Extract from ABC News
A mafia-style hit orchestrated by Vladimir Putin or an accident? And if it was deliberate, was it done by Russia or Ukraine?
When news broke that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane had crashed, several questions jumped out.
The first for many people was the obvious one, given Putin's record with his enemies: Was this an assassination of Prigozhin, who had humiliated Putin?
Two months ago Prighozin had launched one of the strongest attacks ever on the Russian president, saying that the basis on which Putin justified his war against Ukraine was a lie. In that attack, Prigozhin said NATO was not a threat to Russia and that the argument that Ukraine was run by Nazis was also a lie.
Very few people humiliate Putin and go on to live happy and fruitful lives.
But if Putin is ultimately behind the crash he is unlikely to have left any fingerprints. This is a man who rose to the top of Russia's feared spy agency, the KGB, and learnt the finest of their tradecraft which is famously ruthless and effective.
All sorts of theories about the crash quickly emerged, but it's worth looking at what we know and what we don't.
What we know
We know that the names of the two most senior people in the Wagner mercenary army were on the log of the plane that crashed: Wagner chief Yevgeny Prighozin and Wagner founder Dimitry Utkin.
The plane was flying from Moscow to St Petersburg, Prighozin's hometown.
This was Prigozhin's private plane. Ten people were killed, but they had not yet been positively identified.
We know that one of the world's leading aviation security experts, former French military pilot Xavier Tytelman, believes the plane was most likely hit by a missile. He has studied video of the incident and judging from the way the right wing collapses and the form of the smoke as the plane was falling, he believes it was most likely it was hit by a missile rather than a bomb exploding on the plane.
We know that Russia's Civil Aviation Authority, its official news agency Tass and Wagner's telegram channel all said the two men were dead. The Wagner group reported:
"The head of the Wagner group, true patriot of his country, Yevgeny Victorovich Prigozhin is dead following the actions of traitors in Russia. Even in hell, he will be the best glory to Russia."
The Wagner business model
Both men were oligarchs. Prigozhin made his fortune turning a hot-dog operation into a catering empire, which Putin then gave multi-million-dollar contracts.
Prigozhin made more wealth from the Wagner business model, which was essentially offering fearless mercenaries to governments or regimes around the world to fight any battle that ordinary armies either could not or would not fight.
Utkin was a key part of that Wagner empire. He was one of the original mercenaries in Syria, where he helped the regime of Bashar al-Assad fight its civil war. It was Utkin who gave the group its name — his military call sign was "Wagner". He and Prigozhin put together a band of fighters and soon realised that there was demand around the world for them.
The business model was simple. Wagner fighters were killers for hire — if you're a dodgy regime in Africa or the Middle East and you want your political enemies warned, or killed, the Wagner group is for you. Just agree on a price.
Mali is a good case study. Wagner fighters were brought in to keep at bay — or eliminate — the Islamist tribes in the north of the country who wanted to overthrow the regime.
Prigozhin and Utkin became Putin confidants. Since his invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Putin has needed the two men and their fighters.
Wagner is believed to have about 30,000 fighters, and they have been among the fiercest and most successful in Ukraine. Without the Wagner fighters, Russia probably would not have won the long battle for Bakhmut.
We know that Putin was outraged that Prigozhin described the war as having been based on a lie — we know that because Putin responded soon after, branding Prigozhin a traitor.
We know that Prigozhin was lucky to get out of Russia alive after his attack on Putin, thanks to a deal mediated by Putin's strongest ally, the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.
Is this the end of Wagner?
One of the fascinating twists in this story is that since that mutiny, Prigozhin has been in and out of Belarus, Russia and Africa.
He recently attended a meeting of African leaders in Russia. If Putin was planning to move on him, perhaps he gave Prigozhin a false sense of security.
We also know that there is a growing list of leading Russian military figures who have fallen out with Putin and who are now dead.
Only this week news emerged that Russian Colonel General Gennady Zhidko had died aged 57. Putin sacked Zhidko last year, blaming him for some of the failures in the war in Ukraine.
That would take the number of Russian generals who have died since the war started to seven.
If Prigozhin and Utkin are counted, that takes the number of senior people with whom Putin fell out and who are now dead to nine.
Associate Professor William Partlett, from the University of Melbourne Law School, says after news of the crash there was a lot of "chatter" on Russian-language Telegram about the Private Military Company (PMC) Redut taking over Wagner's activities in Africa and elsewhere.
He says Redut — which is associated with the state-owned Russian gas company Gazprom — was reportedly seeking to recruit Wagner fighters with posts on social media that read: "Wagner is in the past. If you are interested in real work in Africa, Redut PMC is your choice."
Professor Partlett says while chatter by definition is unverified, it is another potential sign that Wagner is now likely finished and that "the vultures" are circling.
"My sense from what I am reading on Russian social media and Telegram is that most insiders think that Wagner is finished," he says. "Which does make sense given that they have essentially decapitated its entire leadership."
One of Putin's newest and most dangerous enemies may be dead, but his own survival is far from guaranteed.
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