What message did Putin send with Prigozhin's assassination?

By Chris Monday

Russia has a lurid tradition of theatrical assassinations but unpacking their multilayered messaging is tricky. This article considers the possible signals sent by Putin when he had Wagner chief, Evgeni Prigozhin, killed on Aug. 23.

The shooting of Sergei Kirov in 1934 served as an archetype for stage-managed murder. A potential rival of Stalin, Kirov's choreographed funeral converted him into a Soviet martyr, while an alleged web of perpetrators became diabolical foes. Those running Kirov's funeral, such as its chair, socialist competitor Mikhail Putin, were cast as proletarian guardians.

Boris Nemtsov's assassination in 2015 was deployed as a cautioning. Nemtsov, the sole politician to speculate openly about Alina Kabaeva, was gunned down at the Kremlin walls next to his young lover Anna Durytska. This macabre scene, presumably, was meant to lay bare the seeming hypocrisy of Putin's opposition. Given its intimacy, this homicide could have only been carried out with the help of insiders. Many quickly deduced that among Nemtsov's closest confidants, the heart of Russia's democratic forces, lurked devious Kremlin henchmen. No one could be trusted.

What was the symbolism of Prigozhin's demise? Russian state news made clear that while he embodied heroism, Prigozhin was deeply flawed; he had crossed a line. See, for example, Vesti's coverage of his funeral on Aug. 29, 2023, at 60 minutes in. This official chronicle leaves little doubt that the Kremlin was behind Prigozhin's death. Oddly, the day before the airplane crash, on Aug. 22, several news outlets reported that Prigozhin had posted his first video since the insurrection. Hence a typical Russian, with ingrained cultural codes, would infer that Prigozhin must have violated certain unwritten understandings to keep quiet thus invalidating his promised protection.

Also notable was that Prigozhin's plane exploded in a region of Tver that was a 90-minute drive from Putin's ancestral homeland. That this was far from chance was confirmed by a Sept. 2 broadcast on Russian state news, Vesti, which showcased the President's arrival at his home village in Turginovo, Tver. This long news segment highlighted how humble people pleaded with Putin to step out of his car. "Please, Please, Please." One woman even suggested she derived a kind of magic power from shaking the president's hand: She touched her son the next day as if to give off some of this thaumaturgic energy. This news report also hinted that Putin visited the icons at his local village church, the Intercession of the Theotokos Church, where his parents were baptized. In this mystical way, Putin tied Prigozhin's death with his own Phoenix-like political resurrection. Indeed, recent polls indicate the potential for internal Russian protest is minuscule.

It follows that the Kremlin's decision to get rid of Prigozhin should be interpreted as a show of confidence. At least in Putin's mind, the Ukrainian blitzkrieg has failed so that there is no longer any need for a renegade bogatyr. During a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sept. 4, Putin stated, "As for the stalling of the counter-offensive, it is not a stalling, it is a failure."

To us Americans, Putin sent another encoded signal. American commentators had boldly proclaimed that Prigozhin's rebellion was a herald of an imminent Kremlin coup. Behind the scenes, it was whispered that Sergei Kirienko, Igor Sechin, the Kovalchuk and Rotenberg families might have surreptitiously stoked Prigozhin's revolt. Nonetheless, publically no prominent Russian supported Prigozhin's march to Moscow. Given this, it's hard to reckon that it was a complete coincidence that Prigozhin's demise occurred on the night of the first Republican debate, where prominent candidates, such as Vivek Ramaswamy, parroted Moscow's lines. Putin seemingly was macho boasting: see how I dominate internal dissent, while American elites swallow my narratives!

Several Western pundits had regarded the Prigozhin insurrection as a precursor of the coming civil war, and even the collapse of the Russian "empire." By chance or not, on the day of Prigozhin's death, former President Donald Trump admiringly recalled Jan. 6, 2021, the day his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. "People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they've ever experienced. There was love and that there was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love." Responding to a question on the possibility of civil war, the 2024 GOP frontrunner cryptically responded: "I don't know, because I don't know what, you know ― I can say this: There's a level of passion that I've never seen. There's a level of hatred that I've never seen. That's probably a bad combination." Fully endorsing this ominous standpoint, Russian state news fawningly promoted Carlson's doomsday musings and ponderings in a long segment on the Sunday flagship news show, Vesti Nedeli, on Sept. 3. Indeed, Western analysts are increasingly coming to grips with the likelihood that Trump will re-take the White House.

Prigozhin, a brutal gladiator, naively underestimated Putin, assuming he would abide by Russia's chivalric, unwritten codes of manliness. In reality, Putin is scared. He sees Ukraine as an apocalyptic proxy war with the U.S. Putin will not follow the Queensberry rules of boxing: he clearly means to bring the war to the U.S. by unleashing devastating political chaos. This is the message he is sending. I hope my country doesn't make the same mistake as Prigozhin in misjudging Putin's ruthlessness.

Chris Monday is an associate professor at Dongseo University.