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Former deputy of the Russian Duma Ilya Ponomarev said that the order for the liquidation of Yevgeny Prigozhin was not given by President Vladimir Putin, but by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Ilya Ponomarev stated that the S-300 missile systems (with which Prigozhin’s plane was allegedly shot down north of Moscow) are controlled by the Ministry of Defense, not the FSB, which makes the version that Putin is the guarantor implausible, Fakti reported .

According to him, it is difficult to judge whether Putin knew about Shoigu’s plan. However, it is clear that Putin had his own plans for PMC „Wagner“, so the death of Prigozhin did not benefit him at this time.

„Prigozhin revolted above all against Shoigu and Gerasimov,“ recalls Ponomarev. Two months ago, when Prigozhin organized a military coup in Russia, he said he wanted to overthrow the country’s military leadership, but did not mention Putin. His war was against Shoigu because the Ministry of War refused to supply Wagner arms and ammunition to the front in Ukraine.

„Whether Putin was aware or not – we don’t know at the moment…

But all the information I have suggests that Putin had various plans for a private Wagner army, including provocations in Poland and Lithuania… And now these plans fell apart,“ said the Russian opposition politician.

According to him, Shoigu has put Putin in front of a fait accompli. Perhaps Putin even started to respect Shoigu more to some extent. In Russia, such executions of inconvenient people are common. A number of contract killings were carried out in exactly the same way. Many of them were even done openly and publicly to send a signal to people who would potentially oppose the power in the Kremlin.

Shoigu knew that he would not be punished by Putin.

Материалът Former Russian MP: Not Putin, Shoigu ordered the assassination of Prigozhin е публикуван за пръв път на Vihrogon.bg.

Another tension. The remains of the founder of PMC „Wagner“ Yevgeny Prigozhin were taken from the morgue in Tver. The businessman’s body was taken in an unknown direction, Russian media reported.

As Notepad recalls, the remains of the victims of the plane crash in the Tver region were delivered to the forensic examination bureau on August 24, the day after the accident. At the same time, the morgue was placed under increased security, and the police cordoned it off.

On August 27, it became known that one of the bodies was taken out, accompanied by security.

Well-informed sources confirmed that it was Prigozhin’s body, and that employees of the PMC „Wagner“ had taken it out to be sent to the northern capital.

According to preliminary information, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s funeral may take place on August 29. In particular, this was stated by the relatives of Deputy Prigozhin from PMC Wagner Valery Chekalov.

However, no comments have yet been received in this regard.

The VChK-OGPU reports that the relatives insist that the funeral be held in a small circle, and entry to the ceremony will be carried out with special tokens.

Материалът Russian media: Unknown people took Prigozhin’s body out of the morgue е публикуван за пръв път на Vihrogon.bg.

53-year-old Dmitry Utkin, who died yesterday in the plane in the Tver region, is an almost mythologized person.

An obsessive fan of Hitler and a neo-Nazi, a conspirator professing the „folk Slavic faith“, with several awards for bravery Hero of Russia – he is the real creator of „Wagner“ – a private mercenary army of criminal criminals.

On the evening of August 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private plane crashed in the Tver region.

The Ministry of Emergencies of the Russian Federation reported that 10 people died in the crash, three of whom were crew members.

Rosaviatsia reported that Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin were on the flight’s passenger list. „Medusa“ briefly tells the biography of the last one, after whom PMC „Wagner“ was named, reported RusDelphi.

Dmitry Utkin, with the call sign Wagner, began participating in mercenary operations in 2013. Before that, according to Fontanka, he served as a lieutenant colonel in the Pskov Special Forces Brigade of the GRU of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Utkin is said to have chosen his nickname out of sympathy for the ideology of the Third Reich (Richard Wagner is said to be Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer). Those who knew Utkin also told reporters about his Nazi views.

After being discharged from the reserve, Utkin, along with other former security service personnel, went to Syria to fight on the side of President Bashar al-Assad as part of the Russian mercenary group Slavic Corps.

There, in October 2013, they were almost surrounded by rebels and forced to return to Moscow. Later, the leadership of the „Slavic Corps“ was sentenced to three years in a mercenary colony.

Almost immediately after his return, Utkin left for Ukraine – already at the head of his own group of mercenaries. This detachment was called Wagner’s group. Veterans of the Slav Corps were spotted in the spring of 2014, first in Crimea and then in Donbass, where they fought on the side of pro-Russian separatists. According to Gazeta.ru, Wagner’s squad may have been involved in the assassination of several field commanders of the self-proclaimed LPR.

In 2015, Wagner and his squad returned to Syria again, having previously undergone training at a specially equipped base in the Krasnodar Territory, RBC reports.

For the first time in the public field, Utkin appeared on December 9, 2016 – he was spotted at a solemn reception in the Kremlin in honor of Heroes of the Fatherland Day, the recording of which was broadcast by Channel One. The president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed that Utkin was indeed among the invitees, as he was a „holder of the Order of Bravery“.

In 2021, a case was opened in Ukraine against Utkin for encroachment on the country’s territorial integrity, the press service of the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office reported.

According to the investigators, he took part in the military operations in Donbas „under the prior agreement of officials of the Russian armed forces and under their control“ from July 2014 to March 2015.

„In January-February 2014, his units conducted intensive combat operations against units of the ATO forces (anti-terrorist operation — cf. Meduza) in the direction of Debaltsevo. During the fighting, the head of the „Wagner“ PPK was directly subordinate to the commander of the 2nd Army Corps, Lieutenant General of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Utkin commanded PMC Wagner during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and was most likely in Ukraine himself.

From the beginning of June 2023, Utkin remains the commander of the PMC. This follows from his statement published in the telegram channel Wagner Unloading, which is associated with Prigozhin.

Nothing is reliably known about Dmitry Utkin’s role in Prigozhin’s failed June rebellion. However, according to a Reuters source close to the leadership of the self-proclaimed DPR, it was Utkin who may have led Wagner’s column of fighters heading towards Moscow.

In July, Utkin, together with Prigozhin, talked with PMC Wagner’s mercenaries in Belarus. This was Prigozhin’s first public appearance after the failure of his rebellion and the news of his „departure“ to Belarus.

A video of the speech appeared on Telegram channels associated with the group on July 19. In it, Prigozhin said that PMC mercenaries intend to make the Belarusian army the „second army of the world“ and in the event of an armed conflict, side with Lukashenko. According to him, PMCs will not stay long in Belarus, after which the fighters will return to African countries and to the front in Ukraine.

„This is not the end, this is only the beginning of the greatest work in the world, which will be done very soon,“ the man with a voice similar to Utkin said afterwards. „Well, welcome to hell.“

These are also his last words in the public space that are known at the moment.

Материалът The last words of the neo-Nazi Utkin – „Wagner“: „This is only the beginning of the greatest work in the world“ е публикуван за пръв път на Vihrogon.bg.