While many are still wondering whether the founder of the Wagner battlegroup was actually aboard the crashed plane, the Russian president gets down to business. On Thursday, he expressed his condolences to the family of the Wagner boss who was said to have died in a plane crash.
We’ll see what the researchers discover, Putin said. This may take some time. Meanwhile, Russian authorities began their investigation. Influential Kremlin supporters believe in an assassination attempt. According to insiders, the United States assumes that the plane will be shot down.
The Commission of Inquiry responsible for serious crimes said on Thursday it was investigating “violations of air traffic safety rules”. The commission therefore sent a team of investigators to the crash site.
Biden sees Putin as behind the crash
US President Joe Biden said, “I don’t know exactly what happened. (…) Not much happens in Russia that Putin does not support.” The EU declined to comment on the incident for now. Reports of the plane crash had been seen, but the information was very difficult to verify, a State Department spokesman said Thursday. “Almost nothing coming out of Russia these days is credible.”
Schallenberg “not surprised”
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) was “not surprised” about Prigozhin’s presumed death. “It’s actually not surprising that this happened,” Schallenberg said Wednesday night on ORF’s ZiB2. Already in the past, people who took actions or made statements that ‘do not suit Putin’ would have ‘shortened their lives quickly’.
Wild theories about ‘staging’
Putin ally and head of the state media company RT, Margarita Simonyan, seemed to suspect the assassination may have been involved. Regarding rumors on the internet that Prigozhin’s disappearance could have been ‘staged’, she said in the online media: ‘But personally I lean towards the more obvious variant.’
The plane crashed early Wednesday evening in Russia’s Tver region. According to the Ministry of Disaster Relief, none of the ten occupants survived. The Russian aviation authority Rozaviatsiya confirmed that Prigozhin was on board the plane en route from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.
Also Prigozhin „right hand“ a plate?
Little was initially known about the other passengers, according to Russian media they were mainly Wagner mercenaries. According to Rozaviatsiya, Prigozhin’s right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, was among the presumed dead. Authorities said the plane that crashed near the village of Kushenkino was an Embraer Legacy private jet.
Alleged videos of the crash were distributed on various channels of the online service Telegram linked to the Wagner Group, the authenticity of which the AFP news agency was initially unable to verify. They showed burning debris in a field or an airplane falling from the sky.
The US expects to be shot down
According to insiders, the US now assumes that the Prigozhin machine was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile. The missile was therefore fired within Russia, the Reuters news agency learned from American circles. Meanwhile, the Russian online medium Basa reported on the suspicion that an explosion caused the plane to crash. Accordingly, the investigators are following the theory that there were one or two bombs on board the plane. The non-governmental magazine usually has good contacts in security circles.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
