Russia Reacts, Denies Accusations It Killed Wagner Boss
The Kremlin has said that Western suggestions Russian Mercenary Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an “absolute lie” while declining to definitively confirm his death.
Russia’s Aviation Authority has said that Prigozhin, Head of the Wagner Mercenary Group, was on board a private jet which crashed on Wednesday evening Northwest of Moscow with no survivors.
President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the families of those killed in the crash on Thursday and spoke of Prigozhin in the past tense, breaking his silence after the incident which occurred exactly two months to the day after Prigozhin led a failed mutiny against Army Chiefs.
Putin cited “preliminary information” as indicating that Prigozhin and his top associates in the Wagner Mercenary Group had all been killed.
Putin said Prigozhin had also made some “serious mistakes.”
Western politicians and commentators have suggested, without presenting evidence, that Putin ordered Prigozhin to be killed in order to punish him for launching the June 23-34 mutiny against the Army’s leadership which also represented the biggest challenge to Putin’s own rule since he came to power in 1999.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the accusation and many others like it were false.
“There is now a great deal of speculation surrounding this plane crash and the tragic deaths of the plane’s passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. Of course, in the West, all this speculation is presented from a well-known angle,” Peskov told reporters.
“All of this is an absolute lie, and here, when covering this issue, it is necessary to base yourself on facts. There are not many facts yet. They need to be established in the course of investigative actions,” he said.
Earlier on Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had scolded U.S. President Joe Biden for expressing his lack of surprise that Prigozhin had been killed in a plane crash, accusing Biden of disregarding diplomatic norms.
Russian investigators have opened a probe into what happened, but have not yet said what they suspect caused the plane to suddenly fall from the sky northwest of Moscow.
Nor have they officially confirmed the identities of the 10 bodies recovered from the wreckage.
Asked if the Kremlin had received official confirmation of Prigozhin’s death, Peskov said: “If you listened carefully to the Russian President’s statement, he said that all the necessary tests, including genetic tests, will now be carried out. The official results as soon as they are ready to be published, will be published.”
REUTERS
