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Yevgeny Prigozhin is rumored dead. Prigozhin founded Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group in 2014 and defiantly called for an armed uprising this past June to oust the defense minister for mishandling the Ukraine war. Although his death has not been confirmed by Western authorities, the official Russian news agency TASS reports that the Federal Air Transport Agency is investigating the crash of an Embraer aircraft, which occurred Wednesday in the Tver region north-east of Moscow en route to St. Petersburg.
"According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin," the agency stated. "Prigozhin was listed among the passengers, according to the Federal Air Transport Agency," read a post by TASS over Telegram.
If Prigozhin is dead, many will conclude he was killed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Recall that in late June, Prigozhin led a dramatic march of thousands of Wagner fighters, which some called a "mutiny" and a "civil war." The march made it nearly to Moscow, and though it was dissipated peacefully in a day, it was a clear exercise of power and a brazen declaration of Prigozhin's criticisms of the Russian military leadership, the war in Ukraine, and by extension, Vladimir Putin himself.
White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement that U.S. officials were following the Prigozhin news. "If confirmed, no one should be surprised," Watson said. According to the White House, President Biden has also been briefed on the plane crash in Russia.
Prigozhin's apparent assassination raises several important questions. First, how will it affect Putin's control over Russia? Prigozhin was the leader of a paramilitary force with thousands of men under arms. By most accounts, he was popular among them, so it's not inconceivable that there will be reprisal attacks against the Russian government.
Yet the quickness and ease with which Putin squashed the June uprising highlighted the impotence of Wagner as a credible threat to his rule. If anything, the non-coup demonstrated that Putin remains very much in charge of his country, and the elimination of Prigozhin could help to deter wannabe political rivals—at least in the near future.
Will Prigozhin's apparent death affect the Ukraine war? Not much, if at all. Prigozhin had been sidelined from the war since his feckless uprising. Wagner troops, which were decisive in annexing Crimea in 2014 and taking Bakhmut following Russia's 2022 invasion, are no longer participating in any significant capacity. It turns out that contrary to Western hopes, the Russian military does not seem dependent on Wagner in Ukraine; Western media reports of the war have become more negative about Ukraine's fighting chances over the last couple months. It is Ukraine that appears to be suffering from a manpower deficit, leading to casualty-averse operations—much to the dismay of American war planners.
After the failed uprising in June, thousands of Wagner mercenaries reportedly re-recamped to Belarus to train its fighters. Belarus, Russia's closest ally in the Ukraine fight, has emerged as a possible tripwire in the war, partly because of tensions with Poland. The role of Wagner in Belarus now becomes even muddier and more unpredictable. Indeed, some research in political science finds that killing the leaders of militant groups tends to make them even more extreme by empowering subordinates with even less restraint.
As for how Prigozhin's death will affect Wagner's missions in other conflict zones, many observers suspected that Putin would kill Prigozhin right after his botched march towards the Kremlin in late June. When that did not immediately happen, some speculated that Wagner is perhaps too valuable in Africa and the Middle East. Wagner forces serve a variety of lucrative geopolitical functions: They guard mines in Sudan and the Central African Republic, kill jihadists in Mali, supply muscle for General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, and have had a presence in Syria since 2015, fighting alongside pro-Assad forces and guarding oilfields.
The killing of Prigozhin may reveal that snuffing out potential political rivals is more important to Putin than any geopolitical sacrifices further from home. It also undercuts a prominent argument propagated by Western war enthusiasts in June—that Putin will back down when threatened. Rather than letting Prigozhin off easy, Putin appears to have murdered him in dramatic fashion.
Max Abrahms, Ph.D., is a professor of political science at Northeastern University and author of Rules for Rebels: The Science of Victory in Militant History.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
