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Mourners Hail Dead Russian Mercenary Prigozhin as Hero of the People

People visit a makeshift memorial for Wagner private mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in central Moscow on October 1, 2023, to mark 40 days since his death as per Orthodox tradition. (AFP)
People visit a makeshift memorial for Wagner private mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in central Moscow on October 1, 2023, to mark 40 days since his death as per Orthodox tradition. (AFP)
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Mourners Hail Dead Russian Mercenary Prigozhin as Hero of the People

People visit a makeshift memorial for Wagner private mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in central Moscow on October 1, 2023, to mark 40 days since his death as per Orthodox tradition. (AFP)
People visit a makeshift memorial for Wagner private mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in central Moscow on October 1, 2023, to mark 40 days since his death as per Orthodox tradition. (AFP)

At memorials to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in an unexplained plane crash exactly 40 days ago, dozens of mourners hailed the mutinous mercenary chief as a patriotic hero of Russia who had spoken truth to power.

The private Embraer jet on which Prigozhin was travelling to St Petersburg crashed north of Moscow killing all 10 people on board on Aug. 23, including two other top Wagner figures, Prigozhin's four bodyguards and a crew of three.

It is still unclear what caused the plane to crash two months to the day since Prigozhin's failed mutiny. The Kremlin said on Aug. 30 that investigators were considering the possibility that the plane was downed on purpose.

At his grave in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg, his mother, Violetta, and his son, Pavel, laid flowers. Supporters waved the black flags of Wagner which sport a skull and the motto "Blood, Honor, Motherland, Courage".

In eastern Orthodoxy, it is believed that the soul makes its final journey to either heaven or hell on the 40th day after death.

At memorials in Moscow and other Russian cities dozens of Wagner fighters and ordinary Russians paid their respects, though there was no mass outpouring of grief. Russian state television was silent.

"He can be criticized for certain events, but he was a patriot who defended the motherland's interests on different continents," Wagner's recruitment arm said in a statement on Telegram.

"He was charismatic and importantly he was close to the fighters and to the people. And that's why he became popular both in Russia and abroad," it said.

Prigozhin's mutiny posed the biggest challenge to President Vladimir Putin's rule since the former KGB spy rose to power in 1999. Western diplomats say it exposed the strains on Russia of the war in Ukraine.

'Leader'

After months of insulting Putin's top brass with a variety of crude expletives and prison slang over their perceived failure to fight the Ukraine war properly, Prigozhin took control of the southern city of Rostov in late June.

His fighters shot down a number of Russian aircraft, killing their pilots, and advanced towards Moscow before turning back 200 km (125 miles) from the capital.

Putin initially cast Prigozhin as a traitor whose mutiny could have tipped Russia into civil war, though he later did a deal with him to defuse the crisis.

Mourners spoke of respect for Prigozhin.

"He was a real authority, a leader," Mikhail, a serviceman in Russia's armed forces who refused to give his second name, told Reuters.

Moscow resident Marta, who also refused to give her surname, said the people believed in Prigozhin but that Wagner had been "decapitated" by the deaths of him and co-founder Dmitry Utkin.

"Hope for justice died with him," she said. "People believed in him."

Pro-Wagner groups posted a video of Prigozhin flying to Mali where, after a thunderstorm, he met a senior commander known by his call sign "Lotus" - Anton Yelizarov - who is now reported to be leading the group.

Opponents such as the United States cast Wagner as a brutal crime group which plundered African states and meted out sledgehammer deaths to those who challenged it.

Putin was on Friday shown meeting one of the most senior former commanders of the Wagner mercenary group and discussing how best to use "volunteer units" in the Ukraine war.

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There Is an Mpox Jab. Why Is It Taking So Long to Reach Africa? 

A Red Cross worker sprays chlorine as other Red Cross personnel raised awareness about mpox and hygiene among internally displaced people in the Don Bosco camps in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, 22 August 2024. (EPA)
A Red Cross worker sprays chlorine as other Red Cross personnel raised awareness about mpox and hygiene among internally displaced people in the Don Bosco camps in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, 22 August 2024. (EPA)
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There Is an Mpox Jab. Why Is It Taking So Long to Reach Africa? 

A Red Cross worker sprays chlorine as other Red Cross personnel raised awareness about mpox and hygiene among internally displaced people in the Don Bosco camps in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, 22 August 2024. (EPA)
A Red Cross worker sprays chlorine as other Red Cross personnel raised awareness about mpox and hygiene among internally displaced people in the Don Bosco camps in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, 22 August 2024. (EPA)

Mpox is nothing new to Africa yet there is no vaccine available on the continent, exposing rank inequity in global distribution as tens of richer nations inoculate people facing far less risk.

