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narrator: pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news". events have two months ago, the mutiny. ♪ >> hello, i'm christian frazier and this is "the context." >> we can't confirm yet mr. prigozhin was killed. we know from authorities he was on the list of hasseningers on the plane that crashed.

list of passengers on the plane that crashed. >> it's also on the say a top russian general who was previously in charge of russian forces in ukraine and may have been involved in that mutiny also was relieved of command. >> this really underscores the stakes of the power struggle that the war in ukraine has really shown us in russia and the fissures in the power establishment that putin himself leads. christian: reports from russia that the leader of the wagner group yevgeny prigozhin is dead, that his plane was shot down

killing ought passengers and crew. we know he was on the passenger list but was he onboard? we'll bring you all the reaction. good evening. 10 people have been killed on a private jet that was flying from moscow to st. petersburg with official reports from moscow saying prigozhin was on the manifest, carrying seven passengers and three crew and said to have crashed northwest of moscow. there are pull ulto multiple videos showing the plane crashing and does not show where the plane departed and appears near moscow where it climbed to an altitude of 29,000 feet before the data suddenly shows it dropping ending up at zero feet. eyewitnesses said they heard two loud bangs shortly beforehand. while the cause of the crash is not quite clear, prigozhin's long-standing feud with the

kremlin and generals would give the russian state motive for revenge. the channels linked to prigozhin suggest russian air defense missiles brought the plane down and we'll discuss that. these are the pictures that show the wreckage on fire. it is an embra business jet and one that often traveled in, ra02715 would be extremely familiar to the russian authorities as it is indeed to the international media. flight radar reports there was another plane, perhaps a decoy plane that later landed in moscow. suffice to say we should be careful what to believe and is a story shrouded in the usual kremlin intrigue. looking back, obviously we have to look at the coup he led in june. he has been largely out of sight but claim to have been in africa where his mercenaries relocated but it is unclear what time the

video cause taken and if he returned to russia since being shot. let's go to jane waterhouse in kyiv and talk to me about the reaction there and the role wagner played in ukraine. james: look, we haven't had any reaction through official channels but standing here in kyiv, we were in a restaurant earlier, you get a sense of the intrigue, as you put it, in this story. we're talking about the leader of a mercenary group that's undertaken some of the most brutal fighting in ukraine, notably around the eastern city of bakmut and one of the many ways out for ukraine in this war as the country sees it is a collapse of the regime in russia where vladimir beautien is somehow toppled. putin is somehow toppled.

hope was given in june with yevgeny prigozhin making his way from the front lines before driving to moscow before deciding -- before thinking better of it. so many here see that as the beginning of the end for vladimir putin in that his position is increasingly fragile with his increased frustrations with the war and the huge losses russia is suffering along with ukraine along with the weakening of the ruble and along with russia's diminished status and main partner china. there is a fragilitiy that is beingelcomed in ukraine but you talked about the list of unknowns so far. and until anyone here is confirmation from one of yevgeny prigozhin's channels or someone himself who isn't shy of putting out a self-authored video, then people won't believe it fully but there's a lot of willing

here in ukraine, let's put it like that. christian: a spokesperson from the british government said we're monitoring the situation closely and one of the reports from moscow was the plane fell out of the sky with one of the wings missing. now clearly, given prigozhin's profile and how widely he was wanted, one would presume the pentagon is all over this and we know the pentagon can detect burns from the ground and can detect heat signatures from missiles. you would presume, would you not, the intelligence agencies are looking very closely to ensure this isn't some sort of russian false flag operation? james: absolutely. and this is something russia is no stranger to, where we might see something presented to us but something the kremlin is constructing to justify a future action down the line. now, there are question marks raised when a country like russian where you can speak ill of the invasion of ukraine and

face 25 years in prison but yet if you're yevgeny prigozhin you can mount a armed battalion and been allowed to remain free. he was in st. petersburg and saw him in this apparent video in africa and we weren't able to work out the location but he certainly adopted a less of a profile. and week after week we'd see yevgeny prigozhin in a occupied region where he would be critical of the russian defense ministry over how it was conducting this invasion. and from here, it was strange to understand or hard to understand how that chimed with vladimir putin himself where you had this in-fighting. i stress again for ukraine where an outright victory in the repelling of russian forces completely is increasingly in the balance and an implosion inside russian body -- borders

