Since Wednesday and the presumed death of Yevgueni Prigojine, international leaders and their chancelleries have multiplied declarations. Reactions tinged for the most part with a strong suspicion about the reasons for the crash of a plane, between Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, counting the leader of the Wagner militia among the registered passengers.
On the very evening of the accident, US President Joe Biden said he was not “not surprised” of the possible death of the businessman. “Not much happens in Russia without Putin having something to do with it,” he added, from the mountains of the American West where he is with his family. “We have seen what has been reported. If this were confirmed, it would not be a surprise to anyone.said Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council of the American executive, earlier.
In Europe, the spokesperson for the French government estimated on Thursday that there were “reasonable doubts” on ” conditions “ of the air crash of which the boss of the paramilitary group, at the origin of a rebellion in June in Russia, would be one of the victims.
“Not a coincidence”
For Olivier Véran, Evgueni Prigojine is above all “Putin’s man of dirty deeds. What he committed is inseparable from the policy of Putin, who had entrusted him with the responsibility of carrying out his abuses at the head of the Wagner Group”. “Prigojine leaves behind mass graves. It leaves behind a mess in a large part of the globe, I am thinking of Africa, Ukraine, Russia itself”said the government spokesman.
Same doubts in Germany, where Annalena Baerbock, head of diplomacy, judged that this accident was not “no coincidence” and that everyone suspects the Kremlin of being behind the crash of this plane belonging to Evgueni Progozhin. ‘It’s no coincidence that the whole world is now looking to the Kremlin when a disgraced ex-Putin aide literally suddenly falls from the sky two months after attempting a rebellion’said M.me Baerbock at a press conference in Berlin, stressing that there was a dictatorial system in Russia “based on internal and external violence”.
“Criminal Prigozhin will not be missed by anyone in Belarus. He was a murderer and should be remembered as such.”has on his side writes Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya, Belarusian opposition leader in exile, on X (formerly Twitter). His death could mean the end of the Wagner Group’s presence in Belarus, she adds. It is indeed in this country that the boss of Wagner had officially found refuge, after his abortive putsch.