MOSCOW, Aug 24 — Russia’s most powerful mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board a plane which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors, the Russian...
MOSCOW, Aug 24 — Russia’s most powerful mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board a plane which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors, the Russian authorities said, two months to the day after he led an abortive mutiny against the army top brass.
Amid fevered speculation and an absence of verifiable facts, some of his supporters pointed the finger of blame at the Russian state; others at Ukraine which was due to mark its independence day on Thursday. Whoever or whatever was behind the crash, his death would also rid Putin of someone who had mounted the most serious challenge to the Russian leader’s authority since he came to power in 1999.Rosaviatsia, Russia’s aviation agency, published the names of all 10 people on board the downed plane, including Prigozhin and that of Dmitry Utkin, his right-hand man who helped found the mercenary group and bore the call sign “Wagner”.
US President Joe Biden said: “I don’t know for a fact what happened. But I’m not surprised ... There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer.” Prigozhin, 62, spearheaded the mutiny against Russia’s top army brass on June 23-24 which Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war. Wagner fighters shot down Russian attack helicopters during the revolt, killing an unconfirmed number of pilots in a move which infuriated the military.
The mutiny was ended by an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But in practice he had appeared to move freely inside Russia after the agreement which had reportedly guaranteed his personal safety.
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