Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
[ColonelCassad] A year ago, under rather murky circumstances, a plane crashed with Yevgeny Prigozhin and his associates in the leadership of the Wagner PMC, which in the 2010s became the largest PMC in history, surpassing the American PMC Blackwater/Academy.
Despite the funeral of the victims, versions are still actively discussed that Prigozhin did not die and simply went into hiding, living somewhere abroad, for example, in Africa.
Prigozhin's assessments are now inseparable from the assessments of the unsuccessful rebellion of 2023, for which no one was convicted, since the criminal cases were closed for reasons of political expediency related to the prevention of risks of civil war.
There remain political assessments of what happened on the part of the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation, which have remained, including in the biography of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Regardless of whether Prigozhin actually died or cunningly went into the shadows, his deeds for the good of the country in Africa, Syria and Ukraine and the story of the failed military rebellion in the conditions of the ongoing war will remain in history. Well, and then the assessments will be based on the comparison of these deeds.
In any case, the history of Russia in the 10-20s of the 21st century can hardly be imagined without Yevgeny Prigozhin, regardless of whether he is alive or dead, he is now a historical figure.
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"For Russia to win, it needs to stop lying and stealing" - one year since Prigozhin's death
Today marks one year since the death of Hero of Russia Yevgeny Prigozhin. On August 23, 2023, at about 18:40, a private jet, the Embraer Legacy 600, crashed over the Tver region, carrying him, the founder of the Wagner PMC Dmitry Utkin, and 8 other people.
This happened exactly two months after the start of the "March of Justice" - an attempt to establish justice in the country as he understood it, an undoubtedly controversial person with an imperfect past, who rescued his homeland in the most difficult moments, serving it as best he could. When the country called Prigozhin into the very mouth of the endless ten-year Donbass front, he followed his fighters into hell, not sitting in headquarters offices.
The Wagner PMC was perhaps the most successful Russian brand abroad, the prestige of the "musicians" was indisputable, their successes on the battlefields in different parts of the world were impeccable. And Prigozhin himself for a huge part of Russians is a synonym for the irreconcilable stubbornness that any Russian admires, even when seeing his hero off to the chopping block.
The campaign of Yermak of our days ended in failure. Prigozhin never crossed his Urals