ASSASSINATED PRIGOZHIN. AND NOW?

The burning wreckage seen in this photo is that of the private jet of Yevgheny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary troops who had challenged Putin earlier this summer by directing his tanks, stationed on the Ukrainian front, towards Moscow[1] . The plane crashed for reasons not yet disclosed, killing Prigozhin and several other influential members of his Wagner Group (the world’s most powerful private war machine), the army and the Russian secret services[2] .

Officially, Prigozhin was pardoned. He and his most loyal troops gathered in Belarus, a few kilometres from the Ukrainian border, and many thought that this would be the prologue to the opening of a new front in north-west Ukraine[3] . A little over a week ago, the Russian media reported that Prigozhin had been replaced at the head of Grupo Wagner by a Russian film hero, Maxim Shugaley, who became famous as a prisoner in Libya and has since been one of Wagner’s leaders in Africa[4] .

This news, of global significance, was only given by the Russian press and Newsweek – the rest of the world kept quiet. All this obviously confirms that none of us really knows what happened between Putin and Prigozhin, and that his murder will now remain a mystery forever, like the death of Roberto Calvi in Italy or Olof Palme in Sweden. It will be talked about for decades, but no one will ever be certain of the facts. The Kremlin, so far, has kept quiet, but the press has started a riot of speculation – including, for example, the theory that Prigozhin had the plane shot down after secretly abandoning it, so that he could appear dead and hide forever[5] . A crazy theory, if one reasons about Putin’s control of Russian territory and the difficulties of living in hiding if not with the strict rules of the mafia: with great military protection, and in a situation of loneliness and hygienic degradation.

All that remains is for us to try to draw public attention to the fact that, on the Russian-Ukrainian front, there are new developments that no one can fully explain, but which are certainly part of the project that we call ‘Goznak’ and which envisages the expansion of Russia’s economic, political and military influence in Europe, Asia and Africa – an expansion that cannot take place without mishaps, but which confirms our impression: the Ukrainian front is not the only one, and on the other fronts the European Union is completely defenceless[6] .