LAST UPDATE | 24 Aug 2023
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin has expressed his “condolences” over a plane crash thought to have killed Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“First of all I want to express words of sincere condolences to the families of all the victims,” Putin said, describing Prigozhin as a man who made serious “mistakes” but “achieved results”.
mEarlier today Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country had “nothing to do” with the presumed death of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash, instead implying the Kremlin’s responsibility.
According to Russian officials, the head of the group was on board a plane that crashed yesterday, with all passengers killed.
“We have nothing to do with this situation, that’s for sure. I think everyone knows who this concerns,” Zelenskyy told reporters.
The Kremlin is yet to comment on the apparent death of Prigozhin.
However, Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case into the plane crash.
Sky News is reporting that the committee will focus on the “grounds of a crime” potentially committed in relation to a “violation of traffic safety rules and the operation of air transport” surrounding the crash, which took place in the Tvar region near Moscow.
“According to preliminary data, all 10 people who were on board have died,” the committee told the broadcaster.
“An investigation team has left for the scene. All necessary forensic exam will be appointed and a set of investigative actions will be carried out to determine the cause of the plane crash.”
The US and France have reacted to the death, with both believing that there’s “not much that happens in Russia” without president Vladimir Putin’s involvement.
The Pentagon has said this evening it did not have information supporting theories that a surface-to-air missile was used to shoot down the aircraft,
The US military has “no information to suggest that there was a surface to air missile” involved in the crash, said Defense spokesman Pat Ryder, calling reports of a missile “inaccurate”.
US president Joe Biden said: “I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised.”
He added: “There’s not much that happens in Russia that (President) Putin’s not behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer”.
France said that there were “reasonable doubts” about the cause of the plane crash that presumably killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group.
“We don’t yet know the circumstances of this crash. We can have some reasonable doubts,” government spokesman Olivier Veran told France 2 television.
Asked about Biden’s claim that little “happens in Russia that (President Vladimir) Putin is not behind”, Veran agreed that “as a general rule, that’s a truth that can be established”.
Prigozhin was “the man who did Putin’s dirty work. What he has done is inseparable from the policies of Putin, who gave him responsibility to carry out abuses as the head of Wagner”, he said.
“Prigozhin leaves behind him mass graves. He leaves behind him messes across a large part of the globe, I’m thinking of Africa, Ukraine, and Russia itself.”
A UK government spokesperson said it is “monitoring the situation closely”.
Meanwhile, Germany’s foreign minister the presumed death of Prigozhin follows a pattern of “unclarified” fatalities in Russia, adding it was no coincidence that focus has turned to the Kremlin for answers.
“It is no accident that the world immediately looks at the Kremlin when a disgraced former confidant of Putin suddenly, literally falls from the sky two months after he attempted a mutiny,” said Annalena Baerbock, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We know this pattern in Putin’s Russia: deaths, dubious suicides, falls from windows, all which remain unclarified – that underlines a dictatorial power system that is built on violence.”
Prigozhin’s short-lived rebellion was seen as the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority since he came to power.
Since then, uncertainty has surrounded the fate of Wagner and its controversial chief.
Russia’s ministry for emergency situations yesterday announced the crash of a private plane travelling between Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
According to preliminary information, all 10 people on board died, including three crew members, the ministry said.
Russia’s aviation agency later said the Wagner chief was listed as a passenger on board the plane.
The agency also listed Dmitry Utkin, a shadowy figure who managed Wagner’s operations and allegedly served in Russian military intelligence.
Telegram channels linked to Wagner posted footage – that AFP could not independently confirm – showing the wreckage of the plane burning in a field.
Russian law enforcement officials were standing guard at the crash site near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region early today, AFP images showed.
In Saint Petersburg, people laid flowers and patches bearing the Wagner skull logo at a makeshift memorial outside the private mercenary group’s headquarters, AFP journalists said.
“Guys, we just have no words right now,” said a masked man and alleged members of Wagner at the site.
“Let’s support Yevgeny Viktorovich (Prigozhin) and all our commanders. We need your support now.”
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said on social media that the plane crash was “a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections. ‘Beware! Disloyalty equals death’.”
Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the exiled leader of the opposition of Belarus — where some Wagner fighters moved after their short-lived mutiny in Russia — said Prigozhin would not be missed in her country.
“He was a murderer and should be remembered as such,” she said on social media.
Contains reporting by Eoghan Dalton
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