the crash. Ukraine on Thursday denied involvement. Newsweek has reached out to Russia’s Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
One person posted that Prigozhin was “most likely was eliminated by the Kremlin,” while another wrote that “catastrophe is inevitable.”
“No one can avoid war..it is too late to pray for Russia, our path towards a chance to survive will go right through purgatory. It’s too late to whine and complain,” Telegram user Polkovnik Shuvalov commented.
One Telegram user wrote that the “assassination” of Prigozhin would have “catastrophic consequences,” adding that the people who “gave the order do not understand the mood in the army and morale at all.”
“It isn’t clear whether the Hero of Russia Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board [the plane], but if he was, then pack up your belongings, we DO NOT NEED THIS WAR,” another posted.
Wagner Group members, meanwhile, have reportedly “vowed revenge” over Prigozhin’s apparent death.
In the aftermath of the crash, the Telegram channel of the protest movement “Wagner Play” accused Putin of killing Prigozhin and vowed a second uprising against the Kremlin.
“There are rumors about the death of the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin. We directly say that we suspect the Kremlin officials led by Putin of an attempt to kill him!” the channel said in a post on Thursday evening.
“If the information about Prigozhin’s death is confirmed, we will organize a second ‘March of Justice’ on Moscow! He’d better be alive, it’s in your own interests….”
Another video circulating on Russian Telegram channels showed a group of men claiming to members of the Wagner Group.
“There’s a lot of talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do. We can tell you one thing, we are getting started, get ready for us,” the masked men said.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, reported on Wednesday that Putin “almost certainly ordered the Russian military command to shoot down Prigozhin’s plane.”
Edward Lucas is a non-resident senior fellow and senior adviser at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He told Newsweek on Thursday that the reports of Prigozhin’s death represent “the latest twist in the low-intensity Russian civil war that has been under way for months.”
Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via [email protected].