Here is what 29.ru writes about the expectations of Russians after Prigozhin’s death.

The business jet of the company that served Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed on August 23. Together with him, there were six people on board, including the right hand of the creator of the PMC, commander Dmitry Vagner Utkin, as well as three crew members. President Vladimir Putin confirmed the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin and called him „a man of difficult fate.“

What kind of reaction should we expect from convicts who had previously joined the ranks of Wagner, and those who have already returned from the SVO? Should we expect any reaction from those serving sentences? Will there be rampant crime? Our colleague from MSK1.RU asked the lawyer and ex-prosecutor Alexei Fedyarov, who helps convicts and their families; human rights activist and journalist Eva Merkacheva, who studies the fate of Russian prisoners; and a criminologist.

It is not worth expecting that the death of Prigozhin will cause unrest in criminal circles, Alexei Fedyarov believes.

“The prisoners will accept this without any worries, for them the head of the Wagner PMC is an outsider,” the expert explained. – I have no idea how this will be perceived by the fighters inside the Wagner PMC structure.

The human rights activist noted that many prisoners were not ready to take risks and sign a contract with Wagner. For a significant part of those serving sentences, Yevgeny Prigozhin was not an authority, and his death will definitely not lead to an increase in activity in criminal circles.

There will be no reaction from the prisoners. No one made any bets on it. Everyone lived as they lived, someone had the opportunity to take risks. Someone risked, someone did not, – Fedyarov notes.

“There was no such thing that someone considered Yevgeny Prigozhin their leader. Everyone will perceive it quite calmly, gossip and forget”

Alexey Fedyarov

Journalist and human rights activist Eva Merkacheva agrees and believes that the reaction will be restrained.

– It seems to me that what happened to Yevgeny Prigogine may stop people. Make them think more about the consequences,” she explains. “Perhaps someone thought Wagner would protect them.

There may be changes in the approach of Wagner commanders to those who, after participating in the SVO, commit a repeated offense, Merkacheva believes. According to the expert, they could be afraid to return to the criminal path because of the personality of the head of the „musicians“.

Prigozhin positioned everything in such a way that if someone in the wild begins to commit crimes after the SVO, then he will personally deal with this, the expert notes. – In fact, the number of offenses that people re-commit after returning from Wagner is high.

It is difficult to predict the reaction of convicts who have passed the SVO. Yevgeny Prigozhin had a significant influence on them, but it is definitely impossible to assess their mood.

Now we are guessing on the coffee grounds. It seems to me that they will become more accurate. But it is impossible to guarantee and accurately predict this,” Eva Merkacheva shares and adds: “I wrote a study about criminals who committed various crimes, from moderate to especially serious, when they returned after going through the Afghan or Chechen campaigns.

“If the psyche is injured, then without rehabilitation, nothing will help a person not to make mistakes”

We also turned to a criminologist to understand how Yevgeny Prigozhin is perceived in prison circles:

— Let’s start with the fact that there has been no Wagner in Russia for two months now. And most of the convicts are now in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In addition, yes, Prigozhin has a criminal past, but he has never been a crime boss.

All experts agree that the criminal world will practically leave unnoticed the death of the leader of the Wagner PMC. It is also not worth expecting that convicts who have become part of a military company will react sharply:
Now PMC „Wagner“ does not have the opportunity to recruit convicts into its ranks in any way. Moreover, we do not know how many convicts are in the ranks of Wagner. We can guess, but we do not know how many died. Former prisoners who came to Wagner, either in Belarus or on a contract with the Ministry of Defense. Only such conditions were in June 2023, so there is no threat now.

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