Kremlin condoles family
Putin confirms death of mercenary boss Prigozhin
08/24/2023, 6:12 p.m
Well, then: Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed the death of mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. He sends his condolences to the family of the Wagner boss who was killed in a plane crash. We’ll see what the investigators find out, Putin said.
Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin has confirmed the death of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a video message. The long wait for an official statement is over. Previously, there had only been indications of the death of the founder of the mercenary group.
He called Prigozhin a “talented person” with a difficult fate, Russian agencies reported. According to Putin, he made serious mistakes in his life, but he also achieved necessary results. The Kremlin chief carefully formulated that according to initial findings, a plane carrying members of Wagner’s private army had crashed the previous evening. Wagner made an important contribution to the fighting in Ukraine that will not be forgotten. Putin expressed his condolences to the relatives. He announced a comprehensive investigation into the crash. This has already begun, but will take a while, he said at a meeting with Donetsk’s Russian head of administration, Denis Puschilin.
On Wednesday evening, Prigozhin and six other passengers and three crew members were traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg in a private plane assigned to the Wagner boss. The machine crashed in the Tver region, around 200 kilometers north-west of Moscow. It was quickly suspected that Prigozhin and other Wagner members could have been on board. A seven-name passenger list appeared to confirm this. However, there were no official confirmations.
Bloggers allege Putin’s murder
In the scene of Russian military bloggers and among members of the Wagner group, the suspicion was voiced that Prigozhin, uncomfortable for Putin and the Russian military leadership, was shot down on behalf of the Kremlin. There is currently no evidence for this.
However, after a mutiny by Wagner mercenaries under Prigozhin’s leadership exactly two months ago, many experts suspected sooner or later that the Russian President would react to this betrayal. Numerous observers assumed that Putin would try to compensate for the weakness shown during the mutiny with a clear signal. First Prigozhin was replaced as head of the Wagner mercenaries, he should go into exile. Then his mercenaries had to return numerous heavy weapons to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Most recently, Prigozhin also apparently feared that Kremlin representatives could stop his mercenary group from working in African countries. There was a suspicion that Russia wanted to look after the state military there with tasks.