The United States has no evidence that the plane in which Wagner boss Prigozhin is said to have been shot down was launched. US intelligence agencies see a deliberate explosion as the probable cause of the crash.
The death of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin as a result of a plane crash has still not been officially confirmed. According to the United States, however, there is no evidence that the machine was shot down by surface-to-air missiles.
“We have no information to suggest there was a surface-to-air missile,” Defense Department spokesman Pat Ryder said at a Pentagon news briefing. Reports of a missile are “wrong”. Although it is likely that Prigozhin was killed in the crash, he could not provide any information about the cause of the crash.
However, in an initial assessment, US intelligence services named a deliberately caused explosion as the probable cause of the crash. According to the AP news agency, one of the sources said that Prigozhin was “very likely” the target of an attack. The detonation coincides with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long history of silencing critics.
Putin indirectly confirms Prigozhin’s death
The Kremlin boss has now confirmed Prigozhin’s presumed death, at least indirectly. In a televised session, he offered condolences to Prigozhin’s family, speaking in the past tense: “He was a person with a complicated fate and he made serious mistakes.” At the same time, the businessman and mercenary boss has achieved results – for himself and for the common cause, said Putin.
The day after the private jet crashed, speculation about the cause increased. The head of the Just Russia party, which is loyal to the Kremlin, cited a possible assassination attempt as a possible reason for the crash of the plane. “Prigozhin has messed with too many people – in Russia, Ukraine and the West,” Sergei Mironov wrote on his Telegram channel. “It now appears that his enemy numbers reached a critical point at some point.”
The Russian Telegram news channel “Shot” reported, citing investigators, that the crash may have been caused by a bomb in the area of the chassis. The Gray Zone channel, which is close to Prigozhin, had previously spread the version that the plane had been shot down by Russian air defenses.
Selenskyj rejects involvement
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denied Ukraine’s involvement. “We have nothing to do with this situation, that’s for sure,” Zelenskyj said. “Everyone knows who this affects,” he added, obviously referring to Putin. “There is a court in The Hague, there is a court of God,” Zelensky said. “But Russia has its own court – President Putin.”
The plane crashed on Wednesday evening in the Tver region near the town of Kuschenkino. According to the Ministry of Disaster Management, none of the ten occupants survived. The Russian aviation authority Rozaviatsiya confirmed at the same time that Prigozhin was on board the plane en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg. However, the authorities did not formally announce the mercenary chief’s death because the bodies have not yet been identified.
Sadness and anger among Prigozhin’s supporters
Prigozhin’s followers reacted with sadness and anger to the news of the alleged death of the 62-year-old. At the “Patriot” café in St. Petersburg, which many residents of the city associate with Prigozhin and his Wagner troupe, masses of flowers were laid, the daily newspaper “Kommersant” reported. Mourning and commemoration campaigns were also reported from other Russian cities such as Novosibirsk.