Russia’s investigative committee has confirmed that the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was among the people killed in a plane crash north of Moscow last week. According to BBC News, Prigozhin was a key ally of President Vladimir Putin, until their relationship allegedly soured after Prigozhin led his troops in a day-long rebellion against Russia's military leaders in June.
Thom Shanker is the director of the Project for Media & National Security at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. He was named director after a nearly quarter-century career with The New York Times, including 13 years as Pentagon correspondent covering the Department of Defense, overseas combat operations and national security policy. Before joining The Times, he was foreign editor of The Chicago Tribune. He spent five years as The Tribune's Moscow correspondent, covering the start of the Gorbachev era to the death of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the communist empire in Eastern Europe.
Shanker recently published a book titled Age of Danger. In a chapter focused on Russia, Shanker and his co-author discuss what forces created Vladimir Putin, how he views the world and how the West has consistently misjudged him -- at least up to the second Ukraine invasion.
Shanker met Putin when he was based in Moscow back in the late '80s/early 90s, "before he was Putin," but Shanker says the signs of who he would become were always there -- Western officials just chose not to see them, or believe them, or take them seriously enough. Shanker also covered Ukraine's vote for independence in August 1991, the event that according to Shanker, Putin has been holding in his heart like an undying ember of hatred ever since.
Shanker can discuss what these developments tell us about Putin as well as what this means for Putin's future and his hold on power.
If you would like to speak with Shanker, please contact GW Senior Media Relations Specialist Cate Douglass at [email protected].
-GW-
