Russia confirms Wagner boss Prigozhin died in a plane crash
Russian authorities confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder and head of the Wagner mercenary group who attempted to lead a rebellion against Russia’s military, was killed in a fiery plane crash outside Moscow last week.
Svetlana Petrenko, a spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said in a statement Sunday that forensic and genetic testing identified all 10 bodies recovered from the site of Wednesday’s crash and determined they belonged to those listed on the flight log.
Prigozhin, 62, and some of his top lieutenants were listed on the flight log as passengers and crew aboard the plane, which went down less than 30 minutes into its journey and had no survivors.
The aircraft burst into flames on impact, officials told the state-run media TASS, which has been accused of spreading Russian propaganda during the Ukraine war.
Sunday’s statement did not offer any details about what might have caused the crash.
The crash took place just two days after Prigozhin shared his first video address since his failed attempt at a coup two months ago.
During the June 24 incident, Prigozhin led his mercenaries toward Moscow in an armed revolt before calling it all off about 100 miles before reaching the capital.
The move, which was condemned by Russian President Vladimir Putin as “treason,” led to Prigozhin’s exile to Belarus.
Who was Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin?
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin as a talented businessman following the plane crash that apparently killed him.
Prigozhin was the owner of the private military contractor Wagner Group.
Prigozhin planned to capture the Russian military’s top officials during his attempted coup.
Prigozhin and his mercenary fighting force did not face charges and were instead exiled despite leading an armed insurrection against the Kremlin.
Prigozhin began his career as a petty criminal — he was convicted of robbery and assault in 1981 and served 12 years in prison.
He criticized the Russian Ministry of Defense as incompetent and accused it of withholding arms and ammunition from his troops, who were fighting on behalf of Russia in Ukraine.
Prigozhin was indicted in the United States for interfering in the 2016 presidential election through his infamous internet “troll factory.”
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Even though he was deemed a “traitor” following the attempted coup, Putin’s ominous statement labeled Prigozhin as a “talented businessman” who had made “serious mistakes” and had a “difficult fate.”
“It is always a tragedy,” Putin said of his former ally in televised comments Thursday. “I knew Prigozhin for many years, since the beginning of the 1990s. He was a person with a complicated background.”
“He made serious mistakes in his life and he achieved the necessary results, both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as during the past few months,” he added.
The Russian leader also expressed condolences to other Wagner fighters who died in the fiery crash.
“Indeed, if they were there and, according to the initial information, Wagner Company employees were on board, I want to note that those people made a significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the Nazi regime in Ukraine,” Putin said.
Prigozhin’s short-lived rebellion was the biggest threat to the strongman’s grip on power in decades, and fueled speculation that Putin had orchestrated the aviation disaster, which US officials believed was caused by an onboard explosion.
With Post wires
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