If Putin has eliminated Prigozhin, the result could be more – not less – instability for Russia | Samantha de Bendern

The Russian president has seemingly upped the stakes: anyone who challenges his regime will have to see it through to the end

• Samantha de Bendern is an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House

We will all go to hell. But in hell we will be the best," commented Yevgeny Prigozhin, discussing his attitude to death in an undated interview that was published last night on the pro-Wagner Grey Zone Telegram channel. In the absence of any remarkable developments, it is looking increasingly likely that, as per Russian reports, the Wagner boss was killed on Wednesday afternoon in a plane crash in the Russian region of Tver, on his way from Moscow to St Petersburg.

Prigozhin shot to international notoriety almost a year ago, when a video of him recruiting convicts in Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine for his Wagner private military company established him as one of the most important Russian players in the war in Ukraine. This culminated in May this year when Wagner took the symbolically important town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine after nine months of bloody fighting. During the battle, Prigozhin became increasingly vocal in his criticism of Russia's top military leadership, and even went so far as to make veiled criticisms of Vladimir Putin.