Old interview clip of Wagner chief Prigozhin sparks speculation about his death
Wagner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
- Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash near Moscow.
- An old video has surfaced in which he says he would rather die than lie and makes a plane crash analogy.
- The clip has sparked speculation about the way he died, and whether he is dead at all.
A video of an old interview with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has sparked speculation online about his death.
In the clip, Prigozhin talks about how he would rather die than lie to his country and likens Russia's precarious state to a plane falling apart in the air – in an eerie forecast of his own death.
"Today we have reached the boiling point," he said in the clip, per a Reuters translation. "Why am I speaking so honestly? Because I don't have the right, before those people who will live on in this country. They are now being lied to. Better kill me."
The mercenary group leader, who led an aborted coup against Russian military leadership in June, was killed in a plane crash outside Moscow.
Russian officials on Sunday confirmed that he was dead after conducting a genetic analysis of the bodies found, the BBC reported.
The 40-second long interview clip from April was shared on the Wagner Group's Telegram channel Grey Zone on Saturday.
The post received hundreds of comments, some pointing the finger at the Kremlin and others suggesting that he knew he would be killed, per Reuters.
Some speculated that Prigozhin might still be alive, one person commenting that it would be cool if Prigozhin and Sergei Surovikin, who was relieved of his command of Russia's air force the same day as the crash, "are sitting in Jamaica, drinking piña colada and taking a drag on a huge joint," per Reuters.
After the plane crash on Wednesday, Wagner-affiliated social media channels claimed that air-defense systems shot the plane down, but the cause remains unclear.
The Kremlin said any claims that President Vladimir Putin was behind Prigozhin's death were "an absolute lie."
Many Western observers, including President Joe Biden and CIA director William Burns, predicted in recent months that Prigozhin might face retribution from Putin after his failed coup.
Many of the Russian president's critics and enemies have turned up dead, often in violent or mysterious circumstances.