The Daily - A Plane Crash, 10 Dead People and a Question: Was This Putin’s Revenge?

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

The mysterious crash of a private jet outside Moscow is believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner militia who led an armed rebellion against Moscow in June. Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The Times, explains what we’ve learned about the crash, and what a potential political assassination says about President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: All 10 people on a jet linked to Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the mercenary group Wagner, were killed, Russian officials said.A blast is likely to have downed the jet and killed Mr. Prigozhin, U.S. officials say.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. Today, a mysterious crash of a private jet outside Moscow is believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner militia boss who led an armed rebellion against Moscow earlier this summer. My colleague Anton Trinovsky tells me what we've learned about the crash and what a potential political assassination would say about Putin's Russia. It's Friday, August 25th. So Anton, it's Thursday night for you.

You've been following what's been happening in Russia over the past 24 hours. So to catch people up, Yevgeny Prigozhin, guy we've talked a lot about on the show, is presumed dead in a plane crash just outside Moscow. And, you know, there's still lots of questions swirling around this. But before we talk about what actually happened, I want to go back to the last time we talked about Prigozhin on the show. And, you know, that was when he struck a deal after this armed rebellion that he had staged, that it essentially guaranteed his kind of immunity, if you will. So tell us the story of what happened to Prigozhin since then. So two months ago, Yevgeny Prigozhin mounted a mutiny against the Russian military leadership.

That was really the biggest threat to Putin's rule in the last 23 years, ever since Putin took power. And on June 24th, as that mutiny was happening, Putin went out and called Prigozhin a traitor. So at that point, it really felt like Prigozhin's days were numbered because we know that Putin does not tolerate traitors. But as you said, Prigozhin strikes some kind of deal with the Kremlin that allows Wagner fighters to find refuge in Belarus. Prigozhin himself also goes to Belarus. So it really feels like Prigozhin has somehow managed to save his skin, at least for the moment. Then we see more and more striking evidence that despite having led this mutiny, Prigozhin seems to have gotten out of this somehow.

Prigozhin seems to have gotten out of this somehow. On June 29th, Prigozhin actually meets in person with Putin at the Kremlin, along with other commanders of his Wagner mercenary force. Which just seemed extraordinarily odd at the time, right? Like, here was this guy who just marched on Moscow, and Putin is giving him a private audience. I mean, it was very confusing. But then I kind of lost the thread after that, Anton. What happened next?

So next, it seems like Prigozhin was able to continue establishing his presence in Africa. Remember, Africa is really a key continent for Prigozhin's activities. That's where the Wagner mercenary force is active propping up authoritarian leaders in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali who are loyal to Moscow. It's a region where Prigozhin has extensive business interests

in gold and diamond mining, among other things. And in late July, Putin hosts African leaders at a summit in St. Petersburg. And Prigozhin puts out photographs of him meeting with African officials on the sidelines of that summit. So we see that even in really one of Putin's marquee diplomatic events of the year, Prigozhin is still involved. Okay, so months after this mutiny, it seems like no consequences for Prigozhin, right? Like, he's still very much in the mix. Absolutely. And it even seemed like he may be returning to his old role as that kind of Swiss army knife in Putin's toolkit. And all that was reinforced this past Monday when

Prigozhin put out a video of himself that he posted online, in which he suggests that he is back in Africa. He's in a kind of arid landscape. He says it's really hot. He's wearing military fatigues and holding an assault rifle. And he says that Wagner is still operating, that Wagner is recruiting, and that it's carrying out the tasks that were assigned to it. So all that put together, it really felt like Prigozhin had essentially survived that rebellion. And then came the plane crash on Wednesday.

So let's talk through that. I was glued to my phone all night. You were going crazy with the news. Tell me what happened. Start from the beginning. So Wednesday evening, Moscow time, the Russian Civil Aviation Authority puts out a statement announcing that a private plane had crashed north of Moscow, that all 10 people aboard had been killed, and that the passenger manifest included the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Shortly thereafter, we saw footage circulating online of a plane falling out of the sky, spiraling down. We saw footage of burning airplane wreckage on the ground. And then we started trying to piece together what happened to that plane. This was an Embraer jet that was flying from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport to St. Petersburg. And flight tracking data showed

that it reached a cruising altitude of 28,000 feet and flew on at that point for nine minutes, showing no signs of any problems. And then suddenly, according to the data, the airplane started making these erratic ascents and descents of several hundred feet for about 12 seconds, and then suddenly dropped 8,000 feet in about 20 seconds. And then it crashed in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow. So it just falls out of the sky in a span of seconds. Yeah, that's right.

You see it spiraling down in that video, and that's what the flight tracking data shows too, that it wasn't some kind of extended mechanical issue that the pilots were struggling to deal with. It was some kind of sudden catastrophic event. Several hours later, pretty late Wednesday night, the Russian Civil Aviation Authority put out another statement that showed the full list of the seven passengers and three crew members that were recorded as having been on that plane. the name of Evgeny Prigozhin, but it also had the name of Dmitry Utkin, who was essentially Prigozhin's number two in the Wagner mercenary group, the main commander, really a critical figure in that force. So it did feel like something extremely dramatic may have just happened. may have just happened.

