The US government is still investigating the cause of the plane crash that reportedly killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, a private military company that operates in several conflict zones around the world. The US has not seen any evidence that the plane was shot down by a missile, as some Russian media outlets have claimed.
Prigozhin’s Plane Crashed Near Moscow
According to Russian authorities, Prigozhin was one of the 10 people on board a private jet that crashed near the city of Tver, about 160 kilometers north of Moscow, on Wednesday afternoon. The plane, an Embraer Legacy 600, had taken off from a Moscow airport and was heading to St. Petersburg when it suddenly lost altitude and plunged to the ground. There were no survivors.
The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into the crash and said it was looking into various possible scenarios, including technical malfunction, human error, weather conditions, and sabotage. The committee also said it had identified all the victims of the crash, but did not release their names.
Prigozhin Was a Close Ally of Putin
Prigozhin, who was nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because of his catering business that served the Kremlin, was one of the most influential and secretive figures in Russia. He was widely believed to be the mastermind behind the Wagner Group, which has been accused of carrying out covert operations and atrocities in countries such as Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.
Prigozhin was also indicted by the US Justice Department in 2018 for allegedly orchestrating a massive online campaign to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. He denied any involvement and mocked the charges.
Prigozhin had a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who expressed his condolences to his family and praised him as a “talented businessman” who had a “difficult fate”. Putin said he had known Prigozhin since the early 1990s and that he had asked him to do some “joint work” in recent months, without elaborating.
US Suspects Prigozhin Was Assassinated
The US intelligence community is still in the early stages of assessing what may have caused the plane crash, but some officials believe that it was an assassination that was likely approved by Putin himself. According to CNN, four US officials said they had not seen any indications that a missile downed the plane, but they were evaluating other possibilities, such as an onboard explosive device.
The officials said they did not have any conclusive evidence yet, but they noted that Prigozhin had made many enemies both inside and outside Russia because of his activities. They also said that Putin may have wanted to get rid of Prigozhin because he had become a liability and a source of tension with other countries.
President Joe Biden told reporters on Wednesday that he did not know for sure what happened, but he was not surprised. “Not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind,” he said.