The crash came two months after Prigozhin, at odds with Russia’s defense ministry over strategy, tactics and supplies in Ukraine, led his mercenaries in a short-lived mutiny against Moscow, fueling talk that the warlord had been killed on Putin’s orders. The Wagner Group leader and two key lieutenants were listed as passengers on the plane.
Peskov condemned what he called “lies” in the West that have presented the crash “from a certain angle.”
“We need to cover this topic based on facts,” the often acerbic spokesman said. “There are not many facts. They are to be found out in the course of investigative actions. Yesterday the president said he was waiting for the results of the investigation, which will be completed in the foreseeable future.”
But it isn’t just the West. Many among Russia’s elite also believe the crash was instigated by the Kremlin.
Peskov also denied that Putin met with Prigozhin shortly before the Wagner chief’s presumed death, after a report on a Telegram channel known for leaks from Russian security agencies claimed that the meeting had taken place.
The crash has cowed Russia’s elite, many of whom have seen it as a sign that any perceived disloyalty — or even dissent about the war — will not be tolerated in Putin’s increasingly authoritarian state, with its long history of jailing, poisoning or otherwise killing its critics.
U.S. officials have said it was possible that Prigozhin’s jet was destroyed by an explosion onboard. They have noted that there was no sign of a missile launch targeting the plane. Similar theories swirled on Russian Telegram channels; they’ve focused mainly on the possibility that explosives were planted on the jet before it took off from Moscow.
The presumed deaths of Prigozhin and senior Wagner leaders Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chekalov have effectively decapitated a force that was once central to Russia’s war in Ukraine and still has fighters deployed across Africa and the Middle East. Putin paid condolences to the victims’ families on Thursday but said a full investigation would “take time.”
Prigozhin’s press service has not confirmed his death, but some users on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels have been mourning his demise.
The Russian Telegram outlet E112News, which focuses mainly on crime and crashes, aired video of members of the Russian investigative team, some in camouflage, attaching chains to a wing of the downed jet, tossing loose fragments onto it and dragging it roughly out of the forest, letting it bump against trees.
The wing and landing gear were found nearly two miles from the main crash site, suggesting that the plane broke up in the air. The wing appeared to have little or no shrapnel damage. The pieces were wrapped in canvas and loaded onto trucks.
The U.S. government’s initial assessment was that Prigozhin was probably killed in the crash, the Pentagon said Thursday. Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to address whether U.S. officials believe he was assassinated. “We’re continuing to assess the situation,” he said.
Workers at the crash site have recovered the flight recorders, the Russian Investigative Committee said Friday. It said DNA was being used to identify the victims.
Since the June mutiny, the Kremlin has cast Prigozhin as a greedy rogue out to make money in the war. Still, Russians have placed flowers and Wagner flags at spontaneous memorials across the country featuring photos of the warlord and his operations commander, Dmitry Utkin. Wagner has been seen as the country’s most capable assault force.
Although Putin has moved to reassert control after the June rebellion, Wagner’s lingering popularity remains delicate for the Kremlin.
It’s obvious that “Prigozhin is a people’s hero,” former Putin adviser Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, wrote on Telegram. “He was truly loved. You can’t organize something like this.”
“Wagner and Prigozhin are the main manifestation of the strength of Russia and the Russian people, which is seen in the world in the Ukrainian crisis,” he wrote. But he added that Putin could successfully co-opt Wagner’s popularity and reputation.
“If the funerals of Prigozhin and Utkin and other Wagner leaders are public, then they will turn into a huge manifestation of people’s support for Putin’s political course for the forceful confrontation between Russia and the West and the forceful liquidation of the neo-Nazi Russophobic regime in Ukraine,” he wrote.
Several prominent Russians have praised Prigozhin since his presumed death. They include the Nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin, who was seriously injured in a car bombing in May, eulogized the Wagner chief as “the best of men.”
On Friday, Alexei Dyumin, the influential governor of the Tula region and a former head of Putin’s security, said Wagner fighters had carried out the toughest combat operations in Ukraine. Dyumin’s praise, in comments carried by his press service, contradicted Putin’s condemnations of Prigozhin and Wagner during the mutiny, which the president called a “stab in the back” by “traitors.”
“I knew Yevgeniy Prigozhin as a true patriot, a determined and fearless man,” Dyumin said. His comments reflected the influence network that Wagner was able to build, and fissures among elites over Russian military failures in Ukraine.
“He did a lot for the country, and the Motherland will not forget him. We mourn for those who died in this disaster, for all the soldiers of the Wagner [Private Military Company] who fell during the military defense,” Dyumin said, according to the state-owned Tass news agency.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who brokered a deal between Putin and Prigozhin that allowed Wagner to move to Belarus in return for halting the rebellion, said the mercenaries were welcome to stay in his country.
“Wagner lived, Wagner is alive, and Wagner will live in Belarus,” he said. “Prigozhin and I have built a system, and we will have Wagner.”
Lukashenko said Putin was not responsible for the plane crash.
“I can’t say who did it,” he said. “But I know Putin. He is a calculating, very calm and even slow person, making decisions on other, less complex issues. Therefore, I can’t imagine that Putin did it, that Putin is to blame. Too rough, unprofessional work, for that matter.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov criticized President Biden on Friday for implying that Putin might have been responsible.
“It is not for the U.S. president, in my opinion, to talk about such tragic events of this nature,” Ryabkov told Tass. When news of Prigozhin’s death broke Wednesday, Biden told journalists that he was not surprised. “There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer,” Biden said.
Putin has moved to reassert his authority since Prigozhin’s mutiny with the dismissal of several high-ranking Russian generals who were close to the Wagner leader or who had spoken about the military’s failures. Among them was Gen. Sergei Surovikin, known as “General Armageddon” for his ruthless tactics in Syria and Ukraine.
Hard-line nationalists have also been targeted. They include former intelligence officer and military blogger Igor Girkin, who was arrested and jailed last month after attacking Putin for his handling of the war.
After the crash Wednesday, Russian police raided the families of Wagner Group members, according to Baza, a Telegram media channel close to Russian law enforcement. They asked questions about the likelihood of unrest.
Mary Ilyushina and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
