Kremlin denies role in crash that killed Prigozhin
Moscow, Aug 25 (EFE).- The Kremlin on Friday strongly rejected “speculations” in the Western media over its alleged role in the plane crash on Wednesday in which PMC Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was reported dead along with nine other people onboard.
“All of them are absolute lies,” Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a virtual press conference, held after a gap of three weeks.
“Naturally, there are many speculations over this plane crash and the tragic death of the passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin,” said Peskov according to state news agency TASS.
The spokesperson accused the West of “selling these speculations from a certain angle.”
“In covering this issue it is necessary to be based solely on facts,” he insisted, although admitting that few of them were available at the moment as an investigation was still underway.
Peskov cited Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said on Thursday that he was waiting for the results of the investigation into the crash, “which will be completed in the foreseeable future” as per the spokesperson.
When asked about the future of Wagner, the private mercenary force headed by Prigozhin, the spokesperson said he had no information in this regard.
On Thursday Putin had broken his silence on the crash after 24 hours, and said that the technical and genetic examinations being carried out by experts would take some time, before a conclusion can be reached.
The Russian president called the Wagner chief “a talented man” and businessman who “made serious mistakes in his life, but achieved the right results.”
Putin’s comments came after several analysts and media outlets suggested that he could be behind the sudden demise of Prigozhin, who had last been seen in a video supposedly shot in Africa.
Putin had called the Wagner chief a traitor in June after the latter mounted a mutiny against the military top brass and led his troops to around 200 kms from Moscow before an agreement was reached and the mercenaries were moved to Belarus. EFE
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