Putin speaks about Prigozhin's fatal plane crash

President Vladimir Putin has finally broken the silence about Wagner Group chief mercenary Yevgeny Progozhin's apparent death in a plane crash.

“As for the aviation tragedy, I want to express my most sincere condolences to the families of all the victims. It’s always a tragedy,” the President of Russia stated, one day after the plane crash.

Putin, Al Jazeera points out, spoke about Prigozhin in the past sense, described him as a “talented” man who “made serious mistakes about his life” but generally achieved the right results. “He was a man of difficult fate”.

Meanwhile, Russian investigations still continue to investigate exactly what happened in the plane crash that allegedly wiped the leadership of the Wagner Group.

Wagner Group Chief Mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin is presumed dead, after a private flight crashed between St. Petersburg and Moscow on August 23.

Image: Wagner Telegram Group / Handout

Russian state news agency TASS informed that Prigozhin's name was listed on the flight's passenger list. All 10 people on the plane were killed.

Russia's civilian aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, has so far confirmed that Prigozhin was among the dead found in the plane crash in the Tver region, just north of the Moscow Metropolitan area.

The Russian government also stated that former military officer Dmitry Utkin, who served as Prigozhin's second-in-command in the Wagner Group was also on the plane.

German news agency DW reported that there were rumors from Western intelligence agencies that the plane was shot down by Russian forces, but these have yet to be confirmed.

Image: @rozetsky / Unsplash

A second plane linked to Wagner was also reported. According to Reuters, it was also flying to St. Petersburg, then suddenly turned back and landed in Moscow.

Image: /@fiveamstories / Unsplash

What is true is that the international reaction did not need any more confirmation if Progozhin was on the plane. People have started making a makeshift memorial outside the headquarters of the Wagner Group in St. Petersburg.

According to The Guardian, US President Joe Biden affirmed that he was “not surprised” by the accident and hinted about Putin's involvement: “There's not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind”.

The BBC shared the opinions of Alicia Kearns, a Member of the Parliament and head of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, who argued that the speed on which the Russian government declared Prigozhin dead is quite telling.

Image: @marcin / Unsplash

According to CNN, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remarked that his country had nothing to do with the plane crash. “First, we have nothing to do with this situation, that’s for sure. But I think everyone realizes who has,” he declared.

Just a few days before the plane crash, Wagner Group Chief Mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin had re-appeared in a video recruiting forces to join him in Africa.

The video, which was shared on Telegram groups connected to the Wagner Group, was the first time Prigozhin has been publicly seen since leading a short-lived rebellion against Putin in late June.

Putin labeled Prigozhin, his former ally, as a traitor and called for the harshest punishments against him and the mutineers.

However, the Russian government dropped the charges in exchange for an amnesty where Wagner Group mercenaries would be integrated in the Russian Armed Forces. Prigozhin had accepted to live in exile in Belarus.

Nonetheless, the BBC reports that just a few days after the rebellion, a man identified as Prigozhin could be seen attending an Africa-Russia summit in St. Petersburg.

The August 21 video, as described by The Guardian, shows the Wagner mercenary chief clad in fatigues, holding a semi-automatic rifle, and standing in a desert area, presumably in Africa.

“Wagner is making Russia even greater on every continent – and Africa even more free”, the man assumed to be Prigozhin states to the camera, as quoted by Le Monde.

The Guardian could not verify Prigozhin’s presence in Africa, though it reported that a plane linked to the mercenary chief had landed in Bamako, the capital of Mali, a few days earlier.

The Wagner Group possesses large holdings in the Central African Republic, where it is connected to the diamond mining, and has hundreds of mercenaries deployed in Mali.

Pictured: Malian refugees in Mauritania, feeling violent clashes between jihadist groups, government forces and Wagner mercenaries.

Prigozhin exiled himself in Belarus after his failed uprising against Putin, but it was hard to imagine that the chef-turned-mercenary would lead a quiet retirement in Minsk.

Image: @darya_tryfanava / Unsplash

Many experts have speculated that Prigozhin and Utkin were too important for Putin and the Kremlin to get rid of. Now without any of their top leaders, it remains to be seen what will happen to the Wagner Group.