Why conspiracy theorists question Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death

Newly-released video of Russian mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin has fueled speculation among conspiracy theorists that the billionaire warlord is still alive, and was not aboard a private jet that crashed north of Moscow after an apparent explosion last week.

Prigozhin, 62, was confirmed to be among the seven Wagner Group fighters and three crew members killed in the crash, Russian authorities claimed, citing DNA evidence.

Skeptics however, pointed to a video released Thursday that purports to show the leader of a short-lived June mutiny against the Kremlin alive and well, which they say paints a picture of an assassination target who may have faked his own death along with his vast resources, penchant for using body doubles, secret funeral and and disinformation expertise.

Moscow has denied involvement in the aviation disaster amid rampant speculation that President Vladimir Putin was behind the death of his former ally-turned “traitor,” even as Russian investigators conceded for the first time Wednesday that the crash may have been “deliberate.”

Prigozhin’s new video

Footage of the paramilitary leader bragging about about surviving assassination attempts was posted by the Wagner Group-linked Grey Zone Telegram channel Thursday.

“For those who are discussing whether I’m alive or not, how I’m doing — right now it’s the weekend, second half of August 2023, I’m in Africa,” he said, clad in a camo outfit while riding in a vehicle.

“So for people who like to discuss my liquidation or my private life, how much I earn or whatever else — everything’s OK,” he added.

Prigozhin’s duds matched his appearance in a recruitment video he released two days before the plane crash, which he said was filmed in Africa.

That clip marked his first public address since he brokered a deal to abandon his troop’s march on Moscow to overthrow Russian defense officials in exchange for exile in Belarus.

His “weekend” reference suggests that the footage was filmed on Aug. 19 or 20, and the Grey Zone had earlier posted photos of Prigozhin posing with a large group of young men in the Central African Republic “not long before his departure for Russia,” days before the ill-fated flight to his hometown of St. Petersburg.

Body double theory

However, the footage was interpreted by conspiracy theorists as a sign that Prigozhin had faked his own death.

“His [body] double was flying instead of him. By the way, Vladimir Putin is perfectly aware of that,” Dr. Valery Solovey, a former professor at the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations said in a recent YouTube interview.

The analyst maintained that Prigozhin planned retaliation “on the people who planned to destroy him,” and claimed Russia was lying about verifying his DNA remains.

“If you believe official statements of the Russian authorities, then what can I say,” Solovey quipped.

Prigozhin had long had a propensity for utilizing body doubles and disguises, and fake passports with his picture on them had turned up during a search of his office, Ukrainska Pravda reported earlier this summer.

“Prigozhin knew President Vladimir Putin’s methods well enough to take precautions. It is known that multiple individuals have changed their name to Yevgeniy Prigozhin as part of the mercenary leader’s efforts to obfuscate his travels,” Russian analysts wrote in an essay for the international affairs think tank Chatham House last week.

“Let’s not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa,” one of the essay’s authors, Keir Giles, said

“This is a man who took his security very seriously, even before he made himself a marked man by marching on Moscow,” Giles added in an interview with Sky News.

Historical precedent

If, as doubters claim, Prigozhin had indeed faked his own death last week, it wouldn’t have been the first time he had emerged unscathed after reports of his demise.

Four years ago, Russian outlet Readovka falsely said he had perished in a plane crash in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his death had been misreported in other instances, according to The Washington Post.

Fake wife at secret funeral

As a highly decorated war hero, Priogzhin was entitled to a full military funeral attended by Kremlin brass, but he was instead laid to rest in a low-key Monday memorial that was shrouded in secrecy by officials who apparently wanted to avoid an outpouring of support for the warlord, who remains popular among hawkish Russians.

After the funeral, Russian media outlets fueled speculation his reclusive wife, Lyubov Prigozhina, 52, did not attend the service, and was impersonated by Irina Krasavina – the spouse of Priogzhin’s main doppelgänger Leonid Krasavin, according to The Sun.

Cryptic graveside poem

The UK tabloid also pointed to a report in the Russian outlet Moskovskij Komsomolets that highlighted the eyebrow raising excerpt of a framed Joseph Brodsky poem at Prigozhin’s grave.

“How do I step on the threshold, not understanding, not deciding.

“Are you my son or God? That is, dead or alive?,” the excerpt of the Soviet poet read.

Brodsky, like Prigozhin, had been exiled from the country after clashing with its authoritarian leaders.

Second plane theory

Conspiracists had also pushed the theory that Priogzhin was on a second jet linked to the Wagner group that landed safely in St. Petersburg last Wednesday.

The last four digits of the registration number of the plane that went down were 2795, lining it up with Prigozhin’s own plane which is registered as RA-02795.

However, a second jet – an Embraer ERJ-135BJ Legacy 650 aircraft – reportedly touched down at Ostafyevo Airport at around the same time of the crash.

Disinformation expert

Prigozhin had been convicted in the Soviet Union of robbery and fraud and was a master at creating disinformation – which would come in handy in the unlikely event he did indeed fake his death last week.

He had admitted to founding the Internet Research Agency, which Washington, DC sanctioned for meddling in the 2016 US presidential contest.

“I react with pleasure,” Prigozhin said of the IRA in a February statement, according to CNN.

“I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time. It was founded to protect the Russian information space from boorish aggressive propaganda of anti-Russian narrative from the West.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller reported that the agency sought to sow discord in the states through “information warfare,” with the goal of getting Donald Trump elected.

With Post wires