The few words send shivers down your spine. As Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and his right-hand man Dmitry Utkin died in their plane crash in Russia, a video clip from a 2018 interview with President Vladimir Putin on Russia’s main TV channel has been unearthed on social networks.
“Do you know how to forgive?” asks a journalist from Rossiya 1 facing Vladimir Putin. “Yes, but not everything”, replies the person concerned bluntly. “What is impossible to forgive?” continues the journalist. “Betrayal”, replies the Russian president without batting an eyelid.
This archive had already reappeared on June 24 during the aborted rebellion of the Wagner group which, led by its leader, marched on Moscow, shaking Russian power in the midst of the war in Ukraine. The Russian president then denounced in a solemn address to the nation “a stab in the back of our country and our people”. “It’s nothing but betrayal,” Vladimir Putin continued. “A betrayal caused by excessive ambitions and personal interests”.
Since this mad mutiny of Wagner, many observers affirmed that the days of Prigojine were numbered. “Traitors will be punished,” Putin also said on June 24. However, legal proceedings were quickly dropped. And the Belarusian president boasted of having convinced Putin not to shoot the leader of the rebellion. “I said to Putin: we can kill him, it’s not a problem. Either on the first attempt or on the second. But I said don’t do it,” he said.
His death today “comes as no surprise to anyone,” said Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the US Executive National Security Council. If there is currently no evidence that it was an assassination ordered by the Kremlin, this last hypothesis seems the most likely, as shown by the many reactions of Western leaders.
“Few things happen in Russia without Putin having something to do with it,” said US President Joe Biden, implying that the crash was perpetrated on the orders of the Russian president. “It is in principle a truth that can be established,” said French government spokesman Olivier Véran. “We do not yet know the conditions under which this crash took place. We can have reasonable doubts,” he continued.
“Anything is possible, but the most likely version remains execution by the FSB and the air force, ordered by Putin and his desire for revenge,” said the former French ambassador. in Russia Sylvie Bermann at the microphone of RTL this morning.