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The Kremlin stated on Friday that Western recommendations that Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had been killed on its orders have been an “absolute lie” and declined to definitively affirm his demise, citing the necessity to look forward to check outcomes.
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday despatched his condolences to Prigozhin’s household, breaking his silence after the mercenary chief’s airplane crashed on Wednesday night with no survivors two months after he led a mutiny in opposition to military chiefs.
Putin cited “preliminary info” as indicating that Prigozhin and his high associates within the Wagner mercenary group had been killed.
Russian investigators have opened a probe into what occurred, however haven’t but stated what they believe triggered the airplane to out of the blue fall from the sky northwest of Moscow.
Nor have they formally confirmed the identities of the ten our bodies recovered from the wreckage.
‘There will not be many information but’
Western politicians and commentators have recommended that Putin ordered Prigozhin killed to punish him for launching a failed June 23-34 mutiny in opposition to the highest brass which represented the largest problem to Putin’s rule but.
Up to now, a number of critics of Putin, together with politicians and media figures, have been killed violently or survived mysterious poisoning incidents.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated the Prigozhin accusation and plenty of others prefer it have been false.
“There may be now quite a lot of hypothesis surrounding this airplane crash and the tragic deaths of the airplane’s passengers, together with Yevgeny Prigozhin. After all, within the West, all this hypothesis is offered from a well known angle,” Peskov informed reporters.
“All of that is an absolute lie, and right here, when masking this difficulty, it’s essential to base your self on information. There will not be many information but. They must be established in the middle of investigative actions.”
Peskov stated that it was necessary to attend for the outcomes of assorted exams in addition to the end result of the investigation.
He stated Putin had not met Prigozhin lately.
The connection between Putin and Prigozhin stretches again many years, to when the previous was a rising official in Saint Petersburg and the latter was a caterer that was a vendor for the federal government.
Prigozhin would go on to hold out Russian goals in Africa by way of Wagner, and he additionally admitted earlier this yr to founding and financing the Web Analysis Company, an organization that the U.S. authorities says is a “troll farm” which meddled within the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He was indicted in absentia by a particular counsel within the U.S. investigating election interference.
The U.S. Division of Defence on Thursday stated there was at present no info to recommend {that a} surface-to-air missile took down the airplane presumed to be carrying Prigozhin.
Air Power Brig.-Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, provided no proof or additional particulars on what U.S. officers imagine triggered the crash as he made his remarks at a Pentagon information convention.
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