Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed his “condolences” over the crash of the plane believed to have killed Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“First of all, I would like to extend words of sincere condolences to the families of all the victims,” ​​Putin said, describing Prigozhin as a man who made serious “mistakes” but “achieved results.””. This was the first time that the Russian president spoke about the accident, in connection with which many suspicions have fallen on the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself.

When Vladimir Putin was asked in a 2018 documentary if he could forgive people’s mistakes, he thought for a split second. “Yes,” replied the Russian president. “But not everything.”

“What is it that you cannot possibly forgive?” asked journalist Andrei Kondrashov during one of the interviews for his two-hour film about the Russian leader. “Treason,” replied the former KGB officer.

When his longtime associate, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launched his failed uprising against the Russian state in June this year, many observers predicted that Wagner’s mercenary would be immediately arrested, disappeared or eliminated.

To his surprise, the biggest and most humiliating challenge to Putin’s 24 years in power ended with an agreement allowing Prigozhin and his mercenaries to travel into exile in neighboring Belarus.

But the man who became known as ‘Putin’s chef’ never seemed to have sought refuge abroad, and was even invited to a three-hour audience at the Kremlin in late June and to a major summit on Africa in St. Petersburg, in July. .

On Wednesday, exactly two months after his mutiny, 62-year-old Prigozhin was said to have died in a plane crash 300 kilometers from Moscow. to other potential challengers to his power.

“Putin is someone who generally thinks revenge is a dish best served cold,” CIA Director Bill Burns said at an annual security forum in Aspen last month. “In my experience, Putin is the ultimate apostle of vengeance.”

“Never forget”

The crash of Prigozhin’s private jet on Wednesday remains shrouded in mystery and there are many possible explanations.

Was it a simple accident caused by a mechanical failure? Was it part of a conspiracy by Prigozhin to fake his own death and escape Putin’s revenge? Was it an intentional assassination, but carried out by a branch of the Russian security forces without the knowledge of the president?

Prigozhin had many internal enemies, including Russian army chief Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, while Ukraine would also have every reason to try to kill him.

But many observers say the pattern of suspicious deaths involving Putin critics and the past actions of Russian security forces lend weight to the theory that Prigozhin’s fiery end won the Kremlin’s approval.

“Putin never forgives and never forgets,” said Bill Browder, an Anglo-American businessman who was once one of Russia’s largest foreign investors before becoming an outspoken critic of Putin.

“Prigozhin made Putin look weak and for Putin that is the greatest sin,” he told AFP. “Putin could only stay in power because he managed to intimidate everyone, subject them to fear and submission. And that depends entirely on whether he is seen as a ruthless dictator.”

Speaking to AFP on Thursday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna stressed the “particularly high death rate among Putin’s opponents”.

A long list of punished opponents

The most famous cases that built the reputation of the Russian leader – and gave rise to books with titles such as ‘Killer in the Kremlin’ – involved Putin’s former colleagues in the security forces.

A British public inquiry concluded that he “probably” ordered the 2006 murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with a radioactive substance while drinking tea in a London hotel bar.

In 2018, Britain again blamed Russia for attempting to assassinate Sergei Skripal, a Russian military intelligence defector who narrowly escaped death after assassins injected a Soviet-era nerve agent called Novichok into his home.

Notorious massacres of Kremlin critics include the 2006 shooting on Putin’s birthday of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, author of a book about the president.

And in 2015, the main opposition figure, Boris Nemtsov, was shot dead a few meters from the Kremlin.

Many others have died under mysterious or unexplained circumstances, including exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who was found unconscious in the bathroom of his home in England in 2013 under circumstances that have never been fully explained.

In 2020, Putin’s most prominent contemporary opponent, Alexei Navalny, only survived an attack with the substance Novilchok after being transported to Germany for medical treatment, but was arrested on his return home and continues to be held with successive sentence increases.

The crackdown on opponents of the regime has intensified since last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, with a spate of alleged suicides and premature deaths among leading businessmen leading to speculation of a purge of war skeptics among Moscow’s elite.

Among them is Ravil Maganov, chairman of the anti-war oil giant Lukoil, who was killed in September from a sixth-floor window – a fate suffered by other whistleblowers, exiles and opponents of Putin over the years.

“Putin likes to kill his opponents and publicly deny this so he can say, ‘We are investigating this,’” Browder added. “But unofficially, he can look anyone in the eye and say, ‘This is what happens to traitors.'”