Details of the assessment surfaced as Vladimir Putin referred to ‘serious mistakes’ made by the head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries.
A preliminary US intelligence assessment has found that the plane crash presumed to have killed the leader of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to US and Western officials.
Rescuers found 10 bodies, and Russian media cited anonymous sources in Wagner who said Mr Prigozhin was dead. But there has been no official confirmation. In all, the other passengers included six of Mr Prigozhin’s lieutenants, along with the three-member flight crew. Police, meanwhile, cordoned off the field where the plane went down in Kuzhenkino, about 185 miles north-west of Moscow, as investigators studied its wreckage. Vehicles took away the bodies.
Sergei Mironov, the leader of the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party and former chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament suggested on his Telegram channel that Mr Prigozhin had been deliberately killed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also pointed the finger. “We have nothing to do with this. Everyone understands who does,” he said.
The crash also came the same week that Russian media reported that General Sergei Surovikin, a former top commander in Ukraine who was reportedly linked to Mr Prigozhin, was dismissed from his post as commander of Russia’s air force.
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