Russian authorities confirm death of Wagner leader Prigozhin – National | 24CA News
Russian authorities on Sunday confirmed the demise of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, placing to relaxation any doubts about whether or not the wily mercenary chief turned mutineer was on a airplane that crashed Wednesday, killing everybody on board.
Genetic testing on the ten our bodies recovered on the crash web site “conform to the manifest” for the flight, Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko stated in a press release. Russia’s civil aviation authority had stated Prigozhin and a few of his high lieutenants have been on the record of seven passengers and three crew members.
The Investigative Committee didn’t point out what might need triggered the business jet to plummet from the sky midway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, Prigozhin’s hometown.
But the crash’s timing raised suspicions of a attainable Kremlin-orchestrated hit, whereas Prigozhin’s chameleon-like background allowed for hypothesis that he wasn’t on the airplane or had one way or the other escaped demise.
Two months in the past, Prigozhin, 62, mounted a daylong mutiny in opposition to Russia’s navy, main his mercenaries from Ukraine towards Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin decried the act as “treason” and vowed punishment for these concerned.
Instead, the Kremlin rapidly minimize a take care of Prigozhin to finish the armed revolt, saying he could be allowed to stroll free with out going through any fees and to resettle in Belarus. Questions remained about whether or not the previous ally of Russia’s chief would face a comeuppance for the temporary rebellion that posed the most important problem to Putin’s authority of his 23-year rule.
A preliminary U.S. intelligence evaluation concluded that an intentional explosion triggered the airplane to go down. As suspicions grew that the Russian president was the architect of an assassination, the Kremlin rejected them as a “complete lie.”
One of the Western officers who described the preliminary evaluation stated it decided that Prigozhin was “very likely” focused and that an explosion could be consistent with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.”
Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, in addition to Wagner logistics mastermind Valery Chekalov, additionally have been killed within the crash. Utkin was lengthy believed to have based Wagner and baptized the group along with his nom de guerre.
The destiny of Wagner, which till lately performed a distinguished function in Russia’s navy marketing campaign in Ukraine and was concerned in quite a few African and Middle Eastern international locations, is unsure.
After the mutiny, the Kremlin stated Prigozhin could be exiled in Belarus, and his fighters have been supplied three choices: to comply with him there, retire or enlist in Russia’s common military and return to Ukraine, the place Wagner mercenaries had fought alongside Russian troops.
Several thousand Wagner mercenaries opted to maneuver to Belarus, the place a camp was erected for them southeast of the capital, Minsk.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
