Putin breaks silence on Wagner warlord Prigozhin’s reported death as questions swirl about plane crash
Fox News
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for the first time regarding the reported death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, expressing condolences.
Putin made the remarks during a Thursday meeting with Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a Russian-aligned Ukrainian separatist state.
“First of all, I want to express my sincere condolences to the families of all the victims, this is always a tragedy,” Putin said.
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“Preliminary information suggests that Wagner Group employees were also on board,” the Russian president continued. “I would like to note that these people have made a significant contribution to our common cause in the fight against the neo-Nazi regime.”
Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner Group who challenged the rule of Vladimir Putin just months ago, was killed Wednesday in a plane crash that has left 10 people dead outside of Moscow, state media is reporting.
The business jet was traveling from the Russian capital to St. Petersburg when it went down in the Tver region, according to the TASS news agency.
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“Prigozhin was listed among the passengers, according to the Federal Air Transport Agency,” read a post by TASS on Telegram. “An investigation into the crash of the Embraer aircraft has been launched, the department noted.”
Little concrete information has been produced regarding the disaster, and bodily evidence has yet to be produced.
Media figures and government officials have speculated that Putin was behind the explosion that allegedly took the mercenary warlord’s life — but news outlets have published reports with conflicting information from the U.S. federal government.
Immediately following the incident, President Biden was asked about reports that Prigozhin was possibly on the doomed aircraft.
“I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I am not surprised… Not much happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind. I don’t know enough to know the answer,” he said.
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Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and former senior official at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), told Fox News Digital that reports by Russian state media should be looked at with skepticism, given Moscow’s agenda.
“At this time, we lack independent confirmation whether the Russian media or the Federal Air Transport Agency reporting about Prigozhin’s death is credible,” she said. “There could be many reasons why Moscow wants us to believe that Prigozhin is dead. If he indeed died in the plane crash, it’s probably a result of the assassination operation, ‘wet deeds’ in Russian tradecraft, conducted on Putin’s orders.”
“If Prigozhin is alive, the story could be a disinformation operation, intended to get Prigozhin back under cover to run clandestine operations in Africa and other places vital for Putin,” Koffler added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied any involvement in the alleged death of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“We are not involved in this situation, that’s for sure,” the president told the public Thursday. “I think everyone is aware of who is involved.”