Biden points finger at Putin as Prigozhin’s
reported death seen as a warning to ‘elites’
Joe Biden ‘not surprised’ by death of Yevgeny
Prigozhin, the Wagner founder killed in plane crash, while Kremlin and Russian
president himself stay silent
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Ukraine war coverage
Graham
Russell and agencies
Wed 23 Aug
2023 22.23 EDT
Joe Biden
has strongly suggested Vladimir Putin’s involvement in the apparent death of
Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash, as Ukrainian officials interpreted the
incident as a warning to Russian “elites” and flowers were laid for the late
Wagner chief outside the organisation’s St Petersburg headquarters.
“I don’t
know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” the US president said
after a briefing after the crash of Prigozhin’s private jet between Moscow and
St Petersburg. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not
behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”
Rosaviatsia,
the Russian aviation authority, said Prigozhin and senior Wagner commander
Dmitry Utkin were among 10 people travelling on an Embraer business jet that
crashed on Wednesday evening. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear,
but Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with the military and the armed uprising he
led in June would give the Russian state ample motive for revenge.
Ukrainian
presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said the plane crash on Wednesday evening –
exactly two months after Wagner forces marched on Moscow – was “a signal from
Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections. ‘Beware! Disloyalty
equals death’.”
Those
sentiments were echoed by Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak, whose father Putin
once described as his mentor. “Absolutely clear signal to all the elites, in
fact. To everyone who had any seditious thoughts,” she said on Telegram.
The Kremlin
has not yet commented on the crash. Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation
authority, said Prigozhin and senior Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin were among
10 people travelling on the Embraer business jet at the time.
Putin
himself made no mention of the incident during a speech in Moscow to mark the
80th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Kursk during the second world
war. He instead hailed “all our soldiers who are fighting bravely and
resolutely” in Ukraine.
On the
ground in Russia a building housing Wagner’s offices in St Petersburg lit up
its windows on Wednesday in such a way as to display a giant cross in a mark of
respect and mourning. Flowers were left and candles lit near the offices early
on Thursday. The future role of Wagner, which once played a prominent role in
the war in Ukraine and is active in Africa, remains unclear.
Abbas
Gallyamov, a former Putin speech writer turned critic, said: “the establishment
is now convinced that it will not be possible to oppose Putin. Putin is strong
enough and capable of revenge.”
Bill
Browder, a businessman with years of experience in Russia and another Kremlin
critic, agreed. “Putin never forgives and never forgets. He looked like a
humiliated weakling with Prigozhin running around without a care in the world
(after the mutiny). This will cement his authority.”
Ukrainian
ministerial adviser Anton Gerashchenko suggested Wagner mercenaries may seek
revenge against Putin and Russia’s military establishment, with whom Prigozhin
clashed repeatedly, and implied on social media that other paramilitary leaders
linked to Putin may feel at risk, including a picture of Ramzan Kadyrov, the
strongman head of Chechnya whose forces have been fighting in Ukraine.
Sviatlana
Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the opposition of Belarus – where some
Wagner fighters moved after their short-lived mutiny in Russia – said Prigozhin
would not be missed in her country. “He was a murderer and should be remembered
as such,” she said.
Prigozhin’s
apparent demise coincide with the removal of one of the Wagner founder’s key
allies in the Russian military, Gen Sergei Surovikin. The commander was
rumoured to have been put under house arrest, interrogated, or even put in the
notorious Lefortovo prison. His whereabouts have not been confirmed publicly.
Hi is the highest-level sacking yet of a military commander after Yevgeny
Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny in June.
Polish
foreign minister Zbigniew Rau on state news channel TVP Info: “... We would
have great trouble naming anyone who would intuitively think this was a
coincidence. It so happens that political opponents whom Vladimir Putin
considers a threat to his power do not die naturally.”
Kaja
Kallas, prime minister of Estonia, to CNN: “If true, it shows Putin will
eliminate opponents and that scares anyone who is thinking of expressing
opinion different than his.”
British MP
Alicia Kearns, the chair of the foreign affairs committee, tweeted: “The speed
at which the Russian govt has confirmed Yevgeny Prigozhin was on a plane that
crashed on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg should tell us everything we
need to know. Reports Russian air defence shot down the plane suggests Putin is
sending a very loud message.”
“For Putin
there is one unforgivable sin: the betrayal of Putin and Russia.
“He hunts
down those he perceives to be traitors, (including) on British shores, such as
Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal.
“Now
Yevgeny Prigozhin has been added to that list, ending Putin’s humiliation.”
Pavel
Luzin, an expert with US thinktank the Center for European Policy Analysis,
said that regardless of whether Putin ordered the plane’s destruction “this
event demonstrates that the Russian elite is not united, that the
contradictions within the Kremlin are growing, that the coordination between
different branches within the Russian leadership is really bad. In the end, if
Vladimir Putin is so powerful, why didn*t he arrest Prigozhin?”
Russia’s
Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said it opened an
investigation into the crash, as has the civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia.
The plane
showed no sign of a problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds,
according to flight-tracking data.
The
Brazilian Embraer Legacy 600 model of executive jet that crashed has only
recorded one accident in over 20 years of service, according to website
International Aviation HQ, and it was not due to mechanical failure.
A 2008
Brazilian air force report blamed two US pilots, traffic controllers and faulty
communications for a mid-air collision, while a lawyer for the pilots said
individual air traffic controllers and flaws in Brazil’s air traffic control
system caused the accident.
Embraer
said it has complied with international sanctions imposed on Russia and had not
provided maintenance for the aircraft since 2019.
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