The Kremlin has denied that it assassinated the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, calling western intelligence assessments of Vladimir Putin’s potential involvement “an absolute lie”.
Prigozhin is believed to have been killed when his Embraer jet crashed north-west of Moscow on Wednesday, according to Russian officials. Western intelligence officials have briefed media that Prigozhin was most likely to have been killed by an explosion onboard the plane on President Putin’s orders.
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday: “There is a lot of speculation around this disaster, around the tragic death of the passengers on the plane, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. Of course, in the west all these speculations are presented from a certain angle. This is all an absolute lie.”
Putin on Friday moved quickly to take advantage of Prigozhin’s death by issuing a decree requiring Wagner and all other private military company fighters to swear an oath of allegiance to Russia.
Prigozhin had refused to submit his mercenaries to direct state control, despite a direct request from Putin during a meeting at the Kremlin in June. His armed uprising that month came days before a deadline that would have forced the group to sign military contracts.
Putin’s decree, which was published on government websites, was meant to build the “spiritual and moral foundations for the defence” of Russia and ensure that the mercenaries “strictly follow the orders of their commanders and superiors”, the statement said.
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Officials have been slow to confirm Prigozhin’s death, although he was listed on a flight manifest published by the Russian aviation agency on Wednesday. Peskov said Putin was waiting for the results of a full investigation into the crash, and indicated efforts to identify Prigozhin’s remains using DNA testing were continuing.
On Friday night Russian investigators said they had recovered flight recorders and 10 bodies from the scene of the plane crash.
Prigozhin was known to have body doubles, multiple passports, and to regularly wear disguises when travelling. He has been falsely reported as being killed twice before, including in a plane crash in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019.
This time, the Russian government had an obvious motive to assassinate Prigozhin, who had clashed with its defence ministry, captured military installations and launched a “march of justice” on Moscow.
The UK Ministry of Defence said in a daily intelligence update on Friday: “There is not yet definitive proof that Prigozhin was onboard and he is known to exercise exceptional security measures. However, it is highly likely that he is indeed dead.”
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Putin appeared to eulogise Prigozhin on Thursday evening, saying he had known the Wagner head since the early 1990s. He said Prigozhin had…
2023-08-25 12:34:52
Source from www.theguardian.com