In light of the reported death of Wagner Group Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, The Cipher Brief tapped a number of experts for their thoughts on what his death means and what happens next.
The Cipher Brief: Were you surprised to hear news out of Russia that Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prighozin is dead?
Hoffman: It was expected. [Russian President] Vladimir Putin could never allow Prigozhin to live after Putin publicly called him a traitor during Prigozhin's failed mutiny in June. As director of CIA, Bill Burns said shortly afterwards, that Putin likes to serve his revenge up cold, so I think this was entirely expected. The intelligence community has a lot of experience in determining whether intended targets met their demise by using all of the intelligence at their disposal, so I'm quite sure that the White House is asking the intelligence community for their best assessment about whether Prigozhin is in fact, dead.
Putin deliberately allowed Prigozhin to roam free for the past couple of months, which perhaps gave Prigozhin a false sense of security. The FSB likely tracked him like a good sniper and then found the time and place of Putin's choosing to launch the attack. Putin probably had a number of different options but chose this one. I'm quite sure it was the FSB that was out there, surveilling Prigozhin and determining when the opportune moment would arrive.
Putin is messaging, first and foremost, to his own military and security services because he can't allow anyone to think that if they betray him, they won't be met with anything but their demise.
That's why he targeted Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov back in 2015. It's why he targeted opposition leader Alexei Navalny and former Russian spy Sergei Skripal with discoverable assassination attempts. It’s the same story with Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB officer, in the UK. Those were discoverable assassination attempts.
Why would you do that? Why would you use Novichok or Polonium 210? The answer is because you want your own guys to know that they cannot live another day on this earth except in fear of when they're going to be assassinated if they betray Putin.
That's why he did it. That's why he had to do it.
He waited a short time because he needed to better understand who was associated with the failed mutiny. He of course, removed General Sergei Surovikin. But at a lower level, he needed to vet Wagner. He needed to vet his own military and remove the guys who were loyal to Prigozhin because he doesn't want to lose Wagner. He needs them in Libya and in Africa, and in the Central African Republic, in Niger, and of course, he needs them in Syria. He has to keep Wagner.
It’s being reported that he also killed Prigozhin’s successor, Dmitry Utkin which also has to be confirmed. But Putin is cauterizing his wounds at this point and moving forward.
The Cipher Brief: You mentioned Wagner Group's operations in places like Libya, Syria, and all throughout Africa. Do you expect those operations to continue?
Hoffman: I think so, yes. And concurrent with the assassination, which is what this was, the FSB is likely imposing counterintelligence control over not just the military units, but the mercenary units as well to ensure that they're absolutely one hundred percent loyal. And if they're not, they'll meet Prigozhin's fate. That's why Putin killed him. Putin didn't bring him in for questioning. He didn't put him behind bars. He did what a ruthless dictator does, which is kill the guy. And the message to the remaining Wagner Group fighters is that now, if you want to continue to get your paycheck and carry on doing that work, there are new rules.
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The Cipher Brief: How do you think Western intelligence agencies may be looking to exploit this situation?
Hoffman: I think the intelligence community is going to be tracking it very closely. They will be observing the potential ramifications for Putin's regime security and asking whether the Wagner mutiny could have been a rehearsal for someone else to launch a coup down the road. I think they’ll also be looking for the long-term ramifications of Putin killing Prigozhin and in particular, the ruthless way in which he did it. I still think it was the better of the three options he had, which were to let Prigozhin live, kill him, or put him behind bars.
I’ll be watching the propaganda in the coming days. How will this be described on Telegram? How will Putin's state-controlled media portray this?
The Cipher Brief: The plane crash happened as the BRICS summit was going on in South Africa. Russia and China in particular are seeking to use the BRICS gathering as a bid to bolster the bloc with a goal of diminishing Western influence in the world. Do you think the timing of Prighozin meeting his fate is notable?
Hoffman: I don't know that the BRICS summit mattered that much to Vladimir Putin when it comes to this. There's always stuff going on every day in the world. I don't think Putin is holding himself hostage to world events. I think he's looking for the right time and place tactically to snipe his enemy. That's it.
You take your shot when your enemy is vulnerable and you take down the aircraft. You're not really worried about other extraneous things. If you're a sniper, when your target pops up from a distance, you're going to take them out. That's what I think motivated Putin to do this.
This reminds me of the movie The Godfather when Michael Corleone’s character goes to Carlo, the abusive husband of his sister, and tells him he’s out of the family and has to move to Vegas. Carlo goes to the car and gets strangled to death instead. That's how Corleone’s character dealt with it. He was going to kill Carlo because he admitted that he had betrayed Michael’s older brother Sonny, who was killed in an attack. This is a similar thing.
Russia is a mafia state under Vladimir Putin. I could imagine Putin telling Prigozhin, "Okay, you're out of the Wagner Group for now, and we're going to watch you carefully. That's your punishment."
I will tell you that the Russian mafia in the 90s and early 2000s, modeled themselves very much on the characters in Mario Puzo's books. And they like to think of themselves as Wise Guys or Goodfellas-type characters with their own code that they live by. It's just the way they operate. If you recall the scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone is attending the baptism of his sister's child, while at the same time, has ordered hits on all of the other families, taking his revenge at the time and location he chose, Putin similarly, is out there now at a public event doing an end zone dance. He knows that everything he does is being watched. So, he knows that people are going to say, "Vladimir Putin is really happy today. Wonder why?
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