Russians Aren't Buying Putin's Explanation for Prigozhin's Death

Less than a third of Russians believe the official explanation given by the authorities for the death of the Wagner Group founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to a survey.

Prigozhin and other key members from the mercenary group he led were among the 10 people on board a plane who were killed when it crashed in the Tver oblast, north of Moscow, on August 23.

Some intelligence agencies and international leaders said it was a politically motivated assassination for the mutiny that he and his Wagner Group had carried out two months earlier. The mercenaries seized military facilities in Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow in a direct challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin's authority.

Prigozhin had also been a vehement critic of the Russian Defense Ministry and the way in which military leaders had conducted Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Initial evidence pointed to either a bomb detonating in the aircraft or a surface-to-air missile (SAM) explosion, the latter explanation being given by the Grey Zone Telegram channel that is linked to the Wagner Group.

But U.S. intelligence said an intentional explosion caused the crash and that reports of the use of SAMs were inaccurate, the Associated Press reported.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, opened a criminal case looking into whether air-traffic safety rules had been followed.

It said fragments of grenades were found in the bodies of the victims and that there was no evidence of a missile strike. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the investigation's conclusions into Prigozhin's death were not final.

Putin put forward on October 5 the hand-grenade theory for the crash. He said in Sochi that the Wagner leaders may have been using alcohol or drugs, adding that they blew up the jet themselves with their own weapons.

But this explanation has not convinced respondents to a poll carried out by the survey group Russian Field on behalf of state news outlet RTVI. Only 27 percent of the 1,611 people asked between October 21 and October 29, 2023 agreed with the Russian authorities' official version of events. Some 38 percent of respondents did not agree, while a third (33 percent) said they did not know.

In response to an open-ended question about the cause of the crash, 13 percent said it was an ordered killing, 12 percent replied it was a terrorist attack, and 7 percent believed the plane had been shot down. Five percent said it had been staged and that Prigozhin was still alive. Newsweek has emailed the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.

Following Prigozhin's death, there was uncertainty about the fate of the Wagner Group, which provides the Kremlin with a vital footprint in Africa. Telegram channels linked to the group reported this week that his son, Pavel, had taken over the group whose elite unit is reportedly returning to participate in the war in Ukraine.