On Russian state TV, Putin described Prigozhin, who staged an unsuccessful mutiny against the Russian president’s military leadership, as a “talented businessman” and “a man with a complicated fate” who “made serious mistakes in life”.

In Ukraine, its commandos staged a raid in occupied Crimea in a symbolic move on the nation’s Independence Day as more of Kyiv’s forces pressed a counterattack on the mainland that’s threatening to break through Moscow’s lines. The embattled nation braced for more attacks as it celebrated Independence Day.

Latest developments

• Putin shores up power base after Prigozhin killed in jet crash
• Ukrainian Special Forces stage nighttime raid on occupied Crimea
• Wagner’s empire in Africa will live on after Prigozhin
• Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led Wagner mutiny, is presumed dead
• What happens now to Prigozhin’s Wagner Group?
• Hungarian president pushes past Orban to reset Ukraine ties

Putin bolsters power base after Prigozhin dies in jet crash

The plane crash that killed Prigozhin restored Putin’s reputation as Russia’s unchallengeable leader for many of the country’s elite, even as the cause of the disaster may never be fully established.

The mercenary leader’s demise removes a man who had courted impunity after leading the mutiny that threatened the Russian president’s grip on power. His elimination is a strong stabilising factor for Putin’s regime because it shows that anyone challenging him comes to a bad end, according to four people close to the authorities, who asked not to be identified because the matter was sensitive.

Early assessments by the US indicate that Prigozhin’s killing was an assassination that probably had Putin’s approval, according to a US official who discussed the preliminary appraisal on condition of anonymity. The official said the plane may have been destroyed by a bomb on board, not a surface-to-air missile.

In Putin’s first comments on the crash, the Russian president said on state TV that “preliminary information says that some Wagner employees were there”.

Expressing condolences and referring to Prigozhin in the past tense, he described a “talented businessman” and “a man with a complicated fate” who “made serious mistakes in life”.

Many in the Russian elite had been shocked that Putin failed to immediately punish Prigozhin after the June rebellion that he’d denounced as treason. The crash that killed all 10 people on board the private jet travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg on Wednesday took place exactly two months after the uprising the president said had brought Russia to the brink of “civil war”.

“A lively, energetic, and idea-filled Prigozhin was undoubtedly a walking issue for the regime, embodying Putin’s political humiliation,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the political consultancy R.Politik. “For a significant portion of the politicised, conservative public, Prigozhin’s death is a well-deserved outcome.”

The UK was working on the assumption the plane was brought down deliberately, although the exact cause of the crash is still not clear, an official said. The Russian investigation appeared to be examining the theory of a bomb on the plane, they said.

Russian authorities were believed to have sent genetic material for testing in Moscow, and no formal identification had been made yet, the official added. Investigators are seeking to question anyone who had access to the plane while it was in an airport hanger in the days before the flight.

To be sure, not everyone in the Russian elite is sanguine about Prigozhin’s downfall. His disappearance deepens a sense of fear by showing nobody is safe in Russia now, according to two people with links to the authorities.

Prigozhin’s earthy language made him popular with many ordinary Russians and his willingness to visit and talk to the relatives of deceased Wagner fighters contrasted strongly with the remoteness of Putin and other top officials. People brought flowers on Thursday to makeshift memorials in St Petersburg and the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, where he’d been cheered in the streets by onlookers at the end of his mutiny.

It’s unclear who’ll take charge of the thousands of Wagner fighters after both Prigozhin and his No 2 in the organisation, Dmitry Utkin, were listed among the passengers on the plane.

That also raises questions about the future of Wagner’s extensive operations in Africa, as well as the huge sums of money earned by the group. A third figure listed by Russian aviation authorities as on the plane, Valeriy Chekalov, was responsible for Wagner’s operational finances.

