Putin Breaks Silence on Prigozhin's Plane Crash

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday made his first comments about Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's presumed death in a plane crash.

"I've known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with no easy fate. He made some serious mistakes in his life, but he also achieved the needed results—both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause," Putin said during a televised meeting, according to the Kremlin-controlled news agency Tass.

Putin's comments are the closest words yet in way of confirmation regarding Prigozhin's death. The founder of the mercenary Wagner organization was listed as a passenger on a jet that crashed in Russia's Tver region on Wednesday, killing all 10 people aboard.

Prigozhin was once a close ally of Putin, and his Wagner Group grew to prominence during the war in Ukraine after Putin's formal military suffered a string of defeats at the ends of Kyiv's forces. More recently, though, Prigozhin fell out of favor with the Kremlin after he accused Russia's military of attacking his troops before launching a brief mutiny against Moscow in late June that ended shortly after it began.

During his comments about the plane crash, Putin also said the Wagner Group had made a "significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine."

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.

Despite Putin's words of praise of Prigozhin, many Western observers believe the Russian president is behind the mercenary boss' death.

In a Wednesday assessment of the war in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank wrote that Putin "almost certainly ordered the Russian military command to shoot down Prigozhin's plane."

The ISW added that Putin may have given the order due to Prigozhin possibly breaking conditions that existed in the Kremlin's decision to drop charges against him for the failed rebellion.

Elsewhere in his Thursday comments, Putin offered a message to the families of the people who died in the plane crash: "As for the aviation tragedy, first of all, I want to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all the victims," Putin said, per Tass.

The Russian leader added that his government has launched an investigation into the incident that he said would be "carried out in full and to the end."

"Let's see what the investigators say in the near future. Tests—technical and genetic tests—are being carried out now. This takes some time," Putin said.

Update 08/24/23 2:40 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include more comments from Putin.