Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin | Putin: President Wagner made serious mistakes

Yevgeny Prigozhin achieved results, but he also made serious mistakes, Vladimir Putin said in his first statement about the plane crash in which the Wagner leader likely died.

In a televised statement on Thursday, Putin called the plane crash a “tragedy”. He offered his condolences to the families of all those on board.

Then they informed the Russian president that “preliminary data” indicated that Wagner employees were on board. He noted that he had met Prigozhin already in the early 1990s.

– He was a man with a complicated fate, and he made grave mistakes in his life. The President claimed that he had achieved the correct results.

Remains have been found

Putin’s statement is the closest the Russian regime has come to an official confirmation of Prigozhin’s death.

A private jet he was using crashed on Wednesday. On the same day, Russian aviation authorities announced that Prigozhin and several other Wagner members were on board.

It is said that the remains of ten dead people have been found, and there is no indication that anyone survived the crash.

In the televised statement, Putin also said that Wagner members have contributed greatly to our “common cause” by fighting the “neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine”.

– We remember it, we know it, and we will not forget it, said the president.

Read also

US media: The United States believes that Prigozhin’s plane suffered an explosion

Failed rebellion

The Wagner mercenary group previously played an important role in Russia’s war in Ukraine. But at the end of June, Prigozhin and Wagner were behind a failed revolt against the Russian Defense Command.

During the uprising, Putin called Prigozhin a traitor. However, the rebellion ended with an agreement whereby Prigozhin and Wagner’s soldiers were allowed to travel to Belarus.

Prigozhin’s plane crashed exactly two months after the attempted uprising. A few hours before the crash of the plane, Russian media confirmed the dismissal of General Sergei Surovikin from the post of Commander of the Russian Air Force. He was accused of supporting or knowing about the Wagner Rebellion.

Over the past few years, there have been a number of instances in which Putin’s critics have faced off He died under mysterious circumstances or been poisoned.

suspect Putin

Putin confirmed that investigators would investigate the circumstances surrounding the plane crash on Wednesday. But he warned that the investigation could take some time.

Many analysts believe that Putin himself may have caused the crash. Some claim it is sudden That Prigozhin was allowed to live as long as he did, after what looked like an attempted coup a few months earlier.

Wagner himself claimed on Wednesday that Prigozhin’s plane had been shot down by Russian government forces.

The involvement of the Russian regime has not yet been confirmed, and Putin himself has not commented on this allegation.

The US Department of Defense does not believe the plane was shot down, instead unnamed US officials have launched a theory that there may have been an explosion on board.

Several members of Wagner

In addition to Prigozhin, Wagner chief Dmitry Utkin was on board the plane that crashed, according to the passenger list.

He has been referred to as the founder of the group and the one who named it after Wagner.

It is also believed that four other passengers were Wagner members BBC. The seventh passenger, Valery Chekalov, is described as a businessman with close ties to Prigozhin. The AP news agency wrote that he was the director of logistics for Wagner.

Three crew members also lost their lives in the accident.

After the incident, Wagner supporters laid flowers at the group’s headquarters in Saint Petersburg. Russian state media did not receive widespread coverage of the fate of the Wagner summits, focusing instead on the Ukraine war and Putin’s speech at the BRICS summit in South Africa.

Read also

Expert: – The recent struggle for power in the Kremlin is over