Key PointsGenetic assessments verify Wagner chief Prigozhin’s demise in crash, ending hypothesis.Wagner founder and Prigozhin’s right-hand man Dmitry Utkin additionally among the many lifeless.The reason for the crash stays unclear as Russia investigates.
Russian investigators say genetic assessments have confirmed Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner mercenary group, was among the many 10 individuals killed when his personal jet crashed.
Russia’s aviation company had beforehand revealed the names of all 10 individuals on board the airplane that crashed within the Tver area northwest of Moscow on Wednesday.
They included , his right-hand man who helped discovered the Wagner group.
What did the investigators discover?
“As a part of the investigation of the airplane crash within the Tver area, molecular-genetic examinations have been accomplished,” Russia’s Investigative Committee stated in an announcement on the Telegram messaging app.
“In keeping with their outcomes, the identities of all 10 lifeless had been established. They correspond to the checklist acknowledged within the flight sheet.”
There had been some hypothesis, particularly on pro-Wagner Telegram channels, about whether or not Prigozhin – recognized to take varied safety precautions in anticipation of a potential try on his life – had actually been on the doomed flight.
Authorities have but to say what they imagine precipitated his personal jet to fall from the sky.
The crash got here two months to the day after Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries staged a mutiny in opposition to Russian navy commanders wherein they took management of a southern metropolis, Rostov, and superior in the direction of Moscow earlier than turning round about 200 kilometres from the capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the June 23-24 mutiny as a treacherous “stab within the again”, however later met with Prigozhin within the Kremlin.
Folks pay tribute to late head of Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin at a makeshift memorial in Moscow, on 27 August 2023. Supply: Getty / Natalia Kolesnikova
He despatched .
Western politicians and commentators have steered, with out presenting proof, that Putin ordered Prigozhin to be killed as punishment for the mutiny, which additionally represented the largest problem to Putin’s personal rule since he got here to energy in 1999.
Requested whether or not Putin would possibly attend Prigozhin’s funeral, Peskov stated it was too early to say and likewise famous the president’s “busy schedule”.
Wagner fighters performed a distinguished position within the combating in japanese Ukraine, particularly within the months-long siege of town of Bakhmut, regardless of Prigozhin’s frequent, profanity-laced assaults on Russia’s navy excessive command over their conduct of the warfare that culminated within the failed mutiny.
The Wagner fighters have now left Ukraine and a few have relocated to neighbouring Belarus underneath the phrases of a deal that ended their mutiny.
Some are anticipated to be absorbed into Russia’s armed forces however many will likely be indignant over the sudden demise of the group’s founder who impressed a excessive diploma of loyalty amongst his males.
Putin paid a combined tribute to Prigozhin on Thursday, describing him as a “gifted businessman” but additionally as a flawed character who “made severe errors in life”.