Putin had been seeking to restore his shaken authority at home since the rebellion, amid rising nationalist anger over the Russian leader’s stalled invasion of Ukraine, now in its 18th month. Prigozhin had won a wide following with his brazen and profane attacks on the military brass on social media, accusing them of sabotaging the war effort.

Prigozhin was also popular with some in the military, who agreed with his criticisms of the conduct of the war in Ukraine. The plane crash took place a day after it emerged that Sergei Surovikin, a top general praised by Prigozhin, had been removed from his post as deputy commander of operations in Ukraine after being quizzed by security officials over his links with Wagner.

“Putin is signalling what happens to anyone who dares to challenge the regime or disobey,” said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s a powerful signal, and deliberately done at such scale — the explosion serves a demonstration effect.”

Politically, Putin removed all critics of Russia’s performance in the war “and has shown everyone that he is in total control of the situation,” said Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russian secret services. “If Prigozhin was indeed killed in that crash, this means that Putin is a very cold-blooded player.”

Abroad, too, officials in the US and Europe expressed little shock that Prigozhin may have been the target of an assassination.

“I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” President Joe Biden told reporters.

“The current Russian system, Putin’s Russia, is built on death and suffering,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio. “We must fear that Russia, with or without Wagner, will continue with its cynical game, not only in Ukraine but also in Africa.”

Putin expresses condolences over Prigozhin jet crash

Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those killed in the private jet crash that allegedly took the life of Prigozhin.

“Preliminary information says that some Wagner employees were there,” Putin said on Russian state TV in his first comments about the crash.

He described those on board as people “who greatly contributed” to fighting in Ukraine. “We remember it, we know it and we will not forget,” Putin said.

Ukrainian Special Forces stage nighttime raid on occupied Crimea

Ukrainian commandos staged a raid in occupied Crimea in a symbolic move on the nation’s Independence Day, as more of Kyiv’s forces pressed a counterattack on the mainland that’s threatening to break through Moscow’s lines.

Using speedboats, special forces landed in a bay on the westernmost edge of the peninsula overnight in the first such sortie since the start of the war last year, Ukraine’s Military Intelligence said on its website, without specifying the size of the unit.

The commandos attacked Russian positions, destroyed military equipment and hoisted a Ukrainian flag before returning to a base without casualties, it said.

“Those are our guys,” Zelensky said about the operation during an Independence Day ceremony in the capital. “We will not lose our grip on Ukrainian independence.”

Russian officials and military haven’t publicly commented on the Crimea raid.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops reported progress near the town of Robotyne in the south, where they are fighting through Russian minefields and trench systems in a push aimed at cutting off the Kremlin’s land bridge to its forces in Crimea.

Isolated rouble unperturbed by presumed death of mutiny leader

Russian assets traded steady on Thursday as the world digested news of a plane crash that presumably killed Prigozhin.

The rouble declined 0.1% to 94.3650 to the dollar as of 12.40pm in Moscow. The Russian government bond index also slipped 0.1% to 124.46. The benchmark stock index was down 0.7% to 3,125.71 points.

Four people close to Russian authorities said Prighozin’s death would restore some stability to Putin’s regime, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. It could also ease additional tensions with European states unsettled by Wagner activities, according to Grzegorz Drozdz, a market analyst at Conotoxia investment company.

“The alleged death of Prigozhin may calm the tense situation between Russia with Belarus and the West following reports that mercenaries from Wagner’s group were stationed on the border with Poland,” Drozdz said. “Beyond this, however, Prigozhin’s own influence on the situation in Russia seems to have dwindled almost to zero” since the mutiny.

The rouble has emerged as a barometer of health for the Russian economy, battered by shrinking export revenues and its isolation from international financial markets following its invasion of Ukraine last year. Infighting between the government and central bank over economic policy has spilt into the open in recent weeks.

The currency has advanced about 6% against the dollar since the nation’s central bank raised interest rates sharply at an emergency meeting on 15 August. Year to date, it has lost about 22%, one of the worst performances among emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg. DM