Wagner fighters are furious and vowing vengeance after their leader Prigozhin's presumed death in a plane crash
- Wagner forces threatened to retaliate against Russian authorities on Wednesday.
- It came after the apparent death of their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash.
Wagner forces were raging against "traitors to Russia" and plotting revenge after the apparent death of their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a plane crash on Wednesday.
A statement posted last night by Grey Zone, a Telegram account close to the Wagner leadership, expressed fury.
"The head of the Wagner Group, Hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia," it said.
It is not clear exactly what led to the crash, but it is almost universally being understood as an assassination by Russian authorities, an assessment with which Grey Zone appears to agree.
Similar chatter was taking place further from view, and spoke of taking action. The independent Russian news service Mozhem Obysanit reported on chatrooms used by former Wagner members, whom they did not name.
"[Prigozhin's] former Wagner subordinates and their supporters," it said, "are cursing" Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and "threatening to take revenge" on them.
An unverified video shared widely on Wednesday showed three men claiming to be Wagner soldiers making an ominous but vague prediction.
One said: "There's a lot of talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do in this situation. We can tell you one thing. We are getting started, get ready for us."
It wasn't clear who the men were or if they were indeed Wagner members.
Prigozhin appears to have been killed when his plane crashed on its way to St. Petersburg on Wednesday, exactly two months after a short-lived mutiny against the Russian defense ministry.
The respected Institute for the Study of War think tank in Washington, DC, described the crash as an "assassination," and the culmination of broader Russian effort to "destroy" the Wagner group.
An unnamed former senior Kremlin official told The Financial Times that the plane was shot down by Russian air defense batteries.
"Obviously this was an order," another unnamed source close to the Russian defense ministry told the outlet.
"It was totally unclear for two months why he was travelling the world … Now they've liquidated him and it all makes sense," the source added.
Before Wednesday's plane crash, Prigozhin was last seen in a clip in an unspecified African country, where he said the Wagner group was conducting reconnaissance and search operations.
Wagner's future without its leader remains unclear. His presumed death will "undeniably" have a "dramatic" impact on Wagner's command structure and reputation, the ISW said.
Another theory besides Wagner taking revenge is that it will simply be absorbed into the formal Russian military — two experts told Insider they expect this to happen now.
Alex Kokcharov, a risk analyst with S&P Global Market Intelligence, was one. He also said the Kremlin is likely to do the same with other "private armies" fighting in Ukraine, "to eliminate the risk of further mutinies."
Dr Matthew Ford, an ex-West Point fellow and Associate Professor at the Swedish Defence University, made the same point.
Some fighters may seek revenge, he said, but it was more likely they would integrate. "After all it is not as if Belarus is a safe haven for what is left of the group," he said, referring to the deal struck after the mutiny for Wagner forces to relocate to Russia's close ally.
Wagner's soldiers would likely be subject to stricter government control in Africa and the Middle East, making it more difficult for the Kremlin to deny responsibility for Wagner's actions, Kokcharov added.