Wagner chief Prigozhin’s assassination was ‘personally ordered by Putin FSB boss who had bomb planted on wing of plane’

THE killing of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was allegedly ordered personally by Putin’s top crony, who had a bomb planted on his plane.

Warlord Prigozhin died in a fiery jet crash in August when his plane was blown out of the sky in a horrific explosion.

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Vladimir Putin with ally Nikolai Patrushev in 2019[/caption]

AP

Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner chief, died in August[/caption]

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Prigozhin was reportedly assassinated when a bomb was planted in the wing of his jet[/caption]

AFP

Remains of the fiery wreck[/caption]

Twitter

A piece of the mangled jet[/caption]

It came exactly two months after his failed coup attempt in Moscow, where his rebel army marched on the Kremlin.

Nikolai Patrushev, Putin’s FSB boss and ex-spy, spent two months planning the assassination of the mercenary warlord, it has been reported.

Patrushev “put in motion” a devilish plan which saw a “small explosive device… slipped under the wing” of his jet.

Western Intelligence officials and a former Russian spy told The Wall Street Journal that the shadowy ex-FSB chief, 72, was responsible for Prigozhin’s grizzly end.

In October Putin accused Prigozhin and his associates of being high on cocaine and messing around with hand grenades on the doomed flight.

He alleged that “fragments of hand grenades were discovered in the bodies of the deceased in the air crash”.

These touted theories did not turn out to be true.

According to a Russian ex-spy, Patrushev gave orders to his assistant from his HQ in Moscow to get rid of the warlord with Putin’s later approval.

When Mad Vlad “was later shown the plans”, he “didn’t object”, according to Western intelligence.

And a Kremlin source was quoted saying of Prigozhin that “he had to be removed” following the crash.

As Prigozhin waited at a Moscow airport while checks were being carried out on his plane, a small bomb was hidden under the wing.

It crashed after less than an hour in the sky, with witnesses saying a wing torn from the jet fell from the sky after the fiery crash.

Maksim Shugaley, who worked for Prigozhin at a think tank, spoke to The Wall Street Journal about his life after the coup.

He said the warlord was allowed to continue working in St Petersburg and around Russia, but he was wary.

He said: “He knew he had enemies and that something could happen to him, but as far as he was concerned he was abiding by the deal.”

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, an ex-CIA station chief, said he was being watched closely the entire time.

He thinks the Kremlin kept him around in order to investigate his co-conspirators in the attempt to tackle Putin.

“You can see what Putin’s plan was – to keep the dead man walking so they could continue to find out what happened.”

The Kremlin had previously denied Putin was involved in ordering his assassination and today dubbed the WSJ report “pulp fiction”.

The despot’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We saw this material, but would not like to comment on it. 

“It’s unlikely that such materials can be commented on.”

The WSJ said the bomb was planted on Prigozhin’s Embracer Legacy 600 before it took off with Prigozhin and nine others onboard.

Passengers included his Wagner military commander Dmitry Utkin, 53, and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova, 39, who had revealed to her relatives a mysterious delay in the departure of the flight. 

Everyone onboard died when the plane was blown out of the sky at 28,000 ft some 30 minutes after it left Moscow bound for St Petersburg.

Reuters

Prigozhin worked his way up the ranks in the Kremlin and became incredibly powerful[/caption]

Wagner tanks seizing a military HQ in Prigozhin’s failed coup

Putin ‘didn’t object’ to the plans to take out Prigozhin

Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council and Putin ally

Patrushev, 72, is Vlad’s “oldest ally and confidante” and is high up on the Kremlin’s security council.

He allegedly warned friend and boss Putin that Prigozhin was becoming too powerful and a loose cannon in the Russian power structure.

Some have even claimed that he is the real source of power in Russia, wielding extraordinary influence behind the scenes. 

Prigozhin, a former convict and hot-dog vendor, came from humble beginnings and worked his way slowly up in a corrupt Kremlin under Putin’s favour.

A sort of back-alley army for hire – incredibly useful to Vlad during his brutal war – was made up of 50,000 men just in Ukraine alone.

Not only did he lend his men, but he also provided public support for the dictator’s gruelling campaign to take Ukraine.

He heavily criticised official Russian commanders who were suffering heavy losses in battle.

And the tirades against Putin’s army officials, along with the success of his own troops, won him many enemies including Patrushev.

One of Putin’s techniques for remaining in power; allowing those beneath him to feud instead of uniting against him, was one way to view the disruption.

But as the war continued and Prigozhin grew more powerful, his power made him dangerous.

An ex-Kremlin official said: “Everyone told Putin it was a mistake to have a parallel army.

“When he spits in the face of the military leadership every day – you have yourself a problem.”

Prigozhin’s coup attempt on June 23 followed success on Patrushev’s behalf to warn Putin off of the Wagner boss.

Putin had been ignoring the warlord, and the Kremlin was planning to remove his forces from Ukraine.

So Prigozhin marched with 25,000 men and tanks straight from the Ukraine front lines into the southern Russian city of Rostov where a military HQ is based.

His plans were to confront Kremlin military leaders Gerasimov and Shoigu, but they fled.

Sending another wave of troops and tanks onto Moscow, Patrushev stepped in.

Although Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, managed to broker a deal between Prigozhin and the Russian leaders, it seems the resulting peace did not run deep.

Prigozhin was a father of two and widely thought to also be incredibly rich, with private jets, yachts and flashy cars.

The official Russian plane crash investigation into his gruesome death is shrouded in secrecy.

A former White House official said that if Putin had been taken out by the Wagner Group, China would have made efforts to replace him with Patrushev.

Now Vlad’s ally is widely believed to be angling for his son Dmitry, 46, to take over from Putin as president when the long-time dictator stands down. 

Dmitry is currently agriculture minister. 

The Russian media reported that DNA tests confirmed Prigozhin – who was known to use body doubles – had died in the crash.

Reports that he had been tipped off and missed the plane, and now fled abroad, are seen as conspiracy theories. 

Prigozhin’s funeral was a bizarre affair, with heavy security flanking the gates of a St. Petersburg cemetery as he was laid to rest in a mysteriously “private ceremony”.

He was buried next to his father Viktor in his hometown after a small funeral that a paranoid Putin refused to attend.

Reports said only Prigozhin’s close family and friends were allowed to be present, amounting to only around 30 people.

East2West

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crashes on its way to St Petersburg[/caption]

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Smoke rises from the fiery wreck[/caption]

AP

High level security at Prigozhin’s funeral[/caption]

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Yevgeny Prigozhin’s grave[/caption]