President Vladimir Putin has issued a decree mandating Wagner fighters to pledge allegiance to the Russian state after a fatal plane crash believed to have claimed the life of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the controversial head of the Wagner mercenary group.
Putin enacted this immediate change on Friday, vehemently denying Western allegations that Prigozhin had been killed on Russia’s orders, branding them as an “absolute falsehood.” The Kremlin refrained from officially confirming Prigozhin’s demise, citing the need to await test results.
Russia’s aviation authority reported that Prigozhin was aboard a private jet that tragically crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday evening, leaving no survivors. This incident occurred precisely two months after Prigozhin led an unsuccessful mutiny against military leaders.
President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the crash victims’ families on Thursday, referring to Prigozhin in the past tense. He referenced “preliminary information” suggesting that Prigozhin and his top associates from Wagner had perished. While praising Prigozhin, Putin acknowledged that he had also committed “significant errors.”
Putin’s introduction of a mandatory oath for Wagner employees and other private military contractors represents a clear effort to exert tighter state control over such groups. The official decree, published on the Kremlin’s website, compels individuals involved in military work or supporting Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine to formally pledge their loyalty to Russia.
Described in the decree as a step to bolster the moral and spiritual foundations of Russia’s defense, the oath includes a commitment to unwaveringly follow the directives of commanders and senior leaders.
Despite Western politicians and commentators speculating, without presenting substantiated evidence, that Putin ordered Prigozhin’s elimination in retribution for his June 23-34 mutiny against the army’s leadership—an action seen as the most substantial challenge to Putin’s rule since 1999—Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed these accusations as baseless on Friday.
