Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
In a 2018 documentary, Vladimir Putin answers instantly when asked if there is anything he cannot forgive. “Betrayal,” he says with no hesitation.
Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a probable assassination last week on board his Embraer private jet, held a similar belief. One of his fighters’ tactics to punish deserters was to tape their heads to a block of concrete and then bludgeon them to death with a sledgehammer. The hammer became their symbol.
For years, Prigozhin did the Kremlin’s dirty work and sought to spread Russian influence and sow discord among its enemies around the globe. Putin offered Prigozhin some praise after his death, calling him a “talented businessman” who had made a “significant contribution” to the war against Ukraine.
But Prigozhin’s legacy inside Russia will come down to whether the former Putin ally will bear the mark of a traitor, a word that Putin used during the Wagner uprising in June and others hinted at last week as the early eulogies poured in.
Prigozhin said that his armed mutiny was meant to save Putin from the military, who he claimed were hiding truths about the conflict and embezzling money from the war effort. But Prigozhin also clearly overstepped the line, denouncing Putin’s own invasion of Ukraine, saying on social media that “the war wasn’t for demilitarising or denazifying Ukraine. It was needed for [defence minister Sergei Shoigu to receive] an extra star.”
Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia centre, wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal that from the moment Prigozhin’s uprising was called treason, he was a marked man. “Describing Prigozhin as a traitor meant consequences were inevitable,” he said. “Otherwise, a system built on informal principles and practices rather than formal institutions risked becoming unmanageable.”
A source close to the defence ministry said that Prigozhin’s continued survival could have presented even greater dangers for the Kremlin. “They have eliminated the leader of a potential military or armed opposition in the future,” the person said, adding that it would reinforce trust within the military.
Some of Putin’s closest confidantes have offered deliberately vague assessments of his legacy.
Alexei Dyumin, a former Putin bodyguard and now a regional governor, called Prigozhin a “true patriot”.
“We mourn for all those who died in the catastrophe, for all the fighters of Wagner, who have died during the [war],” he said. “One can forgive mistakes and even cowardice, but never betrayal. They were not traitors.”
Andrei Soldatov, a journalist and expert on the Russian security services, said: “I did not believe all this language about black vengeance and treason.” He added: “If you look at the whole situation more carefully, Prigozhin didn’t betray Putin, he was not a real traitor because he didn’t go to the Ukrainians and Nato. He was not a real traitor, he was a [political] problem.”
That problem ended when Prigozhin’s plane crashed to earth on Wednesday, concluding a complex period over the last few months as he fought to shore up his operations in Africa, even as defence ministry delegations fanned out to snap up his former clients. It appeared as though he could have defied Putin and lived to tell the tale.
“I thought Prigozhin and Putin might have made a new deal and that Prigozhin might last for some time because he found some new usefulness for Putin,” said Soldatov. “But what it seems to me is that Putin was taking his time to assess the damage and assess everything.”
On Russian television last week, Prigozhin’s death was largely overshadowed by Putin’s virtual attendance of the five-nation Brics summit in South Africa and war reports from Ukraine, said Masha Borzunova, a Russian journalist specialising in state propaganda. “Russian propagandists are proving that Prigozhin’s death is beneficial to everyone except Putin,” she said. “They’re discussing every possible version, except the most obvious one.”
Besides distancing the Kremlin from Prigozhin’s death, they have also sought to smooth over the conflict between Prigozhin and Putin, and the Russian leader’s promises of swift vengeance after the mutiny.
“The fact that Prigozhin was called a ‘traitor’ after the uprising and that Putin promised him an inevitable punishment is hardly being discussed,” she said. “Mainly, they’re discussing his achievements during the war. And how his death is not favourable for the Russian government.”
The Wagner leader remains popular among a small group of nationalists and war hawks, and his charismatic use of social media also made him something of a folk hero in Russia, where he was captivating in a grotesque vein similar to Donald Trump.
But Prigozhin’s greater plan was to wait for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine to falter again, requiring him to bring his mercenaries in to save the day and possibly repair his relations with Putin. It is a strategy that still may bolster his legacy in death.
“If Ukraine starts making gains, Prigozhin’s myth will only grow,” said Marat Gelman, a Russian art collector and opposition politician who once advised Putin. “There will be powers that mystify Priogzhin’s persona and present him as a martyr. Others will create stories that he is still alive.”
What will be Prigozhin’s legacy? The Wagner chief has built one of the world’s most recognisable private military companies, pioneered the use of troll farms and convicts in the military, and showed that it was possible to briefly defy the Russian president with his armed mutiny and “march of justice” on Moscow.
Investigators say they still have not identified Prigozhin’s body but thoughts have already turned to his funeral, which observers expect to take place in St Petersburg in the coming weeks. The specifics will show more about Prigozhin’s legacy for Russia: will he be granted any state honours for his role in the war against Ukraine? And who will be there to mourn him?
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that it was “impossible to say” whether or not Putin would attend the funeral as a date has not been set yet. But he was not very encouraging. “The only thing that I can say is that the president has a fairly busy work schedule now,” he added.
