Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Thursday that mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin’s fiery death in a plane that went down was due to cocaine and grenades, not a coordinated assassination in retaliation for his uprising, as many suspect.

Prigozhin’s days were numbered the moment he led the Wagner Group—his paramilitary mercenary group—in a short but surprisingly robust uprising against Putin’s military last June. Prigozhin also openly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry, calling the invasion of the Ukraine as more or less a dumpster fire, and saying their reasons for the invasion were lies.

On Aug. 23, an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet crashed near Kuzhenkino in Tver Oblast, about 60 miles north of the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, where it departed. Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin, and Valery Chekalov—three key figures of the Wagner Group—were aboard and killed. Just before flying, Prigozhin was reportedly oddly given permission to leave Russia for Belarus, but that could’ve been a trap. It’s widely believed to have been an assassination.

CBS News reports that “The Kremlin has dismissed suggestions that it orchestrated the crash in revenge for Wagner’s march on Moscow.”

Pressure was building for Putin to provide an explanation, and he did not disappoint. NBC News reports that in a speech on Oct. 5 at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, about six weeks after Prigozhin’s plane fell from the sky, Putin spun a “wild tale that drugs and grenades caused the fatal crash,” claiming the plane had 11 pounds of cocaine and grenade fragments. A simple drug test would have proven this, he suggested.

U.S. officials told NBC News that intelligence suggests sabotage is the leading theory for the crash.

“I know there must be a question hanging in the air as to what happened to the company’s top management,” Putin said. “The Investigative Committee head [Alexander Bastrykin] reported to me just the other day that hand grenade fragments had been found in the bodies of those killed in the plane crash.”

“Unfortunately, tests on traces of alcohol or drugs in the blood of those killed were not taken, although we know that after the events we all know about [the uprising] the FSB [Russia’s intelligence agency] found not only 10 billion [rubles] in cash, but also 5 kilograms of cocaine in the Saint Petersburg office” of Prigozhin’s company, Putin said.

Putin denied that any missile or projectile was a factor in the crash.

“There was no external impact on the plane,” Putin said. “This is an established fact, a fact established by the examination that Russia’s Investigative Committee has conducted. The investigation still continues.”

U.S. intelligence agrees no missile was involved, but says Prigozhin’s plane crashed due to an explosive that was intentionally set off on board.

Putin Opponents Tend to Die Horrible Deaths

Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian FSB (the new KGB) spy who defected to England, died in 2006 after drinking tea poisoned with a radioactive substance called polonium-210, “the most dangerous substance known to man.” It’s a rare radioactive isotope that caused him to die a slow painful death. And it’s only produced in Russia.

Litvinenko was loudly against Russian policies and spoke out about it often. Litvinenko said he himself was hired to assassinate Putin’s adversaries. On Nov. 23, 2006, Litvinenko succumbed to radioactive poisoning.

Litvinenko said he was poisoned by Putin despite living thousands of miles away. The Daily Beast reports that even the men who are believed to have allegedly delivered the poison are known. Like Litvinenko’s obvious assassination by poisoning, Prigozhin’s death is believed to be an act of retaliation.

A post on Telegram reads, “A short summary: the most combat-ready unit in the history of modern Russia was commanded by alcoholics and drug addicts who, being professional soldiers, did not know about the rules for handling hand grenades.

“However, the people of Russia will forever remember them differently.”

In 2018, Straight Cannabis and High Times reported that Tommy Chong said Donald Trump is “Putin’s Bitch.” This was a Twitter/X response to a tweet posted by Rep. Don Beyer.

Putin is not only losing the war in the Ukraine, but also the War on Drugs.

High Times reported that Russia has the highest number of heroin users per capita of anywhere in the world, according to a Brookings Institution review.  Over 2% of Russia’s entire population inject drugs. In 2020, a total of 18,013 people overdosed on illicit drugs and 7,366 died as a consequence, which is a 16% increase compared to 2019, a 2022 study found. Injection drug use also led to sky-high HIV rates in the country. 

The suspicious deaths of Putin’s enemies aren’t’ helping the country’s image.

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A United States citizen, teacher, and lecturer was slapped with 14 years of hard time in prison for a little bit of pot found in his luggage at an airport in Moscow, Russia. It’s the latest move in a series of harsh sentences dished out on Americans in the country, including WNBA star Brittney Griner.

On August 14, 2021, Marc Hilliard Fogel, then 60, was arrested at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow when half an ounce of weed (approximately 14 grams) in various forms was discovered in his luggage. Fogel was approved by a doctor in the United States for medical cannabis for chronic pain following a series of serious surgeries.

The Fogels had been teaching abroad in places including Russia for years, but they were used to less security at that airport during previous flights. Something went terribly wrong, and Fogel told his wife he’d packed 14 vape carts and put some flower in a contact lens case. He thought he could get away with stashing some in his luggage for his trip back to Russia after a trip in the U.S. The Fogels were heading back to Moscow to celebrate Marc’s 10th year of teaching the children of U.S. diplomats.

Russian police discovered the weed, and he immediately knew the country doesn’t play games when it comes to cannabis, especially when it’s a U.S. citizen. But Fogel assumed he’d be looking at deportation, or some other punishment—not hard time.

Fogel has already spent 11 months in various Russian detainment centers for his “crime.” But hearing the judge say “14 years” was a crushing moment for Fogel and his family, The Washington Post reports.

“There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that Marc will be left behind,” Jane Fogel told The Washington Post. “It’s terrifying. I would hope that President Biden and especially first lady Jill Biden, who is an educator, realize the importance of including Marc in addition to Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.”

You can’t help but make the connections to WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner, who is currently being detained for her “crime” of a couple of vape pens. Since Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there is a  “substantial proposal” to free both Griner and another unjustly detained American, Paul Whelan, Fogel’s family has hope that he might not have to sit in prison for 14 years.

Fogel was fed things like bowls of gruel and dried apricots, depending on what Russian prison he was in.

“He says what he wants in English, someone translates for him, one of his cellmates, and depending on how good their English is is how accurate of a picture we get of what is happening,” Anne Fogel said. “It’s very convoluted and it’s incredibly worrisome because we can’t really have an honest conversation. Everything goes through the censors. It’s harrowing.”

But for Marc, he wasn’t happy to hear Griner might be released before himself. “That hurt,” Marc Fogel wrote in a letter. “Teachers are at least as important as ballers.”

Reality in Russia

President Vladimir Putin ramped up punishments for citizens and tourists alike including one particular new law that dishes out sentences of up to 15 years in prison for people who distribute “false news” about the Russian military. Russia has been accused of using prison sentences as a “tool for exercising control over society” by the Centre for Eastern Studies.

The Fogels are now calling to President Joe Biden to step in and get him out of Russian prison—just as efforts are being made to free Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, CNN reports.

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, U.S.-Russian relations have obviously been strained, to say the least. It’s typical of Russia to rebrand normal U.S. citizens and athletes as drug pins, often allegedly with political motivations.

Nearly 5,000 people have already signed a petition on Change.org to free Marc Fogel from wrongful detainment in Russia.

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