The Russian leader says grenade fragments were found in the bodies of victims of the plane crash that killed Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that the plane crash that killed the head of the Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was caused by the detonation of hand grenades on the plane.
Putin suggested on Thursday that Prigozhin’s plane was blown up from the inside and not hit by a missile as rumored. The head of the Russian Investigative Committee reported that traces of explosives had been discovered in the bodies of those who died in the August crash.
“Fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of those killed in the crash,” Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“There was no external impact on the plane – this is already a proven fact,” Putin said, appearing to refute claims by US officials who believed the plane had been shot down.
The private Embraer jet on which Prigozhin was traveling to St. Petersburg crashed north of Moscow on August 23, killing all 10 people on board. Two other top Wagner figures, Prigozhin’s four bodyguards and a three-man crew also died.
Putin did not provide details about how one or more grenades might have been detonated aboard the executive jet, but said he believed it was wrong that investigators had not conducted alcohol and drug tests on the bodies of those who died in the crash.
“In my opinion, such an investigation should have been carried out, but it was not,” Putin said.
Putin also claimed that searches of Wagner’s offices in St. Petersburg after the crash found 10 billion rubles ($100 million) in cash and 5 kg (11 pounds) of cocaine.
Crash investigators have yet to publicly report their findings. Moscow rejected an offer from Brazil, where the Embraer corporate jet was built, to join the crash investigation.
Prigozhin’s death in the crash came two months to the day after he led a short-lived mutiny against the Russian defense establishment and posed the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule since he came to power in 1999.
A preliminary assessment by U.S. intelligence concluded the crash was caused by a deliberate explosion, and Western officials have pointed to a long list of Putin enemies who have been assassinated.
The Kremlin has dismissed as an “absolute lie” the claim that Putin had Prigozhin killed in revenge for the Wagner Private Army uprising.
Wagner’s fate has been unclear since Prigozhin’s death.
Putin ordered Wagner fighters to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, a move that Prigozhin and many of his men rejected.
Asked about the future of so-called private military companies in Russia, Putin said on Thursday that the experience with them in Russia was “clumsy” because there is no law on such groups.
“We in Russia have not yet agreed on whether we need such formations or not, but today I can say with certainty that several thousand fighters from this company have already signed contracts with the armed forces,” Putin said.
Before his death, Prigozhin had accused Russia’s military leaders, particularly Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, of incompetence and warned that Russia could lose the war in Ukraine if there was no more gas.
After his death, Putin described the Wagner boss as a man who “made serious mistakes in his life, but achieved the right results.”
The Wagner Group mercenary force created by Prigozhin was active in Ukraine, Syria, Libya and several African countries and at its peak numbered tens of thousands of fighters.
The force, sanctioned by the European Union and the United States for serious human rights abuses in the countries where Wagner was stationed, played a key role in the fighting in Ukraine, where it led the capture of the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut in May after months of bloody fighting.