Three days after the one-day rebellion in Russia involving Yevgeny Prigozhin and the PMC Wagner, the criminal case on the armed rebellion was dropped . During the actions of PMCs, Russian aviation suffered record losses in the air during the entire war, from 4 to 20 pilots died – 8 of them were members of the crew of the Il-22 aircraft, which was used as an air control center for the army during the suppression of the rebellion. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the dead pilots "did their duty with honor" and asked to honor their memory with a minute of silence, but did not announce the exact number of the dead.
However, there was no public announcement of the initiation of a criminal case into the death of the pilots. Also, none of the officials demanded that Prigozhin's fighters be held accountable. The head of the State Duma Defense Committee said in a conversation with The Insider that he knew nothing about any case. After the incident, the Russian military will think many times whether to follow the orders of the leadership, retired aviation colonel Dmitry Alksnis is sure. He assumed that this story would be hushed up, and recalled a similar precedent.
Andrey Kartapolov, Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee:
When asked whether there would be a case about the death of pilots, Kartapolov replied:
“The president has already said. What comments can there be?
However, when the correspondent of The Insider noted that Putin did not say anything about initiating a case, in response, Kartapolov said that "we need to listen to our president and everything will be clear."
Then Kartapolov nevertheless admitted that he himself did not know whether the case had been initiated. He promised that a trial would be held.
“No one stopped any case regarding the death of the pilots … I don’t know whether it exists or not, but I know that in any case, a trial will be held and the necessary decisions will be made within the framework of the current legislation.”
Dmitry Alksnis, retired aviation colonel
“There was indignation and anger at the violation of the Russian Constitution and Russian legislation in connection with what is happening and because of the termination of the criminal case. A very dangerous precedent has been created: when there is a provision in the Constitution and legislation that no crime should go unpunished, there should be an inevitability of punishment, but it turned out that these fundamental points can be canceled and someone can commit crimes and kill sovereign people, and they won't get anything for it.
An agreement was simply concluded, and they (the Wagner PMC fighters) are found not guilty. So the state cannot exist. This is a sign that the state is disintegrating – when it lacks the rule of law, which becomes the personal opinion of the individual. I am afraid that this shameful and illegal decision to terminate the criminal case will lead to serious consequences.
What is going on in the minds of people in army and military uniforms who saw how the president spoke? He dotted the “and”, said that a rebellion had been committed, that it was necessary to protect the Motherland and the people who defended the Constitution and the rule of law in the country. And their killers walk around calmly and feel serene. This cannot be the case in a normal country. This will end very badly, because next time people in military uniform will think a thousand times whether it is worth following the lawful order to protect the sovereignty of Russia, if they can be the last in line, and neither the Constitution, nor the law, nor the president will protect them. They can be killed and this will be considered normal, they say, well, what can you do, they were not lucky.
Let us recall the situation with the death of 11 pilots in May in the Bryansk region. There, the case was classified, but there was a hypothesis that they were shot down by friendly fire – the fire of Russian air defense systems. Something is not heard that someone was involved in this case, or at least a criminal case was initiated and an investigation was carried out to establish the cause. Even if they were shot down by Ukrainian air defense systems, it still required the initiation of a criminal case.
I think that now they will hush up this story, this tragedy, and there will be no gestures. Although the names of those who used air defense systems against these aircraft and their crews are known for sure. If you look, then four of the six helicopters were non-combat. They were electronic warfare helicopters and had no weapons. And also the military transport Mi-8. Combat were only Ka-52 and Mi-35. There was also an Il-22 aircraft – this is an air control post, there are no weapons there, there was a general leadership of this operation to prevent a rebellion. Five of the seven aircraft that were not armed were shot down. How do families who have lost fathers and sons feel, since their killers live in peace? Sad story".
Earlier, the FSB explained that it decided to close the case of an armed rebellion (Article 279 of the Criminal Code) after the Wagner PMC column entered Rostov-on-Don and tried to reach Moscow. It turned out that the fighters "stopped actions directly aimed at committing a crime." The grounds for terminating the case indicated in the report by the CSO FSB are not provided for by Russian criminal or criminal procedural legislation.
On the night of June 24, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, began the “March of Justice” against Moscow. Before that, he claimed that the places of deployment of his fighters were fired upon by the forces of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The MoD denies this information. On June 24, PMC fighters entered Rostov-on-Don, they were moving towards the capital through the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions. During the advance, the mercenaries damaged roads, destroyed at least two helicopters, including one Ka-52 Alligator helicopter near the Voronezh village of Komintern, and one aircraft. The losses of the Russian army ranged from 4 to 20 people.
Less than a day later, Prigozhin deployed his columns, the press service of Alexander Lukashenko stated that this was done by the "agreement" of the Belarusian leader with the head of the PMC. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov promised that the founder of PMC Wagner would "leave for Belarus." On the morning of June 27, Prigozhin's plane landed in Belarus, whether he was on board is unknown. The Ministry of Defense announced preparations for the transfer of heavy military equipment from PMC Wagner to units of the RF Armed Forces. Lukashenko said that the “Wagnerites” on the territory of Belarus would share their experience at the forefront.