Putin, without confirming Prigozhin’s death, said about him “was”

The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, a day after the plane crash near Tver, in which the founder of PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin, allegedly died, commented for the first time on what happened.

At a meeting with the head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, Denys Pushylin, Putin expressed his “sincere condolences to the families of those killed in the plane crash,” adding that “it’s always a tragedy.”

The Russian president did not directly announce the death of Prigozhin, which has not yet been officially confirmed, but spoke about the businessman exclusively in the past tense.

“I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, from the beginning of the 90s. He was a man with a complicated destiny, and his mistakes were serious in life, and he achieved the necessary results. Both for himself, and when I asked him about it for the general things are like these last months,” said the head of Russia, calling the leader of the Wagner family a “talented businessman” working outside of Russia. As Putin emphasized, Prigozhin, according to his data, only returned from Africa yesterday.

The President of Russia also spoke about PMC “Wagner” as a whole. “Indeed, if there is (in the crashed plane. – Approx. RS) there were – and primary data seem to indicate this – employees of the “Wagner” company, so I would like to note that these are people who made a significant contribution to our common cause of the struggle against the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine. We remember it, we know it and we will not forget it,” Putin said, adding that “the investigation will necessarily investigate the circumstances of the crash” of the plane.

On Wednesday evening, a private Embraer plane belonging to the founder of PMC “Wagner”, St. Petersburg businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, who is close to Vladimir Putin, crashed in the Bologovsky district of the Tver region. According to Rosaviatsia, the passenger lists included Prigozhin himself, one of the commanders of the “Wagner” Dmitry Utkin, Valery Chekalov, who was responsible for logistics at the PMC, as well as several well-known fighters of the company. In total, there were ten people on board, including three crew members, all of them died. At the same time, there is still no official confirmation of Prigozhin’s death. It is reported that the bodies of the dead are badly mutilated, and DNA examination is required to reliably establish the identity of the dead.

Representatives of the Russian authorities do not say anything about the possible causes of the plane crash. Telegram channels and mass media offer different versions, including an explosion on board or the fact that the plane was shot down by air defense systems. The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case under the article “Violation of traffic safety rules and air transport operation”.

• Two months ago, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his subordinate private military company “Wagner” launched an armed rebellion against the leadership of the Ministry of Defense of Russia. A column of several thousand armed Wagner soldiers entered Rostov-on-Don, the second column moved to Moscow. In a day, the fighters managed to walk 780 kilometers, and in fact did not meet any resistance. At the same time, several helicopters and one plane of the Ministry of Defense, which, according to Prigozhin, were trying to bomb the convoy were shot down. The crews of several ships died.
• Vladimir Putin accused the PMC of treason, and a criminal case of armed rebellion was initiated against the head of the company. However, later it became known about the negotiations between Prigozhin and the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. As a result, the advance of the “Wagner” columns towards Moscow was stopped, Prigozhin himself had to go to Belarus by agreement, and Vladimir Putin promised in return to stop the persecution of the rebels. Even later it became known that Prigozhin was quietly moving around Russia, and at the end of June he and his subordinates met with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.