Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, finally spoke out about the jet disaster that claimed the lives of senior Wagner paramilitary members and mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on Wednesday.
Putin expressed his “sincere condolences to the families of all the victims” in broadcast remarks and called the accident a “tragedy” while making the remarks.
On the same aircraft as Prigozhin, nine further passengers were registered, and all nine are believed to have perished.
The accident on Wednesday night occurred precisely two months after Prigozhin spearheaded an uprising against Moscow’s senior military officials, which some observers believed to be the largest danger to Putin’s long-standing power.
Moscow launched an investigation into probable infractions of air traffic regulations, but since then, authorities have remained mute while rumours of a potential assassination have risen.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said Kyiv had nothing to do with the tragedy.
He reportedly alluded to Putin when he said, “I think everyone knows who this concerns.”
“The Hague is home to a court, the court of God. When questioned about the plane disaster once more later on Thursday, he responded, “But Russia has an alternative (court) — President Putin.
‘Common cause’
On Thursday, Putin finally spoke up, paying a cautious homage to the paramilitary organisation and mercenary boss he oversaw.
“I have known Prigozhin since the early 1990s, which is a very long time. He was a man with a convoluted fate, and although he made grave errors in his life, he succeeded in getting the appropriate outcomes, said Putin.
Putin had referred to Prigozhin, a former ally, as a “traitor” in a speech he gave to Russians during the Wagner uprising on June 23–24 in which he warned about “civil war.”
On the other hand, he said on Thursday that the Wagner members who perished in the accident had “significantly contributed” to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.
Putin emphasised that they had a same goal and said, “We remember that, we know that, and we will not forget that.”
Although he acknowledged that the crash inquiry might take some time, he added: “It will be conducted fully and brought to a conclusion.”
Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin supporter and chechen strongman, praised Prigozhin’s “iron character” in a Telegram message.
He said, though, “Recently he either did not see or did not want to see the full picture of what is happening in the country.”
Some Western officials raised scepticism about the accident-free nature of the crash.
After initially claiming he had no knowledge of the events, US President Joe Biden said, “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”
Germany noted that the crash was consistent with a pattern of “unclarified” fatalities in Russia, while France saw “reasonable doubts” about it.
That “a disgraced former confidant of Putin suddenly, literally falls from the sky two months after he attempted a mutiny,” as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock put it, “literally falls from the sky,” is suspicious, she said.
Even powerful pro-Kremlin personalities seemed to imply that it might have been an assassination, including Putin supporter and state television star Margarita Simonyan.
“The idea that the disaster was manufactured is one of the theories being examined. On social media, she wrote, “But personally, I’m going towards the more obvious one.
Late on Wednesday, the Embraer private jet’s passenger list was released by Russia’s aviation regulator.
It included Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, a shady character who oversaw Wagner’s business and was rumoured to have worked in Russian military intelligence.
Nearby Kuzhenkino, a village located around 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Moscow in the Tver area, Russian police were manning the crash site.
A woman who lives close to Kuzhenkino claimed that her neighbour heard a roar and observed fire and “sparkling from the plane” as well.
In a video released by state-run news agency RIA Novosti, she stated, “A neighbour ran up to me with shaking hands and when we went to the window I saw only one mushroom (cloud from the explosion), a black cloud.”
“True patriot”
The Embraer Legacy aircraft looked to be falling from the sky in a column of white smoke in video from the incident that AFP verified.
According to the flight monitoring website Flightradar24, the aircraft travelling from Moscow to Saint Petersburg was visible on their radar up until the last 30 seconds before it “dramatically” fell at 15:20 GMT.
Initially, several Telegram channels affiliated with Wagner claimed the plane had been shot down by Russian air defence on a day when Kiev continued its drone assaults against Russia.
The US military had “no information to suggest that there was a surface to air missile” involved in the incident, according to Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder in Washington.
Ryder continued: “Our assessment, based on a variety of factors, is that he (Prigozhin) was likely killed.” Despite not knowing what had caused the disaster, Ryder said.
In Russia, Prigozhin seemed to be rather well-liked.
His tough-guy persona won with Russians with nationalist leanings who were wary of the army leadership during the offensive in Ukraine.
The 2024 presidential election, which is anticipated to extend Putin’s power until at least 2030, was even the subject of some rumours that he will run in it.
Pavel Zakharov laid flowers outside Wagner’s Saint Petersburg headquarters and stated, “He was one of the few real patriots in our country.”
In stark contrast to the tightly controlled narrative of Russian officials, many Russians eagerly anticipated Prigozhin’s blunt, frequently vulgar, social media videos.
Ukrainians believe in ‘real’ death
After Prigozhin’s uprising, which saw his forces seize control of a military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and march on Moscow, Wagner offices were still open and actively recruiting there.
People also left flowers to the mercenary company’s Novosibirsk office in Siberia, where Wagner made a significant amount of his recruits.
However, the news of Prigozhin’s passing was warmly received in Ukraine, where Wagner warriors were notorious for their extreme brutality, including the extrajudicial killing of their own troops.
Iryna Kuchina, an employee of the government, told AFP in Kyiv, “If it is true, I feel really delighted that this guy died.
Tens of thousands of Russian prisoners were enlisted by Prigozhin to fight in Ukraine, frequently being placed in the front lines.
Without Prigozhin, Wagner’s future remained uncertain.
