UPDATED 2:37 P.M.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the family of Yevgeny Prigozhin on Thursday, breaking his silence after the mercenary leader’s plane crashed with no survivors two months after he led a mutiny against army chiefs.
Putin’s comments, which suggested he harboured decidedly mixed feelings about Wagner’s mercenary boss, were the most definitive yet on Prigozhin’s fate. Before he spoke, the only official statement had come from the aviation authority which said Prigozhin had been on board the downed plane.
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 on Wednesday evening.
Nor have they officially confirmed the identities of the 10 bodies recovered from the wreckage.
U.S. officials told Reuters that Washington is looking at a number of theories over what brought down the plane, including a surface-to-air missile.
The presumed death of Prigozhin leaves Russian President Vladimir Putin stronger in the short term, removing a powerful figure who launched a June 23-24 mutiny against the army’s leadership and threatened to make him look weak.
But it would also deprive Putin of a forceful and astute player who had proved his utility to the Kremlin by sending his fighters into some of the bloodiest battles of the Ukraine war and by advancing Russian interests across Africa which are now likely to be re-organised.
It remains to be seen too how Wagner fighters, some of whom have already spoken of betrayal and foul play, react.
Pledging a thorough investigation which he said would take time, Putin said that “preliminary data” indicated that Prigozhin and other Wagner employees had been on the downed plane. The passenger list suggests that Wagner’s core leadership team were flying with him too and had also perished.
Putin paid generous tribute to the renegade mercenary calling him a talented businessman who knew how to look after his own interests and who could, when asked, do his bit for the common cause.
But he also described Prigozhin as a flawed character who had made some bad mistakes.
“I want to express my most sincere condolences to the families of all the victims. It’s always a tragedy,” Putin said in televised remarks made during a meeting in the Kremlin with the Moscow-installed chief of Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
“I had known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the start of the 90s. He was a man with a difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life.”
‘A METALLIC BANG’
The Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet, which had been flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region north of Moscow.
A Reuters reporter at the crash site on Thursday morning saw men carrying away black body bags on stretchers. Part of the plane’s tail and other fragments lay on the ground near a wooded area where forensic investigators had erected a tent.
The Baza news outlet, which has good sources among law enforcement agencies, reported that investigators were focusing on a theory that one or two bombs may have been planted on board.
Residents of Kuzhenkino, the village near the crash site, said they had heard a bang and then saw the jet plummet to the ground. The plane showed no sign of a problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data.
One villager, who gave his name as Anatoly, said: “It wasn’t thunder, it was a metallic bang – let’s put it that way.”
Mourners left flowers and lit candles near Wagner’s offices in St. Petersburg and at other locations across Russia.
A Telegram channel linked to Wagner, Grey Zone, pronounced Prigozhin dead on Wednesday evening, hailing him as a hero and a patriot who had died at the hands of “traitors to Russia”.
Amid the absence of verified facts, some of his supporters have pointed the finger of blame at the state, others at Ukraine, which marked its Independence Day on Thursday
Putin said in June that Prigozhin’s the mutiny against the army, which saw Wagner fighters shoot down Russian military helicopters, could have tipped Russia into civil war.
The mercenary leader had also spent months criticising the conduct of Russia’s war in Ukraine – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – and had tried to topple Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff.
The mutiny was ended by an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But he had appeared to move freely inside Russia.
Many Russians had wondered how he was able to get away with such brazen criticism without consequence.
Prigozhin posted a video address on Monday which he suggested was made in Africa. He turned up at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg in July.
(Reporting by Andrew OsbornWriting by Nick MacfieEditing by Jon Boyle and Andrew Heavens)
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MOSCOW (Reuters) -Crash investigators on Thursday picked through the wreckage of a jet said to have been carrying Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin that crashed with no survivors, two months after he led a mutiny against the army leadership.
Two U.S. officials told Reuters Washington believed a surface-to-air missile originating from inside Russia likely shot down the plane, though they said the information was preliminary and under review. They spoke on condition of anonymity and offered no evidence.
Russian investigators opened a criminal probe but there has been no official word from Moscow on what may have caused Wednesday evening’s crash, or even official confirmation of Prigozhin’s death beyond a statement from the aviation authority saying he was on board.
The Kremlin and the Defence Ministry have made no comment on the fate of Prigozhin, 62, head of the Wagner mercenary group and a self-declared enemy of the army top brass over what he said was its incompetent prosecution of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin made a virtual statement to a summit of the BRICS nations in South Africa which his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was attending. Neither referenced the plane crash in which 10 people were said to have been killed.
State media gave the disaster low-key coverage.
The Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet, which had been flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg and was reported to have also been carrying senior members of Prigozhin’s team, crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region north of Moscow.
A Reuters reporter at the crash site on Thursday morning saw men carrying away black body bags on stretchers. Part of the plane’s tail and other fragments lay on the ground near a wooded area where forensic investigators had erected a tent.
The Baza news outlet, which has good sources among law enforcement agencies, reported that investigators were focusing on a theory that one or two bombs may have been planted on board.
Unnamed sources told Russian media they believed the plane had been shot down by one or more surface-to-air missiles. Reuters could not confirm either account.
Residents of Kuzhenkino said they had heard a bang and then saw the jet plummet to the ground. The plane showed no sign of a problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data.
One villager, who gave his name as Anatoly, said: “It wasn’t thunder, it was a metallic bang – let’s put it that way.”
Mourners left flowers and lit candles near Wagner’s offices in St. Petersburg.
‘MASTER OF ILLUSIONS’
“The first thing I believe is that this man committed the most serious crimes possible for a military man to commit,” a woman who gave her name only as Yelena told Reuters on the streets of Moscow. “I think his safety was only guaranteed in exchange for him stopping what he started. But he didn’t stop.”
A man who only gave his name as Boris said: “This man was, in fact, a master of illusions. Maybe he didn’t die. No one knows yet. They won’t show the funeral or the body.”
A Telegram channel linked to Wagner, Grey Zone, pronounced Prigozhin dead on Wednesday evening, hailing him as a hero and a patriot who had died at the hands of “traitors”.
Amid the absence of verified facts, some of his supporters have pointed the finger of blame at the state, others at Ukraine, which marked its Independence Day on Thursday.
Whoever or whatever was behind the crash, his death would rid Putin of someone who had mounted the most serious challenge to his authority since he came to power in 1999.
It would also leave Wagner, which incurred Putin’s wrath in June by staging a failed mutiny against the army top brass, leaderless and raise questions about its future operations in Africa and elsewhere.
Rosaviatsia, Russia’s aviation agency, published the names of all 10 people on board the plane, including Prigozhin and that of Dmitry Utkin, his right-hand man.
Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speech writer turned critic, suggested without offering evidence that the Russian leader was behind the crash.
“The establishment is now convinced that it will not be possible to oppose Putin,” Gallyamov wrote on Telegram. “Putin is strong enough and capable of revenge.”
U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters he did not know what had happened.
“But I’m not surprised,” Biden said on Wednesday. “There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind.”
Flightradar24 online tracker showed that the plane had dropped off the radar at 6:11 p.m. (1511 GMT). An unverified video clip on social media showed a plane resembling a private jet falling out of the sky.
Prigozhin spearheaded the mutiny against the army leadership on June 23-24 which Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war. He also spent months criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – and had tried to topple Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff.
The mutiny was ended by an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But he had appeared to move freely inside Russia.
Prigozhin posted a video address on Monday which he suggested was made in Africa. He turned up at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg in July.
(Reporting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Angus MacSwan, Nick Macfie and Andrew Heavens)
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