Yevgeny Prigozhin led the Wagner mercenary group and launched a short-lived rebellion that briefly seized Rostov-on-Don and advanced toward Moscow. Two months after the mutiny his business jet crashed and he died. His mother, Violetta Prigozhina, said she met him a week before the crash, that he looked doomed and that he told her he expected to die. She said authorities have not told her what happened. She said she tried to dissuade him from marching on Moscow, warning he overestimated popular support, but he insisted people would back him. Western intelligence agencies believe an onboard explosion, likely ordered by Vladimir Putin, killed him.
The Russian warlord and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin looked doomed after his failed mutiny and told his mother he expected to die in the days before his private plane crash. Prigozhin, the founder of the notorious Wagner mercenary group, died when his business jet went down in the summer of 2023, two months after his fighters briefly seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and advanced towards Moscow in a short-lived rebellion against Russia's military leadership.
When I last saw him, he looked doomed, said Violetta Prigozhina, 85, in an interview with the Russian outlet Fontanka, recalling the last meeting she had with her son one week before the deadly crash. Asked if he foresaw his death, she replied: Of course. Prigozhina, in the first interview by a close relative of the late Wagner leader, said the authorities had still not told her what happened to her son.
Prigozhina said she had tried to dissuade her son from marching on Moscow, warning that he overestimated the extent of his support. When we saw each other before the march, I told him: Zhenya, only people on the internet will support you. No one will go with you. People aren't like that now. No one will come out to the square.' Prigozhina said her son replied: No, they will support me.
Collection
[
|
...
]