MOSCOW, Russia
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that investigators were considering the possibility that the plane carrying mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was downed on purpose, the first explicit acknowledgement that he may have been assassinated.
“It is obvious that different
versions are being considered, including the version – you know what we are
talking about – let’s say, a deliberate atrocity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov told reporters when asked about the investigation.
Asked if the International
Civil Aviation Organization would investigate the crash, Peskov said that the
circumstances made it different, though he cautioned that investigators had
made no formal conclusions yet about what exactly took place.
“Let’s wait for the results of
our Russian investigation,” Peskov said.
The private Embraer jet on
which Prigozhin was travelling to St Petersburg from Moscow crashed north of
Moscow killing all 10 people on board on Aug. 23, including two other top
Wagner figures, Prigozhin’s four bodyguards and a crew of three.
The cause is still unclear,
but villagers near the scene told Reuters they heard a bang and then saw the
jet plummet to the ground.
The plane crashed exactly two
months since Prigozhin took control of the southern city of Rostov in late
June, the opening salvo of a mutiny which shook the foundations of President
Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Russia has informed Brazil’s
aircraft investigation authority that it will not probe the crash of the
Brazilian-made Embraer jet under international rules “at the moment”, the
Brazilian agency told Reuters.
Asked about that report, Peskov said: “First of all, the investigation is under way, the Investigative Committee is engaged in this.”
“In this case there can be no
talk of any international aspect,” Peskov said.
In an unusual move, the
Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), which oversees aviation accident
investigations in a grouping of former Soviet republics including Russia, said
it was not investigating the crash, adding that it would not be commenting on
the “circumstances of the incident”.
The day after the crash, Putin
sent his condolences to the families of those killed and said he had known
Prigozhin for a very long time, since the chaotic years of the early 1990s.
“He was a man with a difficult
fate, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said, while describing him
as a talented businessman.
The Kremlin has rejected as an
“absolute lie” the suggestion by some Western politicians and commentators –
for which they have not provided evidence – that Putin ordered Prigozhin to be
killed in revenge.
U.S. President Joe Biden has
said he was not surprised by the death and that not much happened in Russia
that Putin was not behind.
After Prigozhin’s death, Putin
ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state – a
step that Prigozhin had opposed due to his anger at the defence ministry that
he said risked losing the Ukraine war.
Followers of Prigozhin laid
flowers, messages and poetry at his grave on Wednesday, hailing him as a
fearless warrior.
In life, Prigozhin liked to
brag that he was one of the world’s most feared mercenaries with the best
fighting force.
Opponents such as the United
State cast Prigozhin as a brutal commander who plundered African states and
meted out sledehammer deaths to those who crossed him.
Though he won the bloodiest
battle yet of the Ukraine war for Putin by capturing Bakhmut, Prigozhin became
enraged with what he said were the treacherous failings of Putin’s military –
and warned that Russia could lose the entire Ukraine war. - Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment