Violetta Prigozhina, the mother of late Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, has broken her silence for the first time since her son’s failed mutiny and death two years ago. Speaking to the Russian outlet Fontanka ahead of the second anniversary of his death on August 23, 2023, she offered new details about his mindset and their final conversations.
Prigozhina revealed that she had warned her son prior to his June 23–24, 2023, mutiny against the Russian military, telling him: “Zhenya, people will only support you online. No one will stand with you. The Russian people aren’t like that anymore. No one will take to the streets.” She said her son believed he would enjoy widespread public support, encouraged by advisers who presented him with “calculated percentages,” but she felt he lacked sound guidance.
She emphasized that Yevgeny Prigozhin did not intend to overthrow President Vladimir Putin but sought to press for changes within the military leadership. “He definitely wasn’t planning to overthrow Putin — that much is absolutely clear. He just wanted to get through to the military leadership,” she said, while also expressing admiration for the Russian president. She recounted that Putin personally arranged for her urgent surgery in Hamburg when she was gravely ill, reportedly telling her son: “A mother is sacred.”
According to Violetta, her last meeting with Prigozhin took place on August 15, 2023, a week before his fatal plane crash. “He seemed doomed,” she said, adding that he anticipated his death and had become increasingly withdrawn after the mutiny, unwilling to discuss its aftermath.
Prigozhin launched his so-called “march for justice” following false allegations of Russian strikes on Wagner bases in Donbas. His mothers remarks further clarifying the mutiny was premediated. With minimal popular backing, most Wagner fighters refusing to march on Moscow, and Chechen forces deployed to Rostov-on-Don where Prigozhin had arrived earlier that day to lead the mutiny, he would call off the uprising after 24 hours.
Following the failed mutiny, many Wagner members were absorbed into the Russian military or redeployed to Africa. Prigozhin, along with Wagner co-founder Dmitry Utkin and other senior commanders including Valery Chekalov, died in a plane crash two months later. In the aftermath, Moscow created the “Afrika Corps” under the Ministry of Defense to replace Wagner’s African operations. In June 2025, the corps arrived in Mali as Wagner, now weakened and largely sidelined, withdrew after two and a half years.