When Yevgeny Prigozhin died, Vladimir Putin awarded medals to new “Heroes of Russia”. He once awarded the Wagner boss this title. But this “hero” has fallen – and is now to be left to oblivion.
Yevgeny Prigozhin had to pay for his ambitions with his life. It was for his ambitions that Vladimir Putin declared him a traitor on June 24. On August 23, Prigozhin died. His plane crashed during a flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg. At the moment the news broke around the world, there was hardly anyone who doubted who was responsible for Prigozhin’s death. The handwriting of the avenging angel named Vladimir Putin was too clear, too demonstrative.
In the Telegram channels of the Wagner squad, some even found the courage to directly accuse Putin. The Z blogger, using the pseudonym Alex Parker, wrote: “What is the difference between Azov and Wagner fighters? Father lets the first go, he murders the second.” Whereby Parker with the contemptuous nickname father called none other than Putin. “In the face of animal hatred and thirst for revenge, both the Tuva degenerate and Daddy wet their pants with fear during the coup,” the Wagner supporter commented on Prigozhin’s death, calling Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu a Tuva degenerate .
“Heroes of Russia died. Today all of Ukraine will rejoice. Those who did it did it to the delight of the enemy,” lamented the Z blogger under the pseudonym “The Thirteenth” in an audio message on his Telegram channel.
Memorable statement by Vladimir Putin
The Kremlin silently accepted all these statements. 24 hours passed before Putin commented on the death of the man who had scared his life with his attempted coup.
“Regarding this flight disaster, I would first like to express my sincere condolences to the families of all the victims,” Putin said on Thursday evening. “It’s always a tragedy. And if there were actually members of the Wagner organization on board – and the initial information suggests so – I would like to note that they are people who have made a significant contribution to our common cause: the fight of neo-Nazis in Ukraine”, Putin once again repeated the tale he used to justify the attack on the neighboring country. “We remember it, we know it and we won’t forget it,” added the Russian commander-in-chief, doing something he never does in public: he called Prigozhin by his name.
“I have known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with a difficult fate. He made serious mistakes in his life. But he also achieved necessary results – both for himself and when I asked for them, for the common cause, like these last few months He was a talented man, a talented businessman.
Putin buried Yevgeny Prigozhin
Prigozhin was a “capable” man who worked “not only in our country, and with success, but also abroad, especially in Africa” in the “fields of oil, gas, precious metals and stones,” Putin said during the conference a televised meeting. “As far as I know, he just returned from Africa yesterday and met some official faces here,” Putin concluded.
A very memorable speech on the death of a man who marched on Moscow with tanks exactly two months ago, shooting down Russian helicopters on the way. Not a word of treason, not a word of mutiny. But Putin made the most important thing clear with his statement: Prigozhin is buried for him. His name no longer frightens him, so he can pronounce it – in contrast to Alexei Navalny, whose name Putin never lets out.
Putin is leading the way, others are copying it
With his comment on Prigozhin’s death, Putin not only buried the fallen Wagner boss, he also signaled to his subordinates in which direction the wind may turn. And so others followed with their special condolences.
Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov remembered Prigozhin with surprisingly warm words. “Empathy, unique communication skills and persistence” would have distinguished the deceased, he wrote on his Telegram channel. Prigozhin was “very active for his age. He was an important figure in the state. But lately he hasn’t seen the full picture of what’s happening in the country – or didn’t want to see it. I asked him to express his ambitions in favor of essential state interests,” Kadyrov dutifully added.
The leader of the LDPR party, Leonid Slutsky, also spoke up and remembered Prigozhin with sympathy. But he also put supposed differences in the foreground: “Looking back, I remind you that our positions differed radically in terms of the work of LDPR or the political realities,” he wrote.
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Alexey Dyumin, governor of the Tula region, commented: We mourn the victims of this disaster. One can forgive mistakes and even cowardice, but never betrayal. They weren’t traitors.” Dyumin was the one who brought Prigozhin into the business of government contracts. During the mutiny, he was the only governor through whose territory Prigozhin’s troops were marching who did not declare a state of emergency.
A few months ago, Prigozhin gave the leader of the Fair Russia party, Sergey Mironov, a sledgehammer. He proudly posed with the cruel symbol of the Wagner troupe on his social networks. Now the most emotional condolence escaped him: “Evgeny Prigozhin stood in the way of too many. The number of his enemies has reached a critical point. In his case, specific miscarriages planned his death. Your gift (…) will always remind me that that the deed is not finished, that one has to fight”, Mironov addressed his deceased friend without naming the names of those whom he describes as “concrete freaks” – probably for fear of repeating Prigozhin’s fate.
Prigozhin should fall into oblivion
The late condolences clearly show a line: Prigozhin should be buried and left to oblivion – and with him his betrayal and, above all, the embarrassment he caused Putin. The Russian state media diligently picked up this line. For a day, people were content with unusually sober news about the plane crash itself, citing statements from the authorities. The striking thing about it: the cause of the crash was consistently suppressed. Some broadcasters even completely refrained from reporting Prigozhin’s death. Even the shows of the big propagandists were limited to showing the supposedly dictated lines of Western media, which would unjustly spread the narrative that it was about revenge, the talk masters explained in an attempt to get this version out of their heads to drive viewers. The next day, Prigozhin’s death was no longer an issue. According to Putin’s will, oblivion may begin.