A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment has found that the plane crash presumed to have killed Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to U.S. and Western officials.
One of the officials, who were not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the explosion fell in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.”
The founder of the Wagner military company and six other passengers were on a private jet that crashed Wednesday soon after taking off from Moscow with a crew of three, according to Russia's civil aviation authority. Rescuers found 10 bodies, and Russian media cited anonymous sources in Wagner who said Prigozhin was dead. But there has been no official confirmation.
At Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, lights were turned on in the shape of a large cross, and Prigozhin supporters built a makeshift memorial, piling red and white flowers outside the building Thursday, along with company flags and candles. Russian state media have not covered the crash extensively, instead focusing on Putin's remarks to the BRICS summit in Johannesburg via video link and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sergei Mironov, the leader of the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party and former chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament suggested on his Telegram channel that Prigozhin had been deliberately killed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also pointed the finger. “We have nothing to do with this. Everyone understands who does,” he said.
Prigozhin was long outspoken and critical of how Russian generals were waging the war in Ukraine, where his mercenaries were some of the fiercest fighters for the Kremlin. For a long time, Putin appeared content to allow such infighting — and Prigozhin seemed to have unusual latitude to speak his mind.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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