That Prigozhin, who really has been one of the most defining figures of the Putin era, especially of the last few years, may have actually been assassinated. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. So Anton, you said this was really starting to look like an assassination. Walk me through why you think that.

What are you seeing? Well, for starters, we have that flight tracking data that shows that the plane was proceeding normally until some sudden event caused it first to go up and down really quickly and then to plummet out of the sky almost like a stone. You know, that certainly indicates that something happened suddenly on that plane, causing it to crash. And then on Thursday, our colleagues in Washington reported that Western officials believe that an explosion on the plane is what brought it down. That's based on preliminary intelligence reports, those officials say, and there's no definitive conclusion that's been reached. But Western officials certainly also believe

that foul play was behind this crash. Okay, so explosion on board very likely, which, you know, is, to use a phrase, a smoking gun of intention, right? Intentional act. But I guess the next question is, who did it? Is the assumption that it's Russia itself? Well, Sabrina, we don't know who did it.

But I have to say that the first thing I thought of when I saw the news of the crash and that Prigozhin may have been on that plane was that speech that I mentioned that Putin gave as the rebellion was going on on June 24, when he called Prigozhin a traitor. And that choice of words by Putin was really important because he's been public about it. He has said that it's one thing to have an enemy, you can deal with your enemies, but traitor's betrayal is something that he does not forgive. A traitor is the worst thing possible in Putin's mind. Exactly. And so I've been closely watching, of course, what Putin has been up to himself over the last 24 hours. And it's been quite notable, you know, plane crashes like this are really rare, even in Russia. Totally. And yet he said nothing about this crash,

even though if a plane goes down like that, you would expect the president to say something about that. But he didn't. What did that silence tell you, Anton? Well, I think it sowed some doubt as to whether Putin was really grieving this event. There was no statement of condolences published on the Kremlin website

for nearly 24 hours after the crash. It was only Thursday evening that Putin broke his silence. And Putin said that he was offering his condolences to the families of those on board. He said that it appeared, according to the preliminary data, that there were Wagner members on that plane. He said that Wagner had played a very important role in the war in Ukraine that, quote, we will remember and won't forget. And then he started talking about Prigozhin.

He talked about him in the past tense, which, frankly frankly was the most direct confirmation we received that Prigozhin had in fact been killed. Putin said that Prigozhin was a man who was very talented and a talented businessman, but also someone who had made very serious mistakes in life. And Putin finally also said that there will be an investigation and that it will be carried out to the finish and that we will find out, you know, at some point what happened. So what was notable about that was that Putin did not blame this on Ukrainian terrorists or on the West in the way that he does with so many other incidents in Russia. You also didn't really get the feeling that he was trying to push responsibility here onto someone else. onto someone else. But the other thing worth noting is that Wednesday, just hours before the plane crash, another important piece of news emerged, which was that Russian state media confirmed that General Sergei Surovikin had been relieved of his duties as the commander of Russia's

Air Force. And the reason that's important is that Surovikin was seen as the most important ally of Prigozhin in the Russian military. He, for several months, actually was the main commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. And so you do get the feeling that the Kremlin may be clearing house in some way, that, you know, it's removing two very influential figures who also caused problems for the military command and for Putin. Well, Anton, let's kind of sit with the possibility for a minute here that Putin did in fact have something to do with Prigogine's presumed death. So if things had gone back to normal, and you know, Prigogine was doing his Africa stuff, buzzing around on his private jet,

it seemed like Putin still had a use for Prigogine, right? Like, I guess my question is, why kill him? So fear is a very important element of Putin's grip on power. And I just spoke to someone who's a newspaper editor in Moscow who told me, like, everyone is afraid. No one knows what, especially in the elite in Moscow, people don't really understand what happened, but it's scary when a private jet falls out of the sky. And that fear is advantageous for Putin, especially right now when there is so much stress on the economy and on the country as a result of the invasion. There is obviously a lot of discontent. So really one of the most important things that Putin can do to maintain his grip on power is to show the elites around him who might perhaps try to do something to change the situation in Russia, that if they try that, the consequences will be severe. So it could have been really about signaling to the Russian elite,

which is, of course, this very important piece of the puzzle of how the Russian system functions, right, of how it perpetuates and keeps going. Yeah. And also remember that Putin looked a bit weak in the aftermath of the rebellion. It was pretty confusing to a lot of people, including people, bloggers affiliated with the military and supporters of the war. They were stunned by the fact that Prigozhin's forces shot down Russian military aircraft during that rebellion, killing Russian military service members, and no one being punished as a result. And I think there's very much going to be a school of thought coming out of Wednesday's plane crash that it was an operation designed by the Kremlin to restore Putin's image of dominance and strength. But Anton, to that point, what about the timing?

