{"id":366076,"date":"2025-08-23T01:38:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T01:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/366076\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T01:38:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T01:38:13","slug":"prigozhin-knew-he-was-doomed-after-failed-rebellion-says-mother-yevgeny-prigozhin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/366076\/","title":{"rendered":"Prigozhin knew he was \u2018doomed\u2019 after failed rebellion, says mother | Yevgeny Prigozhin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Russian warlord and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin<\/a> looked \u201cdoomed\u201d after his failed mutiny and told his mother he expected to die in the days before his private plane crash.<\/p>\n

Prigozhin, the founder<\/a> of the notorious Wagner mercenary group, died when his business jet went down<\/a> in the summer of 2023, two months after his fighters briefly seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and advanced<\/a> towards Moscow in a short-lived rebellion against Russia\u2019s military leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I last saw him, he looked doomed,\u201d said Violetta Prigozhina, 85, in an interview<\/a> with the Russian outlet Fontanka, recalling the last meeting she had with her son one week before the deadly crash.<\/p>\n

Asked if he foresaw his death, she replied: \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prigozhina, in the first interview by a close relative of the late Wagner leader, said the authorities had still not told her what happened to her son.<\/p>\n

Western intelligence agencies believe Prigozhin was probably killed by an onboard explosion on Vladimir Putin\u2019s orders as retribution for his mutiny.<\/p>\n

Prigozhina, who runs a gallery exhibiting pro-war art, said she had tried to dissuade her son from marching on Moscow, warning that he overestimated the extent of his support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we saw each other before the march, I told him: \u2018Zhenya, only people on the internet will support you. No one will go with you. People aren\u2019t like that now. No one will come out to the square.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Prigozhina said her son replied: \u201cNo, they will support me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prigozhin\u2019s short-lived rebellion, launched with several hundred of his most loyal fighters, was preceded by weeks of escalating tension with Russia\u2019s defence ministry and top commanders, whom he accused of corruption.<\/p>\n

At the time, Wagner played a key role<\/a> in Russia\u2019s offensive against Ukraine, with Prigozhin\u2019s fighters often deployed as shock troops in frontal assaults during battles in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

While no major political figures backed Prigozhin\u2019s rebellion, polls suggested that at its height, his blunt, anti-establishment rhetoric resonated widely and won him significant support among Russians.<\/p>\n

When Wagner troops seized control of key military sites in Rostov-on-Don, Prigozhin was greeted<\/a> warmly by locals.<\/p>\n

But he called off the march about 120 miles (193km) outside Moscow after a series of phone calls with senior Russian officials and the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who acted as an intermediary.<\/p>\n

During the advance, Wagner fighters shot down a Ka-52 attack helicopter, killing its crew, and destroyed an Il-18 military aircraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end he just turned around \u2013 that was it,\u201d said Prigozhina.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had no intention of overthrowing Putin, absolutely not. He only wanted to get through to the military leadership,\u201d she added, claiming her son halted the march to avoid further bloodshed among regular Russian troops.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me he couldn\u2019t shoot young guys during his march,\u201d Prigozhina said.<\/p>\n

After Prigozhin\u2019s death, Russian authorities swiftly moved to seize his sprawling business empire, which extended far beyond mercenary operations to encompass online \u201cbot farms\u201d, mining ventures in Africa and a vast catering business \u2013 the source of his nickname \u201cPutin\u2019s chef\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yevgeny Prigozhin serves the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, at his restaurant in 2011. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n

His Wagner forces, which operated primarily across Africa and have been accused of mass atrocities, have since been absorbed into Russian state structures and continue to operate under the name Africa Corps.<\/p>\n

Prigozhin\u2019s 27-year-old son, Pavel, who fought with Wagner in Syria, has been largely sidelined in the power struggle that followed his father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

In September 2024, Prigozhina won an unexpected victory in an EU court, which ordered her removal from the European sanctions list and instructed the Council of the European Union to pay her legal costs.<\/p>\n

She and her grandson had been placed under sanctions as part of a wider move against the Prigozhin family, which for years played an active role in Yevgeny Prigozhin\u2019s network of businesses.<\/p>\n

In the interview with Fontanka, Prigozhina complained that despite being taken off the sanctions list, she was recently denied a visa to travel to Hamburg, Germany, to visit a clinic.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, I am preparing many exhibitions now,\u201d she said, adding that one of the main works currently on display in her St Petersburg gallery shows a portrait of her son in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Russian warlord and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin looked \u201cdoomed\u201d after his failed mutiny and told his mother he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-366076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115075527719929724","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}