After the presumed death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the paramilitary Wagner Group, the group’s future remains uncertain. Hundreds of mourners placed flowers and photographs at a sidewalk memorial near Red Square in Moscow to honor Prigozhin. The news of his death in a seemingly suspicious plane crash last week comes as the Russian war in Ukraine continues.
“You don’t challenge Mr. Putin and if you do, he doesn’t forget and he goes after you. Mr. Prigozhin is not the first person to have crossed the path of Putin and to find himself really in a terrible situation, namely death,” said Alain Sanders, professor emeritus at St. Peter’s University.
“So in the short run, it means that Putin rules with fear. In the longer run, it’s not clear what it means because the Wagner Group, which Mr. Prigozhin led, was a very useful tool for Mr. Putin,” said Sanders, who added, “…mercenaries are not loyal to any particular idea, they’re loyal to the money that pays them. And so this presents a challenge for Mr. Putin. And it’s not clear that if he takes over directly, that these mercenaries will want to follow Putin because they’re not loyal to Putin, they’re loyal to whoever pays them the most.”
