Prigozhin Shrugged Off Risks: 'We Will All Go to Hell'

The Kremlin insists it had nothing to do with the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Much of the rest of the world isn't so sure about that. "To some, the fact that Mr. Prigozhin was able to survive for two months after staging his rebellion was more surprising than the crash of his private jet," write Anton Troianovski and Valerie Hopkins in the New York Times. The newspaper susses out a read-between-the-lines quote from a longtime confidant of Putin's, Aleksei Dyumin, who said he mourned the deaths of Wagner fighters in Ukraine. "You can forgive mistakes and even cowardice, but never betrayal," he said. "They were not traitors." The implication being that Prigozhin was, in fact, a traitor to Putin and deserved his fate.

One fallout from that aforementioned failed rebellion was that the Kremlin was actively trying to assume control of key parts of the Prigozhin-run Wagner Group's sprawling empire in Africa and elsewhere, reports the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper has a detailed look at his final days as he visited Wagner outposts in the Central African Republic and Mali to shore up support. "It was a farewell tour that the 62-year-old paramilitary chief didn't realize he was making," per the story, which adds that Prigozhin had been taking unusual safety precautions for years—"changing between wigs to impersonate bearded Arab military officers while refueling his jet in the dwindling number of airports that would grant him permission to land."

He also didn't seem too fazed about the danger to his life. "We will all go to hell," he said in an undated video released this week by the Grey Zone Telegram channel. "But in hell, we will be the best." The Washington Post also digs into the staggering logistics of what comes next for the Wagner Group. Thousands "of Wagner fighters are now stranded across multiple countries, their fate in the hands of Putin and the military officials who will decide whether to keep parts of the group going or disband it altogether," per the story. One expert at the UK's University of Exeter predicts the organization is "finished," though he adds that its "blend of mercenaries, profitable business, smuggling and disinformation campaigns ... have been an effective model for Russia's covert foreign policy that the Kremlin will seek to replicate." (More Yevgeny Prigozhin stories.)