"Evgeny Prigozhin and Utkin survived": the Western press found confirmation of the version

mk.ru

4 min

August 25, 2023

There is more and more conspiracy around the crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin's Embraer Legacy plane. Yes, the head of Wagner PMC, together with Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chekanov, were on the passenger lists, but there are still no results of the examination, some of the remains cannot be visually identified. President Putin also spoke about the death of the Wagner founder in a hypothetical way. Therefore, the Western media continue to discuss the version of "Prigozhin is alive."

“Is the Wagner chief Prigozhin still alive? Will he rise AGAIN from the dead? - this is the title of the article of the British tabloid Daily Mail. The publication builds its assumptions on precedent. There was already a case when Prigozhin was declared dead in a plane crash, but he appeared alive and unharmed three days later.

In October 2019, an An-27 military aircraft with eight people on board crashed in the Congo. It was reported at the time that Prigozhin was among the passengers; three days later it turned out that he was alive.

Keir Giles, a Russia-specialist at the British think tank Chatham House (which has DIA status in Russia), cited by the Daily Mail, claims that several people have changed their name to "Evgeny Prigozhin" as part of his conspiratorial efforts. "Let's not be surprised if he appears in a new video from Africa soon," Giles said.

The New York Times also speculated that Prigozhin may have used doppelgangers to obfuscate his movements.

The Guardian recalls that after Prigozhin's June rebellion, "Russian investigators released documents from his home showing that he had additional passports for possible doppelgangers who traveled on his behalf. There were also photographs of Prigozhin in various disguises, including a bushy beard, aviator sunglasses, and foreign military uniforms.”

“It is known,” writes the Daily Mail, “that he was very concerned about his safety, and, according to rumors, he was not on board the plane on the fateful day ... Sources close to him said that although the plane belonged to him, he usually flew on another aircraft. Another plane, also allegedly related to Prigozhin, flew in zigzags over Moscow after the crash of the first side, this gave rise to speculation: the Wagner boss may not have been on board after all.

The second plane, tail number RA02748, indeed, greatly intrigued conspiracy theorists. The next day after the disaster, he flew to Baku. Today, the Jetika company, which claims to own this aircraft, issued an appeal: neither this aircraft nor its passengers are allegedly related to the Wagner PMC. However, she did not explain the turn of the board heading for St. Petersburg from Vnukovo back to Moscow.

“According to conspiracy theorists, without the results of a forensic examination, it is impossible to say with certainty whether Prigozhin was really on the doomed plane,” argues the New York Post. The publication further gives an example of what the unsubstantiated versions are worth. In a mid-summer interview with ABC News, retired General Robert Abrams was asked if he thought Prigozhin was alive. He replied: “Personally, I don’t think so, and if he is alive, then he is somewhere in prison.” And hit the sky.

“The main question is: was Prigozhin really on that plane? We may never know," said Jay Jay Green, a correspondent for US news radio station WTOP. - Reports of Prigozhin's death are of key interest to US officials. He is among 13 Russians and three companies wanted by the U.S. in connection with an extensive 2018 indictment. Court documents have revealed a complex network designed to disrupt the 2016 US presidential election."

“There is an extremely curious detail about the plane crash,” Greene continues. - This is the alleged presence on board of several top leaders of Wagner, including Prigozhin ... It turns out that the entire management of Wagner was on the same plane, although they knew that they could become a target. It's unexplainable".

“The details are not clear, so the possibility remains that Prigozhin – and possibly Utkin – were not on that ill-fated flight and survived,” Marina Miron, a researcher at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, told Newsweek. “They will probably remain in the shadows forever, and we will only know the official story.” According to the expert, the scenario is likely that Prigogine and Utkin “survived, it was a large-scale plan to disappear or reappear with changed names and appearance.”

Read the material "Evgeny Prigozhin equipped the plane with parachutes and destroyed the lists of passengers"