is a hopeful alternative to that and seen increased drone strikes inside russian territory and the increasing criticisms we saw from prigozhin followed by that extraordinary two day arms rebellion two months ago now followed by the scenes, the images we are seeing today, it feeds the subconscious hopes in ukraine that vladimir putin's regime could fall. and it is clear in history lessons that have gone by that it is almost impossible to wage a war on foreign soil if you are having a domestic crisis in terms of the country's leadership. so as i say, i don't think people will believe it until there's confirmation but there's a definite hope here. but it is extraordinary where we've seen what's happened in the past of vladimir putin's opponents and seem to be seeing it again but the difference this time around is that vladimir putin's position is without doubt more fragile given the external forces he's facing and the uncertainty around the

outcome of his invasion of ukraine. christian: as you say, james, common sense would tell you that in this particular case, the kremlin has no desire to protect or hide prigozhin and would hardly put out official statements if they weren't sure he was dead already, would they, particularly when he already undermined putin's authority, as you say? james: i think that's a fair point. if we take the hypothetical death of yevgeny prigozhin, both yevgeny prigozhin and the kremlin have something to gain from that, in a that there is no doubt he wouldn't be looking over his shoulder. i can't stand here and tell you for sure what made him stop on his drive to moscow when he was seemingly going to make a direct threat to vladimir putin's power. we need to be bright-eyed to the idea he would not have turned his back on the invasion of ukraine had that very short conversation with russian

generals before driving off to moscow without some kind of eliteuy-in and without some of the powerful in russia saying you need to do this. and i think given the fact he pulled outf that, he might have had the buy-in necessary to mount the coup many hoped for in ukraine. it's very difficult to see why vladimir putin allowed him to seemingly carry on as normal in complete contradiction to the harsh sentences he's imposing on those critics closer to home. so today might be a statement, if you look at the dramatic images of seemingly prigozhin's private jet falling from the sky. when you have the history as discussed, it seems outwardly that a statement is being made but i've learned in this full scale invasion not to take things on face value

straightaway. we may well learn the facts in full course. yevgeny prigozhin's official channels have not denied reports and accused moscow of an attack on his life. what we're saying is dramatic but sadly for ukraine, it does little to affect the attritional nature of the front line. of course there will be a psychological element here where if you're a russian soldier on the front line and seeing this chaos back at home, that would affect morale if you're trying to push forward in very hostile circumstances. to date even with that failed coup of last month, russia is pushing forward if anything in some areas and retaining a grip of what it has seized ukraine so far. christian: maybe we'll look at that through the course of the program tonight. james, we'll come back to you if you get any other news there and keep it for the moment. i should point out it's two months to the day that prigozhin announced he was marching on

moscow. we know vladimir putin likes anniversaries and he does not like traitors. we have the editor of the financial times and lucy, a story the british government is looking at prescribing the wagner group as a terrorist organization akin to al qaeda and islamic state. what do you think the future of the wagner group would be without yevgeny prigozhin. lucy: look, it's a very good question. he was the founder of what for a long time was regarded as a private military company in the face of kremlin denials that it was an agency of the russian state in the wake of the coup that prigozhin led two months ago today as you just mentioned, vladimir putin has come out and said in fact the wagner group was always completely funded by the state, and certainly the

state backing is something that western intelligence agencies had long suspected, so look, on that basis, you can imagine that the continuation of wagner will go on. we know that some of the private mercenaries who were loyal to prigozhin opted to take the offer made by putin in the wake of the coup to go to belarus, the leader of belarus, lukashenko, having been a key player in negotiating the truce that ended that abortive. however, others have been drafted into the ministry of defense in russia. already the organization is a little bit different. we know that prigozhin was certainly in africa on monday, which has been the main theater in which the wagner group has been operating, conducting fighting and destabilizing