I mean, if that was always the way it was going to go, then why not just kill him immediately? Why wait two months and make it look like you're rebuilding this partnership with him? That's a great question. I mean, there was certainly a fear in the aftermath of the rebellion, I think, that if Putin had killed Prigozhin right afterward, he would have turned him into a martyr and risked some kind of new rebellion. You could make the case that by doing it two months later, Putin has allowed those tempers, those post-rebellion tempers to come down. Right.

And I think there's another factor, which is the war in Ukraine. So I think if you listen to Putin, you see that he is feeling more confident about how the Russian war effort is going right now than perhaps at any other point in the course of this war. And we hear from Western officials and military analysts that, in fact, Ukraine has really struggled in its counteroffensive. So that gives Putin, I think, additional confidence to potentially take these drastic actions. And, you know, it's also quite ironic in a way that Putin actually has Prigozhin and General Serovikin to thank for the Russian military's relatively strong position right now.

Because it was General Serovik, who was demoted on Wednesday, who oversaw the construction of these really daunting defensive lines that Russia built across the territory that it controls in Ukraine. And then Prigozhin, with his Wagner force, he was the one who fought Ukrainian forces in that incredibly bloody battle for the city of Bakhmut. And Western and American officials believe that actually the casualties that Ukraine took in Bakhmut are now one reason why Ukraine has struggled in its counteroffensive. Because it spent so many resources in Bakhmut, largely because of Surovikin and Prigozhin. Exactly. So Surovikin and Prigozhin are now demoted and apparently dead, respectively.

But they also played this incredibly important role in helping Putin stabilize his invasion and improve Russia's position in the war. So, you know, clearly these two guys were incredibly important to the war effort for a long time. But it sounds like what you're saying is that at this point, you know, Putin thinks it's going pretty well and he doesn't need them anymore. Or the Wagner Group. So Anton, does this essentially spell the end of the Wagner Group? That's one of the key questions we'll be watching in the next few days and weeks. One element to think about, too, is that the Wagner Group and Prigozhin, they were really part of that ultra-nationalist, super hawkish wing of Russia that throughout the war was really quite critical of Putin. Right. They were to the right of Putin, right?

In many ways, exactly. Yeah, they were to the right of Putin. They were saying, Prigozhin was saying that Putin wasn't being harsh enough. He wasn't being tough enough. He wasn't being aggressive enough. He wasn't doing enough to put the nation on a war footing and mobilize society as part of this war. You know, as you know, Prigozhin once said that Putin should turn Russia into North Korea if he wanted to win this war. And so one of the things you've seen over the last two months is that Putin has really cracked down on the right wing, on the pro-war hawks who criticize him for not being aggressive enough. who criticize him for not being aggressive enough. Obviously, when the war began, and really for most of Putin's tenure, he was pretty focused on crushing the liberal opposition, people like Alexei Navalny,

people who want to turn Russia into a pro-Western democracy. By the beginning of this year, he had pretty much crushed that part of the opposition completely. But as it turned out, there was also another type of opposition to Putin, which we saw with Prigozhin's rebellion, and that was the people who were critical of Putin from the right, the ultra-nationalists. And in the last two months, Putin has taken steps to crack down on them. He has arrested a very popular right-wing blogger and former military commander in Ukraine called Igor Gherkin. were very harsh in their criticism of the Russian military, really toned down that criticism, pretty clearly under pressure from the authorities. And what happened to Prigozhin may well have been part of that too. So in a way, it doesn't actually matter that much

whether we know forensically that Putin was behind this plane crash, right? Because it's the perception that matters. And the perception is that he was. And that's the signal that's being sent here. I think that's absolutely right. I mean, the perception, more specifically, is maybe that he could do this, you know, and that this could happen absolutely to anyone who crosses Putin or seriously threatens his power. people in the elite certainly are going to be afraid to speak their mind, are going to be scared of being seen as disloyal, will bend over backwards even more to try to show their loyalty. And is that a model for a political system that's sustainable in the long term, that is very much unclear. Anton, thank you. Thank you, Sabrina.

On Friday, the Kremlin denied being involved in the plane crash that led to Prigozhin's presumed death. The Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, spoke after Western officials suggested that an explosion had brought down the plane and that the Kremlin may have orchestrated it. Peskov urged, quote, a focus on the facts, which he said would become clear in the course of the investigation into the crash. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On Thursday night, former President Donald Trump flew to Atlanta and turned himself in at the Fulton County Jail. He was booked on 13 state felony charges for his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia. He was fingerprinted and had his photo

taken. Minutes after he entered the jail, Trump's record appeared in Fulton County's booking system. It listed him as having blonde or strawberry hair, a height of six feet, three inches, and a weight of 215 pounds. Officials said Trump should be booked like anyone else accused of a felony. But the process was much faster than for most defendants. He was finished in about 20 minutes and on his way back to the airport where his private plane was waiting. Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson,

Rob Zipko, Asa Chaturvedi, and Alex Stern. It was edited by M.J. Davis-Lynn with help from Michael Benoit. Contains original music by Marian Lozano and Rowan Nemesto and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you on Monday.