Wiping out Prigozhin may look like a win for Putin – but at what cost?

The dictator’s revenge? A Ukrainian hit? An unlikely accident? Whatever the truth about the apparent death of the Wagner mercenary commander, the fallout is dangerous for Russia, writes Mary Dejevsky

The Russian president has a long memory for those he regards as traitors (Sputnik)

For weeks, a question had hung over the Kremlin: how was it that the leader of a mercenary group had been able to lead his troops in a short-lived mutiny against the Russian top brass and still be swanning around the country – and indeed the world – with impunity? This, despite dire warnings from President Putin at the start of the mutiny that this was treachery, that the country was threatened with civil war and that no one responsible would go unpunished.

On Thursday, two months to the day from this act of rebellion, that question appeared to find its answer. One of two private planes flying in convoy from Moscow to St Petersburg crashed in the region of Tver. Among the 10 people listed as being on board were Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, and his deputy, Dmitry Utkin. Prigozhin had led the mutiny; Utkin was the founder of the Wagner group and is said to have named it after his call-sign when he was a member of Russia’s special forces in the Chechen wars.