The Wall Street Journal, citing sources in Western and Russian intelligence, has published a detailed version of the crash of the plane of the founder of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on August 23 this year. According to the newspaper, the explosion on board was organized by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev with the knowledge of President Vladimir Putin.
According to the newspaper's sources, Patrushev began warning Putin about the threat posed by Prigozhin in the summer of 2022. However, Putin ignored them for a long time, as Prigozhin was achieving results on the battlefield.
But the president's attitude toward Prigozhin changed in October 2022, when the mercenary leader called the Kremlin and rudely claimed a lack of ammunition, according to a former Russian intelligence officer. Patrushev was next to Putin during the call and used the opportunity to convince Putin to push Prigozhin aside.
By the summer of 2023, the Kremlin actually announced plans to liquidate the Wagner PMC, ordering all mercenaries to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry. This forced Prigozhin to stage an armed rebellion, seize the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don and announce on June 23 that a 25,000-strong army would march on Moscow.
Putin was at that time in his residence far outside the capital. Instead, Patrushev took control of the government. He organized a "flurry" of phone calls to reach Prigozhin and convince him to abandon the march on Moscow. He also tried to contact the PMC head through officers who were sympathetic to him. But Prigozhin left all calls from the Kremlin unanswered.
Patrushev also looked for intermediaries to negotiate with the Wagnerian leader in Kazakhstan and Belarus. Lukashenko agreed to help. Over the next hour, he contacted Prigozhin several times and passed him an offer formulated by Patrushev: if the PMC leader stopped marching on Moscow, he and his men would be allowed to move to Belarus.
Prigozhin accepted the terms of the deal and ended the armed rebellion. Over the next two months, he disappeared from public view and freely traveled between Belarus, Russia, and Africa on business. The Kremlin did not interfere with him. At the same time, he was closely monitored, says former CIA resident director Rolf Mowatt-Larssen.
In early August, when most officials had gone on vacation and left Moscow, Patrushev instructed his assistant to develop an operation to eliminate Prigozhin, says the former Russian intelligence officer. The Security Council secretary later showed Putin the plan, which the president did not object to, according to Western intelligence sources.
A few weeks later, Prigozhin returned from Africa and waited at the Moscow airport for security inspectors to complete the inspection of his private jet for a flight to St. Petersburg. According to a Western intelligence official, it was during this delay that a small bomb was planted under the wing of the Embraer Legacy 600 business jet.
According to the official version, half an hour after takeoff, the plane began to rapidly lose altitude and crashed in the Tver region. Putin claimed that a hand grenade could have been detonated on board, and the passengers could have been intoxicated.
Background. Earlier it was reported that on the day of the mutiny, Prigozhin planned to deliver a "shocking speech" in the State Duma.