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The Wagner Group established an emergency plan that would be activated in the event its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, met an untimely death, reports claim.
Readovka, a pro-Kremlin publication associated with the Wagner Group, reported on Wednesday that the paramilitary group, which for months played a crucial role in Russia's war in Ukraine, had planned for "full mobilization" should Prigozhin or Dmitry Utkin—Prigozhin's right-hand man who helped establish the group in 2014—die, regardless of who was responsible.
And the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, which has close ties to Russian security forces, cited an unnamed source as suggesting that Prigozhin was keeping sensitive information, also known as kompromat, on Putin and his regime, which may now become public as part of a dead man's switch contingency plan, activating after his death.
On Wednesday evening, a private jet belonging to Prigozhin, which had been traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region, killing all 10 people on board, Russian authorities said.
The cause of the crash wasn't immediately clear, although some reports suggest the jet was downed by Russian air defenses. Ukraine has denied responsibility.
The news came exactly two months after Prigozhin led some members of the Wagner Group failed uprising against the Kremlin's top brass, calling out the military leadership for incompetence in Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
The 10 people on board the plane included seven passengers and three crew members. Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency published a list of names, which included Prigozhin, fellow Wagner Group founder Utkin, a manager of Prigozhin's catering company Valery Chekalov, Sergey Propustin, who joined Wagner in March 2015, Yevgeny Makaryan, who joined Wagner in 2016, Alexander Totmin, and Nikolay Matuseev.
The Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported that Prigozhin was killed, but his death hasn't yet been officially confirmed.
The Kremlin hasn't commented on the reports of Prigozhin's death. Newsweek has reached out to Russia's foreign and defense ministries via email for comment.
"PMC Wagner has a long-established approved mechanism of action in the event of the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin or Dmitry Utkin," an unnamed Readovka source said.
The news outlet reported that the Wagner Group had a "clear mechanism of action" in the event of Prigozhin's death, given that his life was constantly under threat.
The source declined to elaborate on what the contingency plan would entail.
Newsweek couldn't independently verify the reports.
Vladislav Davidzon, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, said Prigozhin's apparent killing will send an "unmistakable message" to the Russian army and general population.
"If you come for the king, do not miss (and even if you make a deal do not expect to survive the next six months)," he said.
"In the long term, the apparent killing will likely make morale among the leftover Wagner men even worse and will likely mean that the mercenary organization has no future outside of the direct command of the Russian Defense Ministry. None of this makes the cohesion of the Russian state look particularly great, however."
Update 08/25/23, 9:50 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more