Experts say that inequality - alongside competing health problems and slow regulation - is putting millions of Africans in jeopardy, after scientists found the virus was now mutating fast, leaping from person to person and stealing over borders.

"The lack in the distribution of mpox vaccines in Africa is due to challenges in supply, funding, and infrastructure, and because the disease is less prevalent compared to other health priorities," Duduzile Ndwandwe, a scientist at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMARA), said in emailed comments.

Mpox had been circulating in the Democratic Republic of Congo since January last year but only became a grave concern this January when scientists spotted the worrying, new mutation.

Two mpox vaccines made by Denmark's Bavarian Nordic and Japan's KM Biologics used to combat a 2022 outbreak have been widely available in at least 70 countries outside Africa - even administered for free in some US and European clinics.

But before Nigeria received 10,000 doses from the United States this week, no mpox vaccine was available - in any country - in Africa, and the variant now circling vulnerable, displaced populations in DRC is even more virulent than previous strains.

'A SERIOUS EPIDEMIC'

Mpox, formerly known as monkey pox, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa since 1970, but received little global attention until an international outbreak in 2022.

It typically causes flu-like symptoms, pus-filled lesions and can kill. Protection costs about $100 a person.

Jimmy Whitworth, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, described the new variant, clade 1b pox, as "fairly lethal".

"This appears to be from sexual contact that it's spreading, and this time it is going from person to person," Whitworth said. "There's now a need to raise it to the priority list because this is a serious epidemic."

Since January 2023, there have been more than 27,000 suspected cases and 1,100 deaths in Congo, according to government figures, mainly among children.

The viral infection has spread from DRC to 12 neighboring countries, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to designate the outbreak a public health emergency.

Many African nations are struggling to meet the challenge.

Whitworth said the $100 needed to distribute a dose of the vaccine is prohibitive for governments who must quash multiple threats - measles, malaria, cholera - with limited budgets.

"It is a huge expense to vaccinate just DRC. If you asked people in DRC last year what the higher priority was, 'was it the measles or mpox vaccine?' They would have said 'measles vaccine'. And so would anybody else in public health because that was a bigger threat then," the epidemiologist said.

National regulations are also a problem.

Despite the severity of the mpox crisis and the risk of it spreading across DRC's borders, local regulators only approved a vaccine in June with no date yet set for distribution.

WHY THE DELAY?

In 2022, two mpox vaccines, along with public health campaigns against risky behavior, effectively controlled an outbreak that had hit 100 countries globally.

But African countries have so far remained underserved, with efforts only now ramping up to bolster their protection.

Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said it had been granted 9.34 million euros ($10.43 million) in emergency funding from the Africa Union for its mpox response and it said it would need 10 million doses of vaccines.

Bavarian Nordic said it can make 10 million doses of its vaccine by end-2025 and offered 2 million doses this year.

The WHO gave its partner agencies, including global vaccine organization Gavi and UNICEF, the go-ahead to buy mpox vaccines pre-approval to speed their delivery to Africa.

DRC had expected to receive its first vaccines in the week of Aug. 26 after the United States and Japan both promised deliveries, but has since said it would take longer.

European Union countries have also pledged donations to help Africa fight the current outbreak.

Whitworth said regulators in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, all countries where cases have been detected, should approve vaccines urgently without waiting for a full outbreak.

"The vaccine isn't even licensed in those countries," said Whitworth. "Those countries ... need to speed up the process."

WEAK HEALTH SYSTEMS

Even pre-mpox, Congo's health system was at breaking point - weighed down by epidemics of measles and Ebola and years of conflict - and campaigners say short-term fixes won't work.

Katharina Schroeder from Save the Children said long-term investment in social welfare and healthcare infrastructure were vital to prevent future outbreaks, with many remote health centers lacking basic testing kits or trained staff.

"The health centers outside the city need to be equipped to triage patients ... because often they're looking for things like gloves and masks," Schroeder said.

Save the Children has been training staff on the disease, but even when diagnoses are successfully sped through, few sick patients can then afford to isolate for the mandated four weeks.

"They understand this is mpox, they understand this is dangerous for their family. But they still don't go into isolation because they live day by day. They don't have enough to eat," Schroeder said.