Expert warns fake Prigozhin body double may be on board crashed jet
Notorious mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a failed coup against Russian despot Vladimir Putin, has reportedly been killed in a fiery plane crash
Anyone rejoicing that Wagner Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin may have died in a fiery plane crash should hold back on the fireworks as one expert has warned it could have been a body double aboard the plane.
The notorious mercenary boss, whose gang of blood thirsty soldiers has been blamed for warcrimes from Ukraine to Mali, is 'feared' dead in a plane crash along with 10 people on board. The Russian Civil Aviation Authority tonight offically claimed Prigozhin and his right hand man Dmitry Utkin were on board the plane, while the Wagner-affiliated Grey Zone Telegram channel also said their leader's body was found in the wreckage.
This came after the 62-year-old billionaire led a coup against Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime exactly two months ago and had been warned that his life was in danger. Putin has long reacted brutally to betrayal actual or merely perceived.
But one expert has said it might not actually have been Prigozhin on board, even if it was his name on the passenger list. Keir Giles, Senior Consulting Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House, told the US Mirror to "not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa."
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Mr Giles explained: “There is one huge caveat to the early reporting. It's been announced that a passenger by the name of Yevgeniy Prigozhin was on board. But it is also known that multiple individuals have changed their name to Yevgeniy Prigozhin, as part of his efforts to obfuscate his travels.
"So until we know for certain that it's the right Prigozhin, let's not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa. Everybody who was surprised Prigozhin survived his attempt to challenge the authority of the state in Russia with an armed mutiny, and said his days were numbered, will now be saying they told us so. (Including me.)"
The jet was en route from Moscow to St Petersburg when it plummeted to the ground and exploded in a fireball in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow, more than 300 kilometers north of the capital. Ten people were on board - three of them crew members. A channel linked to Wagner said the plane had been shot down by Russian air defenses but there was no official confirmation of this.
The actual cause of the crash is unlikely to ever be known, warns Mr Giles.
He said: “We are unlikely ever to know the true cause of the crash. Whether or not this was a deliberate assassination, the crash is so politically significant that there is no chance of any investigation that will be either transparent or reliable. If this was a deliberate assassination of Prigozhin, there would have been multiple factors that influenced the choice of timing.
"But it can't have hurt that today, this will serve as just the distraction Russia's state media needs from the country's humiliation by India landing on the Moon where Russia failed spectacularly to do so a few days before.”"