US intelligence indicates that the crash of the Russian plane was provoked

A preliminary US intelligence assessment found that the crash of the plane that allegedly killed the Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin it was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to US and Western officials.

One of the sources, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the explosion was in line with “the long story” of Russian President Vladimir Putin “of trying to silence their critics.”

Officials did not provide details about what caused the explosion that is believed to have killed Prigozhin and several of his lieutenants.

Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said media reports that a surface-to-air missile shot down the plane were inaccurate. He declined to say whether the United States suspects it was a bomb.

The content of the assessment came as Putin on Thursday expressed condolences to the families of those on board the plane, mentioning “serious errors”. The White House declined to comment.

Russia’s civil aviation agency said Prigozhin and six lieutenants were aboard a private plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from Moscow on Wednesday with a crew of three. Rescuers quickly found the 10 bodies and the Russian media cited sources from Prigozhin’s Wagner Group who confirmed his death. But there has been no official confirmation.

President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, stated: “I don’t know for sure what has happened, but I am not surprised, there is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind”.

If the deaths are confirmed, it would be the hardest blow suffered by the mercenary group. The passenger list included Prigozhin as well as his deputy, who christened the group with his nom de guerre, as well as the group’s logistics chief, a fighter wounded in a US airstrike in Syria and at least one possible bodyguard.

It is not yet clear why several high-ranking members of Wagner, including top leaders who are normally extremely careful about their safety, were traveling on the same plane. The reason for their joint trip to St. Petersburg is unknown.

In all, the other passengers included six of Prigozhin’s minions, along with the three-member crew.

At the Wagner group’s St. Petersburg headquarters, lights in the shape of a huge cross were lit and Prigozhin’s supporters built a makeshift monument, piling red and white flowers outside the building on Thursday, along with candles and company flags.

Putin broke his silence on Thursday about the crash of the plane that killed leaders of the Wagner mercenary group, expressing condolences for those on board.

Putin made his remarks while speaking with the Russian-installed leader of the partially occupied Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, in a televised interview.

The Russian president stressed that the passengers had “made a significant contribution” to the fighting in Ukraine. “We remember this, we know it and we will not forget it”he added.

Putin mentioned that he had known Prigozhin since the early 1990s, describing him as “a man with a difficult destiny” what was there “He made serious mistakes in life and achieved the results he needed — both for himself and, when I asked him about it, for the common cause, as in these last few months. He was a talented businessman.

Russian state media have not covered the accident extensively, instead focusing on Putin’s comments at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg via video link and on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Police cordoned off the field where the plane crashed while investigators surveyed the scene. Vehicles were seen entering to transport the bodies, which were apparently badly charred, for autopsy.

Russian social networks reported that the corpses were too burned or disfigured and would have to be identified by DNA. Those reports were reproduced by the independent Russian press, but could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press.

Sergei Mironov, leader of the pro-Kremlin Just Russia party and former speaker of the upper house of the Russian Parliament, suggested on his Telegram channel that Prigozhin was premeditatedly murdered.

“Prigozhin messed with too many people in Russia, Ukraine and the West”Mironov wrote. “Now it seems that the list of his enemies has come to a head.”. Russian authorities say the cause of the plane crash is being investigated.

Anastasia Bukharova, a 27-year-old resident of Kuzhenkino, recounted that she was walking with her children when she saw the jet “and boom! She exploded in the sky and began to fall.”. She said that he was afraid that the plane would fall on nearby houses and he ran with her children, but the plane ended up falling in a meadow.

“It was like something was ripped out of the air and it started falling and falling,” the woman expressed.

Many Putin opponents and critics have been killed or sickened in assassination attempts, and US and Western officials already expected the Russian leader to attack Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges under the deal that ended the 23-24 rebellion. of June.

“It is no coincidence that everyone immediately points to the Kremlin when a disgraced former Putin relative suddenly falls from the sky, two months after attempting an uprising”declared the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, although she acknowledged that the facts have not yet been clarified.

“We know this pattern… in Putin’s Russia there are deaths, dubious suicides, falling windows, things that ultimately remain unexplained”he added.

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky also made his opinion clear. “We had nothing to do with this. Everybody knows who it was.”he expressed.

According to the Russian civil aviation authority, on the passenger list was Dmitry Utkin, who was reportedly the founder of Wagner. “Wagner” it was Utkin’s code name and became the name of the group. He was a retired special forces officer and member of the GRU military intelligence service and responsible for command and combat training for Wagner, according to investigations by the Dossier Center and Bellingcat.

Other members of the group included in the passenger list are Valery Chekalov, the group’s logistics chief, in charge of managing mercenaries and obtaining weapons, and Yevgeny Makaryan, who was wounded while fighting with Wagner in Syria.

The event also occurs the same week that the Russian press reported that the commander of the air force, General ergei Surovikin, who had been one of the commanders in Ukraine, was dismissed.

Prigozhin had long been a staunch critic of the way Russian generals were waging the war in Ukraine, where his mercenaries were among the fiercest fighters for the Kremlin. For a long time, Putin seemed to tolerate such infighting, and Prigozhin seemed particularly given room to express himself.

But Prigozhin’s brief revolt changed the picture. His mercenaries advanced rapidly through southern Russia and took the Rostov-on-Don military headquarters without firing a shot. They came within 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Moscow and shot down several aircraft, killing more than a dozen Russian pilots.

Source: AP