If Prigozhin Is Gone, Long Live Putin — and Wagner?
Much remains unknown about the presumed death of Russia’s most notorious mercenary boss. But it’s not too early to ask what Russians and the world should think.
Before the fall.
Photographer: Photo by Wagner Account/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Yevgeny Prigozhin might have retired in peace some day. Or he could have been found writhing in the throes of Novichok, a nerve agent favored by Russia’s spy agencies. He might also have fallen out of a window, crashed in his car, or slipped in his bathroom — like so many Russians lately, and like any of us potentially.
As it happens, Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner Group, a notorious Russian private army, appears to have died when a private plane crashed while flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing him and the three pilots and six other passengers said to be on board.