‘Two assholes in flight’

Putin’s suggestion that Prigozhin and Wagner Group’s founder died in a drug-fueled accident enrages the mercenary group’s allies

Coke and hand grenades — that, roughly speaking, is how Russia’s president describes the fiery end of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the nine others who died when his plane crashed outside Moscow in late August 2023. In remarks on Thursday at the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin revealed that federal investigators found hand-grenade fragments on the crash victims’ bodies. He also faulted the forensic team for failing to test the victims’ blood for narcotics and alcohol, suggesting that the five kilograms of cocaine the FSB reportedly recovered from Prigozhin’s office in St. Petersburg indicate problems with drug abuse. As Russia’s president casts these mercenaries’ legacy in disgrace, the relatives and blogger-allies of Wagner Group fighters are letting the Kremlin know online that they don’t appreciate it.

Putin’s version of the events that killed Prigozhin mirrors what the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Mash and the newspaper Moskovskii Komsomolets reported a day after the crash, observed journalists at the investigative news outlet Agentstvo.

On August 24, Mash wrote that the remnants of firearms, ammunition, and grenades were discovered at the crash site. The items supposedly belonged to the Wagner Group mercenaries on board with Prigozhin, claimed Mash, writing that investigators must contend with the possibility that “careless handling of ammunition” caused the crash.

That same day, Moskovskii Komsomolets published a story with the headline: “Grenade Explodes in Heat of Debate: Details Emerge About Conflict Aboard Prigozhin’s Plane.” The article cites Air Defense Forces Museum director (and propaganda talking head) Yuri Knutov, who claimed that a hand grenade exploding on board during the flight could have caused the crash.

“There are strict rules for transporting [weapons]: the grenades and fuses go separately. Prigozhin and his team knew this, of course, but his security guards always carried their weapons and ammo with them because of the constant threat to Prigozhin’s life. In the heat of a fierce argument, maybe somebody dropped a grenade, the pin fell out, and there was an explosion,” Knutov speculated.

The Telegram channel VChK-OGPU noted that bringing ammunition and explosives onto Prigozhin’s plane could only have been possible with permission from transportation security officials at Sheremetyevo International Airport, which falls under the oversight of an FSB colonel identified only as “K. G. Popov.”

Responses to Putin’s remarks from mercenaries’ relatives and Telegram channels linked to Wagner Group

Caution, readers. There’s salty language ahead.

“They’re shooting up with their own drugs and blowing up midair. [...] Commenting on this is only going to make things worse,” wrote the Telegram channel Grey Zone, which has close ties to Wagner Group.

“According to the president’s version of events, Prigozhin and Utkin, while either drunk or high, detonated a hand grenade, which caused the crash,” wrote the channel Wagner Orchestra, reminding readers that Wagner Group’s leadership supposedly observed the mercenary organization’s prohibition on booze and drugs.

“Utkin”?

Dmitry Utkin (callsign “Wagner”) first started participating in mercenary operations in 2013. Before that, according to the St. Petersburg outlet Fontanka, he served as a lieutenant colonel in a GRU special forces brigade based in Pskov. Utkin reportedly chose his call-sign out of sympathy for the ideology of the Third Reich (Richard Wagner is considered to have been Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer).

Utkin commanded Wagner Group throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it’s highly likely that he has traveled there himself. As of the beginning of June 2023, Utkin was offici

“They write that they found five kilos of coke when searching Prigozhin’s office. As if the entire Wagner Group got high on the stuff. It’s fucking sickening. We Russians either speak well of the dead or not at all. And this is just nonsense. You never know who might forget, but I’ll remind you that two Heroes of Great Russia died in this plane crash. These weren’t junkies. And they knew their weapons better than their own fucking dicks. The story about them blowing themselves up is a joke and a farce,” declared the pro-invasion channel Southern Front.

Maxim Kalashnikov, a supporter of the jailed war criminal Igor Strelkov, wrote that officials tested victims’ blood for drugs and alcohol “even in the wild 90s”: “Well, now everything’s clear! Two assholes (Prigozhin and Utkin) were playing with a grenade in flight. And they pulled the pin or something. True, there was no examination to determine the content of alcohol and drugs in their bodies, although any detective or investigator even in the wild 90s would have done this, first thing.”

“A quick summary: the most battle-hardened unit in modern Russia’s history was led by drunks and junkies who, despite being professional soldiers, didn’t know the rules for handling grenades. But the Russian people will remember them differently,” wrote the authors of the Telegram channel Children of Arbat.

Journalists at Agentstvo published screenshots with reactions to Putin’s comments from the relatives of Wagner Group mercenaries. Some called the president’s remarks “utter crap,” while others even advocated staging a second “March on Moscow” (Prigozhin’s euphemism for the brief mutiny he led in late June 2023). Another account said it must be Putin and his administration who are “stoned and high.”

After the raid in St. Petersburg, Telegram channels connected to Wagner Group reported that the powder found in Prigozhin’s office was actually cleaning detergent. At the same time, it’s unknown if the police officially reported the discovery or opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

After Putin’s comments, the Telegram channel Grey Zone claims that Wagner Group ran its own “covert intelligence” in different countries (supposedly even in places where the mercenary organization hadn’t yet deployed) and conducted “operational campaigns carried out by intelligence agencies around the world” that sometimes involved the use of “imitation drugs.”

The channel VChK-OGPU also published a video from an unnamed Wagner Group mercenary endorsing claims that the white powder that supposedly belonged to Prigozhin was actually bricks of detergent recovered not at the mercenary leader’s home but elsewhere in St. Petersburg. The man in the video (who speaks from behind the camera) says he got access to “the very same bricks” seized and supposedly returned by the FSB. In the footage, the objects are stacked in a trash bag labeled “Appendix to Expert Conclusion Number [illegible] 162, June 27, 2023.” “It turns out that it’s just a dummy for operative purposes, apparently filled with laundry detergent,” says the man behind the camera.

Next, he performs an “experiment” with the substance in the packages, pouring some into a bottle apparently filled with water and shaking the mix. “Drugs don’t foam up like this,” he declares. The VChK-OGPU channel says it spoke to someone who identified the voice and hands of the man in the video as Ilya Gorbunov, a former employee of the news outlet RIA Novosti and the head of Prigozhin’s “troll factory.”

On October 6, during a morning briefing, journalists asked Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov when investigators will release their report on the causes of Prigozhin’s plane crash. He clarified that the report Putin mentioned in Valdai wasn’t final. “The president said this report is still pending and isn’t yet final. It’s currently one of the established facts,” explained Peskov, adding that further details won’t be published until after the investigation is complete.