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Zelensky: Ukraine has nothing to do with the alleged death of Prigozhin

2023-08-24 14:53:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that his country had "nothing to do" with the alleged death of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash on August 23.

He hinted that the Kremlin is responsible for this.

"We have nothing to do with this situation, that's for sure. I think everyone knows who is responsible," Zelensky said on August 24, a day after a private plane on which Prigozhin was registered as a passenger crashed between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Investigators have continued searching the wreckage of the private plane belonging to the Wagner group since the early morning hours of August 24.

Emergency services officials, quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti, said the bodies of eight people had been found in the wreckage so far, but there was no word on whether any of the bodies had been identified and there was no confirmation that Prigozhin was on board. .

Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) said that "according to the passenger list, the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin was" on the flight that crashed north of Moscow.

Wagner's commander and co-founder Dmitry Utkin was also among the seven passengers on the plane, the aviation authority said, citing the airline. Two pilots and a flight attendant were also on board the plane, the aviation authority said, adding that an investigation into the incident had been launched.

There has been no official confirmation from the Kremlin or the Ministry of Defense that Prigozhin and Utkin died, but a channel linked to Wagner on the Telegram platform declared him dead.

The channel Gray Zone ("Zona gri" in Albanian) declared Prigozhin a hero and a patriot whom it said had died at the hands of unidentified people it called "traitors of Russia".

Gray Zone also reported that another private plane owned by Prigozhin landed safely in the Moscow region. Radio Free Europe has not been able to independently verify this information.

A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin led a short-lived rebellion on June 24, when Wagner's fighters seized the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and marched up to 200 kilometers from Moscow. A Russian military aircraft was shot down during the uprising and a total of 13 Russian Air Force personnel were killed. This is considered the most serious challenge for Putin in his more than two decades in power.

Prigozhin was not arrested or jailed at the time, but Putin denounced the uprising as a "stab in the back" and vowed to punish all "traitors" involved.

"It is unlikely that anyone will think this is a coincidence. It just happens that political opponents whom Vladimir Putin considers a threat to his power do not die naturally," said Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau.

If Prigozhin is found to have died on the flight, it would be a major blow to the Wagner Group, which was instrumental in Russia's battle to take the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut earlier this year.