CNN’s Clarissa Ward Identifies Key Question Sure to Linger For ‘Many, Many Years’ On Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Apparent Death

CNN’s Clarissa Ward joined Erica Hill on Wednesday to discuss the stunning news that a plane believed to be carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian warlord who recently led a mutiny, fell out of the sky. Prigozhin, who very publicly crossed Russian President Vladimir Putin, was announced killed by Russian authorities later in the day, but Hill and Ward discussed many of the open questions surrounding the crash – namely why would he risk being in Russia in the first place.

Hill began by noting to Ward, that we know “how Putin feels about traitors, how Putin feels about people who turn on him or who challenge him.”

“Alexei Navalny, of course, a great example, what happened to him when he returned to Russia. Which I think makes it all the more fascinating once we saw Prigozhin turn up in Russia not that long ago. And to be there, it’s remarkable that he would be back there after what we saw, Clarissa,” Hill added.

“It’s honestly, this is something I’ve asked myself so many times, how is he wandering around casually, coolly popping up in St Petersburg, traveling to Africa, back and forth to Belarus, seemingly without a care in the world. Either, this man has extraordinary amounts of chutzpah, which partially I’m being a little facetious, but partially I do think that’s part of it and part of the image that he cultivated,” Ward replied, adding:

Or did he possibly have some sense from someone in the security services that he had been pardoned or forgiven? We know that he did sit down with President Putin in the days after the mutiny. We don’t know exactly what was discussed at that meeting, but did he leave it under the illusion that potentially he could live out his life and die of old age? It’s hard to believe that he could seriously think that because Prigozhin understands fundamentally that Putin does not accept traitors, that he does not accept betrayal.

And by the way, Prigozhin was the same way in terms of espousing that very, very hard-line ideology. So this is a question, honestly, Erica, that I think will keep people talking on Twitter and online for for many, many years trying to unravel and really fundamentally get to grips and understand why exactly Prigozhin believed that he might get away with this. And frankly, that was a question that was asked just after the mutiny as well. How on earth did he think he was going to be able to pull this off.

Hill and Ward continued their discussion by diving into the impact of Prigozhin’s death on both internal Russian politics and Putin’s war efforts overseas.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.