TALLINN, Estonia — Yevgeny Prigozhin smiled as a crowd of adoring fans surrounded his black SUV on June 24 in Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don and cheered him on.
“You rock!” fans shouted while taking selfies with the chief of the Wagner mercenary group, who was sitting in the vehicle after nightfall. “You’re a lion! Hang in there!”
Prigozhin and his masked, camouflage-clad fighters were leaving the city after a daylong mutiny against the country’s military leadership. President Vladimir Putin decried it as “treason” and vowed punishment, but then cut a deal not to prosecute Prigozhin. Beyond that, his fate looked uncertain.
Two months later, on Aug. 23, Prigozhin’s business jet plummeted from the sky and crashed in a field halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Everyone aboard was killed, presumably including Prigozhin and some of his top lieutenants.
The two scenes, which unfolded just two months apart, provide bookends to the mystery-shrouded final days of the outspoken, brutal mercenary leader who initially appeared to have escaped any retribution for the rebellion that posed the greatest challenge to Putin’s authority in his 23-year rule.
Suspicions immediately arose that the Kremlin was behind the crash and that it was vengeance. The Kremlin denied it.
In on-camera remarks eulogizing Prigozhin, the Russian president sought to show that there was no bad blood between them. ..
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