Vladimir Putin’s enemies tend to suffer mysterious fates, from poisoning to falling from windows, but a plane crash is certainly more dramatic.

The alleged death of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is shrouded in mystery and there are some questions we will never have answers to.

According to a passenger list of the doomed plane that went down between Moscow and St Petersburg, the Wagner mercenary chief was on board.

In total, there were 10 people on the plane and no one survived.

Just months ago, Prigozhin spearheaded a mutiny against Russia’s Ministry of Defence, with Wagner fighters shooting down Russian attack helicopters during a revolt, killing an unconfirmed number of pilots.

The crash also happened on the same day a suspected ally of Prigozhin, General Sergei Surovikin, was removed from his post as Air Force Chief.

Speaking to The New Daily, Dr Jessica Genauer, a senior lecturer in international relations at Flinders University, said there is still a lot of opacity surrounding what might have happened.

The crash site where Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine other passengers and crew are said to have perished. Photo: Getty

Aside from the crash being a freak accident, there are three possibilities she put forward as to why a plane, carrying a man who staged a mutiny against Russia’s military, crashed.

Fearing retaliation from Putin, it’s possible Prigozhin staged the crash, essentially faking his death.

Dr Genauer explained it is hard to independently verify the reports coming out from Russia, but it has come out there were two private planes in the air just before the crash, both owned by Prigozhin.

There was the one that crashed, while the other safely landed in Moscow.

Dead or alive, we probably won’t be hearing from Prigozhin again, Dr Genauer said.

Claims have been made that Russia’s military shot down the plane, but given Prigozhin was a “colourful character”, it could have been any one of his many enemies.

“Prigozhin is a pretty colourful character. He doesn’t mince his words. He doesn’t have any problem with going out on the attack against other political elites, military elites within Russian society,” Dr Genauer said.

Then there’s Putin.

Dr Genauer said it is entirely possible that Putin is behind the plane crash, as he may have wanted retribution for the mutiny.

This isn’t the first time one of Putin’s enemies has wound up dead in a rather suspicious way – however this plane crash seems a little different.

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was allegedly killed in the crash. Photo: Getty

Putin’s enemies end up dead

There’s ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko who died after drinking green tea laced with polonium-210, to millionaire Pavel Antov who died last year after falling from a hotel window.

Leonid Shulman, the head of Russian transport service Gazprom Invest, was found dead in a bathroom in a remote village near Leningrad, of a suspected suicide, in January 2022.

A month later – the day after Russia invaded Ukraine – another top executive at Gazprom, Alexander Tyulakov, was found dead in the same village. His death was also ruled a suicide.

Putin has never directly claimed credit for the deaths of his foes and the Kremlin always denies involvement.

The deaths are brutal, but they’re usually more subtle than gunning down a plane.

“Oftentimes in the past when political opponents of Putin have died in mysterious ways, it has been ways that have been more subtle, if I could put it that way,” Dr Genauer said.

She isn’t trying to downplay the brutality of the other deaths that Putin may have had a hand in, but poisoning or an “accidental” fall is much less dramatic than a plane going down, particularly with the state of things in Russia.

The political environment is already “quite fraught”, Dr Genauer said, and amid drone attacks and other incidents in Moscow, it seems this is a very dramatic way to dispose of political opponents.

“Which doesn’t mean that Putin was not behind it, but it just casts a question mark over the circumstances, despite the fact that it does seem that Putin is willing to order the death of political opponents when he sees them as traitors to his regime,” she said.

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All eyes on Russia after Prigozhin death

There has also been reports that Prigozhin’s right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, was also on the plane, which means the Wagner Group is without a clear leader.

As of now, we don’t know what the Wagner fighters will do, or who they will fight for.

The ABC’s global affairs editor John Lyons said the future of the Wagner Group will depend on who takes over and potentially whether the fighters believe Putin was behind the crash; those that do might seek revenge.

Dr Genauer thinks it would be a good idea to keep an eye on those who were loyal to Prigozhin.

“There were Wagner troops that stayed loyal to Prigozhin throughout the last few months, even after the attempted mutiny,” she said.

“There were also Russian nationalist groups that supported Prigozhin and supported his attempted mutiny, because they felt that Russia was not being sufficiently successful in the war in Ukraine, not because they didn’t support the war, but because they felt that Russia was not executing that war in a sufficiently effective way.”

Dr Genauer believes Putin was destabilised by Prigozhin’s mutiny, though she also believes Prigozhin was trying to stage the mutiny against Russia’s Ministry of Defence, rather than the president directly.

“But in the end, it came out looking like an attempted mutiny against Putin’s regime, which would certainly be unacceptable and unforgivable,” she said.

It doesn’t matter if Prigozhin is dead or alive, or who or what the mutiny was aimed at, the crash only adds to the political instability and security instability around Putin and his regime, she adds.

Right now, Putin is likely feeling defensive, sitting uncomfortably.

“This alleged death of Prigozhin is not going to put an end to that,” Dr Genauer.

“In fact, I would expect to see increasing instability in the domestic Russian political landscape in coming months.”