operations since essentially withdrawing from ukraine. christian: the common affairs -- the reign affairs committee said a few weeks ago the government had underplayed and underestimated wagner for almost a decade. are you suggesting they would be alive to the possibility that even with prigozhin out of the way, this group, whether it's under the name wagner or n, would continue to operate in countries like niger? lucy: it's likely it would. the u.k. government, it must be said, has already unveiled a list of sanctions against wagner's senior officials, including in places in africa in marly, in the central african republic where senior commanders of the group have been accused of torture and executions, also in places like south sudan where the u.k. government has accused its commanders of stoking instability, being behind propaganda undermining the

authorities locally. so these are well established operations across africa one would expect to continue p. i think certainly the u.k. government has been accused by m.p.'s of not having done enough to prevent wagner using the city of london's financial institutions to raise money and to move their funds around, which is one reason why my understanding is from government sources that the home secretary was just poised in the next few weeks to announce this move stepping up from sanctions against the group a its senior figures such as prigozhin to a prescription to a terrorist organization that would ban it as a group under u.k. law. christian: thank for you that. we'll let you go. thank you very much for that. patrick brewery is a defense expert at the university of wagner, former nato and samantha

is from chatham house and is a russia expert and will bring her in shortly. patrick, let me start with you and what we know about the plane falling out of the sky. the pictures that we see, it appears to be missing a wing. that is what we're hearing from the task news agency in russia. what does that suggest to you? patrick: good evening, christian. it suggests that what we can see is it's either a catastrophic failure at a height as you were mentioning with the sky tracker at 29,000 feet, midair. i'm not an aircraft engineer but my general understanding is midair catastrophic failures are fairly unusual. they would be more likely to happen at takeoff or landing. and the other thing, so it's either something like that or it's a shoot down, which would, a lot of these surface-to-aramis else would work by getting close enough to the engines and then

releasesing a explosive of shrapnel to pepper them and the blast as well and potentially is that. if i were a betting man, i'd say it was probably that at this stage, looking at the height and potentially the intent behind it given all you've mentioned in terms of the anniversary and the arrest of the general today or the relief of command, the fact that in the last couple months, igor gerkin is being rounded up and there are interesting questions who else is on the flight, if indeed prigozhin is, where would that leave the wagner group? but from the footage, it's a finger in the wind but edge towards it being shot down from what i can see anyway. christian: befor we come to who is onboard, but if it were a heat seeking missile it would focus on the hottest part of the plane which is the engine that would take the wing off as we

saw with the nh-17 crash, correct? patrick: exactly. it would depend on what missile was used and what the homing system was. but if you're talking about the nh-17 crash, the missile got close, very close to the engine but not actually hit and explode within a diameter and peppering the rest of the fuselage with shrapnel and then causing the breakup of the plane as a result of the damage sustained. it depends, you don't know exactly how -- what missile was used and how it actually hit. christian: i'm just trying to imagine this crew on the ground. i mean, we do know that there are plenty of droughns going into russian airspace at the moment but this is a tail wing with a number that everybody knows, one would presume, wouldn't they, that the russian authorities and those watching the skies knew exactly what this plane was. patrick: yeah, that would be the job of the people and command

and air defen and the pilots in terms of sending the route plans through the transporters, so that's what is meant to be done and they should know what the civilian traffic is, etc., etc. why even then if it was picking up on the military range, why would they be shooting and what are they going to mistake it for, something moving away or towards st. petersburg? there would be heightened tensions at the moment knowing what's going on with the droughns and getting through on other attacks. the simple tracking of it moving away would suggest it's not so much of a threat. christian: onboard, we wait to see who was on the manifest but the suggestion is that one of the others was dimetri utkin, a former special forces in the g.i.u. patrick: co-founder of wagner as well. christian: this was christmas all at once and were all aboard

