“Vlad Luck” for Anti-Putin Insurrection Leader

Two months after the failed coup attempt against Putin, Russian state media is reporting that the Wagner Group’s  leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is dead in a plane crash.

UPDATE: There are reports that the head of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the business plane that crashed today in Russia.

10 people are reportedly dead. It belonged to Prigozhin and Russian media is reporting that he was on the plane.

Wagner sources claim that… pic.twitter.com/RJZWhn1mcF

— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) August 23, 2023

To refresh our memories about this man’s history with Putin, the Daily Mail put together this “from chef to warlord” story:

While Prigozhin has more recently been seen as Putin’s number one enemy, not so long ago he was considered a close ally of the Kremlin.

The 62-year-old had made his huge fortune by providing catering services for the Kremlin, earning him the nickname ‘Putin’s chef’.

Born in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, in the Soviet Union in 1961, Prigozhin spent some of his early life in prison after being convicted of robbery and fraud.

After being released from prison in 1990 after nine years of detainment, Prigozhin started selling hotdogs in the flea markets of his home city. He told the New York Times in 2018: ‘the rubles were piling up faster than his mother could count them’. And as the Soviet Union fell, Prigozhin set up several businesses.

He eventually grew close to Putin himself and is understood to have received hundreds of millions in government contracts feeding school children and government workers.

ADVERTISEMENT

Now tonight, some are asking if the video of the airplane accident actually shows a plane being shot down out of the sky.

Purported video of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s jet being shot down en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

Is this how a serious country should treat traitors? pic.twitter.com/jubY7tCvfh

— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) August 23, 2023

Breitbart News is reporting that word from the Wagner camp is that this was no accident but murder:

While Russian state media has referred to the lost Embraer jet today as a “crash” and “incident”, a media channel previously widely acknowledged by Western media as being “affiliated with Wagner”, the private army Prigozhin led, has claimed the aircraft was purposefully shot down.

The Wagner-linked group wrote Wednesday evening: “The Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with registration number RA-02795, which belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, was shot down by air defense fire from the Russian Defense Ministry in the Bologovsky district of the Tver region.”

The group claimed witnesses on the ground heard “two bursts of characteristic air defense”.

One Twitter (X) user claims the death has been confirmed on the ground, and it’s “one assassin killing another”:

👻#Prigozhin’s killing has been confirmed. Reports state he was among the passengers, and it's noted that this plane frequently traveled to Belarus. Lukashenko has once again arranged everything for his patron. . Soon, a new spectacle will unfold in russia, as, if he's indeed… pic.twitter.com/aNH7I8gqmN

— Antonina A.K💙💛NAFO (@antoninaodessa) August 23, 2023

While we don’t know what did happen to Prigozhin, or what will happen with Putin, one Twitter user asked a very cheeky question.

https://twitter.com/_ngatia_/status/1694410429580136628

We’d like to know the answer to this one, too!