31 August 2023 , 10:21
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A new video has surfaced showing slain Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin commenting on his “elimination” as supporters of the Wagner warlord are convinced he's alive.
Prigozhin was killed in a business jet when it crashed in Russia on 23 August. It is largely thought he was killed at the behest of Vladimir Putin in revenge for the coup he led in June against the dictator’s regime.
The video clip has only just been released but it was filmed from his death. In the footage, Prigozhin, 62, is seen wearing military fatigues in a car and says: “For those discussing whether or not I am alive.
“How am I doing? It's the weekend, the second half of August [20]23. I am in Africa. So fans of discussing my elimination, intimate life, earnings or whatever, as a matter of fact, everything is fine.”
The video of Yevgeny Prigozhin was reportedly filmed in Africa several days before the crash (Grey Zone/e2w)The video was posted by Grey Zone, a Telegram channel linked to Wagner. It did so without comment but an earlier post by the channel showing his grave was captioned: “He once said that the dead speak louder than the living. He proved it!”
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Grey Zone did not say when the footage was filmed. Yet the video - if genuine - does not prove Prigozhin is alive. He is known to have been in Africa - where Wagner has military operations - before returning to Moscow ahead of the air crash. Pro-war Military Informant channel suspects the video was recorded on the weekend of 19-20 August, when he was in Africa.
“In just a few days, Prigozhin will return to Russia, where he will die on August 23 in the explosion of his Embraer Legacy 600 business jet in the Tver region,” said the channel.
“A special chill runs from the literally prophetic words of the head of the Wagner PMC, who ironically mentions his possible liquidation.”
Such a timing fits with the claim in the video that he was alive in Africa in the second half of August 2023. He does not mention the air crash in the footage.
Yet it emerged that a woman mourner who came to pay her respects at the Prigozhin grave in St Petersburg was the wife of a man used by the warlord as his doppelgänger.
There is no wreath at the tomb in Porokhovskoye graveyard from Prigozhin’s wife Lyubov, 52, yet there is one signed by “Mother”. On the day after the burial, one of Prigozhin’s two daughters, Polina, 31, was at the grave at the same time as Irina Krasavina, wife of his body double Leonid Krasavin.
A swirl of unconfirmed speculation suggested that Krasavin may have been on the plane rather than Prigozhin. A Russian passport was earlier found showing Krasavin’s picture but in Prigozhin’s name.
Prigozhin is known to have been paranoid about security and to have used body doubles. The latest video is likely to add the theories that either the Kremlin or other enemy failed to kill Prigozhin in an assassination bid, or connived in him not being on board a plane that was to be downed.
The funeral for Prigozhin was held on Tuesday. It was private, and it is not known who attended. The Kremlin ordered a major security operation and prevented access to Wagner operatives and the media.