The Kremlin claimed on Friday that Western claims that Wagner mercenary commander Yevgeny Prigozhin had been assassinated on its orders were a “absolute lie” and rejected to officially acknowledge his death, citing the need to wait for test results as justification.
After the mercenary leader’s plane crashed on Wednesday evening with no survivors, two months after he staged a mutiny against army superiors, President Vladimir Putin sent Prigozhin’s family a message of sympathy on Thursday, breaking his silence.
Putin claimed that there had “preliminary information” that Prigozhin and his senior Wagner mercenary colleagues had been murdered.
Investigators in Russia have started looking into what happened, but they haven’t yet revealed their theories regarding what may have caused the plane to suddenly drop from the skies northwest of Moscow.
The identities of the 10 victims that were found in the wreckage have also not been formally established.
According to politicians and analysts in the West, Putin may have ordered the murder of Prigozhin as retaliation for the latter’s involvement in the biggest-ever uprising against his authority, the failed coup against the top brass from June 23 to 34.
The claim, along with numerous others like it, were debunked by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Now that the plane accident and the terrible deaths of the passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin, have occurred, there is a tremendous lot of speculation around the incident. All of this speculative material is, of course, presented in the West from a well-known perspective,” Peskov told reporters.
“Everything you’ve just read is a complete fabrication, and while reporting on this subject, you need to be factual. Only a few facts currently exist. In the course of conducting investigations, they must be established.
Peskov emphasised the need for people to hold off until the outcomes of numerous tests and the investigation’s findings.
He claimed Putin and Prigozhin had not lately interacted. (Written by Andrew Osborn with assistance from Guy Faulconbridge and reporting by Reuters)
