In June of this year, the former Russian head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led his men towards Moscow, following a months-long dispute with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Prigozhin abruptly called off the “March on Moscow” after only a few hours. On August 23, 2023, he died in a plane crash. However, the circumstances leading to the crash remain unclear. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that no external factors had caused the plane to crash. An autopsy was also supposed to determine whether the passengers were under the influence of drugs, as reported by the German news platform fr.de. This referred to a raid on Prigozhin’s villa where packages of cocaine, among other things, were found. The Telegram channel Gray Zone, which is close to the Wagner Group, writes that the Russian president’s comments “would only make the situation worse.”
Some Wagner supporters are so provoked by this statement that they are calling for a second March on Moscow. “I don’t know myself. March once more and at last,” fr.de quotes an unknown person, referring to the news agency Agentstvo. In another post: “This is utter nonsense. At first, he wasn’t sure if they were on the plane. Now they turned out to be drug addicts.”
Image: Kremlin.ru, Vladimir Putin (24.06.2023), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (image size modified)
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