A video showing Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s thoughts on death has been shared on a Telegram channel linked to the mercenary group, just hours after its chief and co-founder were feared to have died in a plane crash.
Prigozhin, a former prison convict and one of Vladimir Putin’s closest associates until he launched a failed military coup in June, is believed to have died in the plane crash between Moscow and St Petersburg.
The Grey Zone Telegram channel, which provides both official and unofficial updates on Wagner activities, hailed Prigozhin as a hero and a patriot who died at the hands of unidentified “traitors to Russia” earlier on Wednesday.
And it later shared an undated video showing the Wagner chief’s remarks on death.
“‘We will all go to hell, but we will be the best in hell,’ sums up Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the channel said in a post citing excerpts from an old interview.
Prigozhin can be seen laughing in the video while seated inside a low-lit makeshift tent and talking to some people. The time and location of the video is not known.
The Telegram channel Gray Zone also published remarks on death by the Wagner chief’s close associate and co-founder Dmitry Utkin, who is heard but not seen in the video.
Utkin, the co-founder of the Wagner group, is also said to be among the victims of the plane crash.
“Death is not the end, it’s just the beginning of something else,” the channel quoted Utkin as saying.
Almost two months after the military coup staged by Prigozhin near Moscow, Russian authorities on Wednesday evening claimed he and Utkin were among 10 people onboard a plane which crashed in the Tver oblast north of Moscow with no survivors.
Prigozhin’s death leaves the Wagner Group leaderless and raise questions about its future operations in Africa and elsewhere.
No official comment has been released from the Kremlin or the Russian defence ministry on the whereabouts of Prigozhin, who was a self-declared enemy of the army’s leadership over what he had argued was its incompetent execution of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Prigozhin’s mercenary fighters waged a brutal battle – dubbed the “meat grinder” – in Bakhmut last year in winter, where they eventually handed Moscow its biggest territorial gain in many months.
But a few months later, Prigozhin accused Mr Putin’s defence ministry of starving him of ammunition and supplies.
He spent months criticising the way Russia was handling its Ukraine invasion, and had tried unsuccessfully to topple defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff.
The 62-year-old, who said he should be called “Putin’s butcher”, spearheaded the mutiny against Russia’s top army brass which Mr Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war. Wagner fighters shot down Russian attack helicopters during the revolt, killing an unconfirmed number of pilots and infuriating the military.
The mutiny ended in just 24 hours as Prigozhin ordered his soldiers to return to their bases, but the incident was described as “treason” in a public address by Mr Putin. He later said that he had pardoned Prigozhin following talks over tea in Moscow.
