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Wagner warlord told his mother he expected to die after mutiny
The Guardian
|August 23, 2025
The Russian warlord and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin looked "doomed" after his failed mutiny and told his mother he expected to die, days before his private plane crashed.
The founder of the Wagner mercenary group died when his jet went down in August 2023, two months after his fighters briefly seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and advanced towards Moscow in a short-lived rebellion against Russia's military leadership.
"When I last saw him, he looked doomed," said Violetta Prigozhina, 85, in an interview with the Russian outlet Fontanka, recalling the last meeting with her son one week before the fatal plane crash.
Asked whether her son foresaw his death, she replied: "Of course."
In the first interview given by a close relative of the late Wagner leader, Prigozhina said the authorities had still not told her what happened to her son.
This story is from the August 23, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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