Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday lastly spoke concerning the obvious demise of Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the mercenary Wagner Group, who’s believed to have died a day earlier in a airplane crash.
Amid reviews that Mr. Prigozhin’s airplane might have been introduced down by an explosion, Mr. Putin addressed the crash throughout a TV interview. He referred to as Mr. Prigozhin “a man of a difficult fate” and stated the Wagner Group chief made “serious mistakes in life” — an obvious reference to the short-lived Wagner mutiny this summer time.
Still, Mr. Putin stated the passengers on board the doomed plane “made a significant contribution” to Russia’s army marketing campaign in Ukraine.
“We remember this, we know, and we will not forget,” he stated within the interview with Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed chief of Ukraine’s Donetsk area.
Mr. Prigozhin, a former restaurant proprietor who grew to become often known as “Putin’s chef” due to the Russian chief’s affinity for his meals, was certainly one of 10 passengers on the jet that crashed Wednesday whereas flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg. All of them, together with different prime Wagner Group figures, are presumed useless, although Mr. Prigozhin’s demise has not been formally confirmed by Russian authorities.
Mr. Putin stated Mr. Prigozhin “achieved the results he needed — both for himself and, when I asked him about it, for the common cause, as in these last months. He was a talented man, a talented businessman.”
Western analysts warned for months that Mr. Putin would in all probability search revenge in opposition to Mr. Prigozhin for his June revolt. That mutiny noticed Wagner Group forces march north towards Moscow, demanding that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and different prime officers get replaced.
Mr. Prigozhin blamed Mr. Shoigu and others atop the Kremlin for the nation’s army failures in Ukraine and for Moscow’s incapacity to offer Wagner Group troops with the provides and weapons they wanted to succeed.
Russian authorities haven’t but given an official trigger for the Wednesday crash.
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