the same plane if what we're led to believe. patrick: why would you have these two guys on the same plane is the first thing, you just don't do that. and the other thing is this flight that was turned back. i did see on social media saying the task had confirmed, the russian state media confirmed the last few minutes prigozhin had been confirmed but until we hear from wagner, they'll have to get people on the ground, it's not that you just don't pick up the phone to confirm someone is dead. that may take a while. but it certainly seems like the russian "task" is saying that happened. if utkin is involved that would be a bigger blow to wagner as we know and especially as lucy was mentioning in terms of the questioning about their operations in west africa, where does that leave them? it's too early to say. what we can say if it materializes and what we've seen since the coup, prigozhin and utkin is out and sarafkin is out

or down and igor gerkin is detained. it's quite a heavy responsive you see in that regard. christian: patrick, thanks very much. we're struggling to make contact with samantha and speak to lucas, author of "the new cold war." thank for you being with us. look, it could be an accident but let's be honest, it's standard operating procedure in russia for people to fall out of windows or shoot themselves twice and nobody around the world would really believe it was an accident, will they? >> absolutely not. i'm reminded of the way in which general alexander libit, 25 years ago, who perhaps is the man that should have taken over from boris yeltsin as president of russia just fell to his death in a helicopter crash, at the time it was very convenient for putin and as one of your previous contributors said, putin also likes anniversaries and my bet very strongly is that this is basically another

kremlin murder, one of the dozens and dozens and scores and scores, maybe hundreds we've seen since putin came to power. but i also think that it doesn't solve putin's problems, it just changes them. christian: you wouldn't expect a meaningful investigation or outpouring from the kremlin? >> i don't think so. i think revenge is a dish best served cold and putin may have perhaps even enjoyed giving prigozhin a sense that bygones are bygones and the wagner group would continue with its enormously lucrative business in political and mercenary activities in africa and then just as prigozhin is thinking i got away with it, then he falls out of the sky. this could be part of the putin power play. i do think the fundamental poino is this exemplifies how weak the russian political system is, the fact that prigozhin was able to launch his coup in the first place and the fact he got away

for 70 weeks afterwards was extraordinary and the fact they couldn't arrest him and put him behind bars which is what should happen if you have someone who launch as rebellion against the country's head of state but instead you have this sort of mysterious extradition murder. this all shows that the russian political system is not functioning in a way one might say is legal. christian: as you say, it was mysterious he wasn't arresd forth with because putin called his actions traitorous and he went to belarus and luke shanken works out his exile and then there's a function in moscow and a mysterious video that appears a few days ago from the african continent. can you hazard to guess what has gone on the last two months? the last week or so, there's been a pattern of cleaning house. >> i think the first thing in any puzzle involving russia is

to always ask where's the money? and the wagner group activities in africa are lucrative and may well be that the disposal of prigozhin had to wait until the kremlin had a plan who is going to get what and who is going to do what in this great sway of the central african republic to and including niger which is where the kremlin's thumbprints can be found and of course the continuing war in syria where wagner plays a role. so maybe that was a consideration. i thought it was very odd the way in which prigozhin turned up at this african summit. and the pictures i've seen, he was wearing jeans which is a very interesting sign of, i thought, contempt for putin. normally you put on your best clothes in russia as indeed any other country when you're going to an important meeting with the

top man and prigozhin was dressed in a way that looked pretty casual and thought that was quite striking. i think there are a lot of currents going on. i think bear in mind, prigozhin had a lot of other memories as well and wasn't just putin and he had been fighting this almost civil war against the general star and you know people there who had many bones to pick with him and also had other rivals and adversaries as well and i think there would be many people pleased he's gone even if they don't agree with who should pick over the dark whereas. the carcus. christian: will be interesting what comes from the kremlin the next few hours. edward lucas, thanks for your time. if you're joining us, reports tonight from moscow, 10 people have been killed in a private jet flying from moscow to st. petersburg this afternoon. official reports from wagner telling us the wagner chief yevgeny prigozhin was on the manifest for that plane and the plane was carrying seven

passengers and three crew and fell from around 29,000 feet in a matter of seconds to the ground near moscow. this is the plane as it headed to the ground and you see it appears to be coming down very quickly. presumably as is the report with one of the wings missing. we're going to continue our coverage over the course of the next hour. but for our viewers watching in the united states on pbs, thank you very much for watching bbc news. narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪

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