Wagner boss’ possible death ‘big shock’ for African leaders — analysts

The Russian warlord at the head of the Wagner mercenary group that had been operating in several African countries has been reportedly killed in a business jet crash northwest of Moscow on Wednesday (23 August).
Russia’s Federal Agency for Air Transport reported to have initiated an investigation of the crash of a plane en route from Moscow to St Petersburg that occurred in the Tver Region, killing all ten passengers on board. Wagner Group’s founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin were included in the list of passengers of the crashed flight, but it was not immediately clear if Prigozhin had boarded the flight. Some reports have indicated that the plane was downed by Russian air defenses. Just hours earlier, General Sergei Surovikin, who allegedly had advance knowledge of the Wagner mutiny and had not been seen in public even since, was removed from his post as head of Russia’s air force.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “almost certainly” ordered Russia’s military command to shoot down the plane on which Prigozhin was reported to be traveling, Washington, DC-based think tank, The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), has said. According to the ISW, Putin likely calculated that he could remove Prigozhin without turning him into “a martyr for the remaining Wagner personnel” after having successfully undermined and separated the Wagner boss from his mercenary force over recent months. If finally confirmed, the death in a plane crash of the man who humiliated Putin comes as little surprise to most Russia observers, but many now question if his mercenary group can survive without him.
Following Wagner’s failed coup attempt in late June, Prigozhin appeared to have tried to claw back some of the influence he had acquired through his operation in Africa at the Kremlin’s behest. He had put out a statement backing the coup in Niger and this week had posted a video from somewhere in Africa, insisting he was recruiting for operations in the continent. While the Kremlin recently has been more directly courting the military leaders of countries in the Sahel itself, much of Wagner’s African empire relied on the unscrupulous connections that Prigozhin and his close associates had forged over the years. The possible death of Wagner’s boss is thus a source of a great concern for African leaders from Mali to Central African Republic to Libya because, as former air vice-marshal Sean Bell recently put it, “If the Wagner group is Yevgeny Prigozhin, then it’s difficult to see how it will survive. It’s the end of it as we know it.”