The murder of the founder of the Wagner PMC, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, was organized by the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev.
The American newspaper The Wall Street Journal writes about this, citing anonymous sources in Western intelligence agencies.
Patrushev, as the publication writes, began to warn Putin about the threat of Prigozhin’s growing influence back in the summer of 2022.
However, the president did not listen to his words, since the mercenaries of the Wagner PMC were, as the Kremlin believed, achieving success on the battlefield in Ukraine.
According to the publication’s interlocutor, a former Russian intelligence officer, the situation changed in October 2022.
In June 2023, when Prigozhin began his rebellion, Patrushev saw this as an opportunity to get rid of the head of the PMC for good and “took over control,” the article states.
The publication claims that after, through the mediation of Alexander Lukashenko, it was possible to agree on the withdrawal of mercenaries to Belarusian territory, and the president promised to stop the persecution of the rebels, Patrushev began developing a plan to kill Prigozhin.
According to the publication’s sources, Putin was later shown these plans, and he did not object.
According to WSJ interlocutors in Western intelligence services, a small bomb was planted under the wing of a private Embraer-135 plane, which was used by the founder of the Wagner PMC, at Sheremetyevo airport when it was being prepared for departure on August 23.
Half an hour after takeoff, the plane crashed in the Tver region.
