Prigozhin's Chances of Being Assassinated in Belarus

Russians whom Vladimir Putin had previously called "traitors" have suffered a worse fate than Yevgeny Prigozhin, who got the same epithet but has managed to go unpunished.

But it is uncertain whether the Wagner Group founder will remain unscathed having been reportedly exiled to Belarus following his mutiny against Russia's military leadership.

Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko died in 2006 after he was poisoned in London with polonium-210. Former military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal survived a poisoning attempt using the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England in 2018. Both were denounced by Putin and in both cases, the Kremlin denied responsibility.

But Prigozhin's destiny was raised by Ukraine's head of defense intelligence, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, when he said Kyiv knew both about the mutiny plans and an ongoing plot by Russia's intelligence agency the FSB to assassinate him.

"In Putin's vocabulary, treason is a crime punishable by death," said Yuri Felshtinsky, a Russian security services expert and author of Blowing Up Russia, which he co-wrote with Litvinenko about Putin's rise to power. "For him to say that means that he is going to kill him."

Felshtinsky told Newsweek. "If Prigozhin is killed tomorrow, no one is going to be surprised."

However, he said Prigozhin's rise from being a prisoner to having the ear of Putin and reportedly garnering billions of dollars of contracts, suggested that he may have been recruited by the FSB a long time ago.

Felshtinsky said it was significant that the negotiations ending the mutiny involving Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, also reportedly included former FSB director, Nicolai Patrushev, who now heads the Russian Security Council.

"One conclusion is that this might have been an FSB attempt to replace Putin," he said, given that Prigozhin would have required powerful protectors to march on Moscow.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Wagner would remain in Africa, where it has a foothold to give the Kremlin access to valuable minerals and resources.

"Africa is going to be dangerous for him," said Felshtinsky. "Let's say Prigozhin is killed tomorrow whatever by sniper, his plane is shot down, or poisoning, they (Russia) will say it was done by Ukraine."

"Probably many people would think that it was done by Putin but no one is going to cry over [Prigozhin's] death because he he was irritating many people in Russia," added Felshtinsky, whose latest book is called Blowing up Ukraine: The Return of Russian Terror."

Prigozhin and Wagner fighters are reportedly planning to settle in Belarus following the deal involving Lukashenko. The Belarusian opposition in exile previously told Newsweek that Prigozhin would not be safe in Belarus, given it is under Putin's control, which means that if the Russian leader gave the order for him to be killed, "it will happen."

However, the nature of the deal to end the mutiny could offer some protection for Prigozhin, at least in Belarus, according to Ilya Ponomarev, a Russian deputy until 2016, who was the only lawmaker to oppose the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

"I don't believe that such [assasination] attempts will be made while Prigozhin is in Belarus because there were public guarantees on behalf of both Putin and Lukashenko," he told Newsweek.

"That's against the rules. They are mafia people, so for them to violate their own public promise, I don't think it's possible. I think that while in Belarus, the guy is absolutely safe," he told Newsweek.

"But when the guy goes to Africa, or some other places, anything may happen," he said.

Based in Ukraine, Ponomarev, is an organizer of the First Congress of People's Deputies of Russia, which is plotting from abroad what it hopes will be a transition to democracy from Putin's rule.

"If he is going to Africa, he is going to support one of the armed groups there," he said, and if something were to happen to him, the Russians and Belarusians would say, "it's not our fault— it just happened for internal African reasons."

When viewing the rebellion on June 24, Ponomarev said he was "outright jealous because he was doing exactly what I thought needed to be done."

"What is really positive for us is that Prigozhin provided us with a proof of concept," said Ponomarev who advocates armed opposition as the key to ending Putin's rule and has written a book, Does Putin Have to Die?: The Story of How Russia Becomes a Democracy after Losing to Ukraine.

He said that the claims by Ukrainian intelligence about an FSB assassination plot against Prigozhin were natural.

"Obviously Ukraine is trying to fuel all the contradictions between all the actors on the Russian side and there are always these leaks and rumors," Ponomarev said.