An Old Interview of Yevgeny Prigozhin Leads to Speculative Death Theories

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of a Russian mercenary company, claimed in a 40-second clip from a previous interview that he would rather die than lie to his nation and speak about a jet exploding in the sky, which sparked a wave of internet conspiracy theories on Sunday about his alleged demise.

The head of the Wagner group, who led an unsuccessful mutiny against army commanders precisely two months before, was aboard a private plane that crashed on Wednesday northwest of Moscow, according to Russia’s aviation regulator, and there were no survivors. The Kremlin referred to Western claims that he had been murdered on its instructions as a “absolute lie.”

The interview with Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov was initially published on April 29. In the excerpt, Prigozhin said that Russia was on the verge of collapse because the defense establishment was steadily expelling truth-tellers who refused to appease senior officers.

In the video that Wagner’s Telegram channel Grey Zone posted, he said, “Today we have reached the boiling point.” “Why am I being so open-minded? Because those who will continue to reside in this nation have more rights than I do. They are now being misled. Better murder me.

But I won’t lie, I have to admit that Russia is in serious danger, he said. And the aircraft will crash in the air if these gears aren’t altered right away.

Within a few hours, hundreds of answers had been uploaded to Grey Zone. The first reply came from a Telegram user whose moniker is “outpost,” which means “but he knew.” Prigozhin’s survival was suggested in certain blogs. One of them said that he would “soon jump out of a snuffbox and make the devils crap themselves.”

Another person thought it would be amusing if Prigozhin and Sergei Surovikin, the former chief of the Russian air force who was allegedly fired the day of the accident and the leader of that country’s war effort, “are sitting in Jamaica, drinking pina coladas and taking a drag on a huge joint.”

One remark claimed that the accident was the result of President Vladimir Putin’s design, adding, “You have to be an amoeba not to understand this.” Some responses made reference to the Kremlin.

In other postings, Ukraine and France were implicated. “It is inconvenient for us to lose such a hero,” one post wrote, adding that Ukraine had executed Prigozhin on the orders of US secret services “and the Anglo-Saxons.” Someone replied with three laughing-crying emojis.