Vladimir Putin Sends ‘Sincere Condolences’ to Family of Yevgeny Prigozhin After Mercenary’s Shocking Plane Crash
Russian President Vladimir Putin has broken his silence on the presumed death of Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others after the mercenary chief’s private plane crashed in a field north of Moscow.
According to Sky News, Putin sent his “condolences” to Prigozhin’s family, as suspicion lingers surrounding the mysterious incident. Read Putin’s full statement below:
What concerns this air crash, first of all, I want to express sincere condolences to the families of all those who died. It is always a tragedy. Indeed, if they were there and, according to the initial information, Wagner Company employees were on board, I want to note that those people made a significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the Nazi regime in Ukraine.
We remember this, we know this and we will not forget this.
I knew Prigozhin for many years, since the beginning of the 1990s. He was a person with a complicated background. He made serious mistakes in his life and he achieved the necessary results, both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as during the past few months.
He was a talented person, a talented businessman. He worked not only in our country, and with good results too, but abroad too, in Africa in particular.
He dealt with oil, gas, precious metals and stones there.
As I learned, he returned from Africa only yesterday. He met some officials here.
However, what happened exactly, the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me this morning. They have already begun a preliminary investigation of this incident, and it will be conducted fully and completed.
There is no doubt about this. We will hear soon what the investigators say.
Two unnamed U.S. officials told Sky News that a “surface-to-air missile from inside Russia” likely shot down the private plane as it flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Dramatic video posted to social media showed the plane falling out of the sky.
President Joe Biden publicly speculated that Putin was behind the crash, telling reporters, “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”
News that Prigozhin’s name was on the doomed plane’s manifest came two months after the head of the Wagner mercenaries staged a failed mutiny against Putin. Prigozhin called for the ouster of Russia’s defense minister for the way the war was being waged in Ukraine, but stopped his troops from advancing on Moscow.
According to the Independent:
Masked men claiming to belong to Wagner have warned the Kremlin to “get ready for us” after the reported death of their leader.
“There’s a lot of talk right now about what the Wagner group will do. We can tell you one thing: we are getting started, get ready for us,” the men warned in a video.
Watch the brief clip above via Fox News.
