CBSNews
Updated Thu, August 24, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed his "condolences" over a plane crash that purportedly killed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, describing him as a man who made mistakes but achieved "results."
An investigation is underway into what caused Wednesday's crash, which came exactly two months after Wagner's short-lived rebellion against Moscow's military leadership.
"First of all I want to express words of sincere condolences to the families of all the victims," Putin said in a televised meeting, calling the incident a "tragedy."
"I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early '90s. He was a man of complicated fate, and he made serious mistakes in his life, but he achieved the right results," Putin added.
He mentioned Prigozhin's work in Africa — where Prigozhin claimed to be earlier in the week and where the Wagner group maintains a significant military presence.
"As far as I know, he just returned from Africa yesterday and met with some officials there," Putin said.
He said the investigation into the crash "will take some time."
"It will be conducted in full and brought to a conclusion. There is no doubt about that," Putin said, in footage showing a meeting with the Russian-installed head of the Donetsk region Denis Pushilin.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, left, with Russian President Vladimir Putin
The circumstances of the crash, which reportedly claimed the lives of some of Prigozhin's close entourage, have prompted furious speculation about a possible assassination.
An initial U.S. assessment of the situation found that Prigozhin was likely killed in the crash, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters.
The assessment was made "based on a variety of factors," Ryder said during a news briefing Thursday. He didn't provide specific details.
"We're continuing to assess the situation," Ryder said.
A U.S. official told CBS News that it appears "very unlikely" that Prigozhin's plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile and that the most likely cause appears to be an explosion aboard the aircraft. What caused the explosion is not known, although a bomb is one possibility, the official said.
On Wednesday, President Biden was asked if he believed Putin was behind the crash. He replied: "There's not much that happens in Russia that Putin's not behind, but I don't know enough to know the answer to that."
Prigozhin was branded a "traitor" by Putin after Wagner launched its rebellion in June, in what was seen as Putin's biggest challenge to authority since he came to power.
Among those killed in the crash was Dmitry Utkin, a shadowy figure who managed Wagner's operations and allegedly served in Russian military intelligence.
Putin said the Wagner members who died in the crash made a "significant contribution" to Moscow's offensive in Ukraine and shared a "common cause."
"We remember that, we know that, and we will not forget that," Putin said.
Earlier this week, Prigozhin appeared in his first video since leading a failed mutiny against Russian commanders in June. He could be seen standing in arid desert land, dressed in camouflage with a rifle in his hand, and hinting he's somewhere in Africa. He said Wagner was making Russia great on all continents, and making Africa "more free."
CBS News had not verified Prigozhin's location or when the video was taken. But it appeared to be a recruitment drive on the African continent, where the Wagner group has been active. Some nations have turned to the private army to fill security gaps or prop up dictatorial regimes.
In some countries, like the Central African Republic, Wagner exchanges services for almost unfettered access to natural resources. A CBS News investigation found that Wagner was plundering the country's mineral resources in exchange for protecting the president against a coup.
The Associated Press
Updated Thu, August 24, 2023
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his top lieutenants were presumed dead in a plane crash — widely seen Thursday as an assassination to avenge a mutiny that challenged President Vladimir Putin’s authority.
The founder of the Wagner military company and six other passengers were on a private jet that crashed Wednesday, soon after taking off from Moscow with a crew of three, according to Russia's civil aviation authority. Rescuers found 10 bodies, and Russian media cited anonymous sources in Wagner who said Prigozhin was dead. But there has been no official confirmation.
At Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, lights were turned on in the shape of a large cross, and Prigozhin supporters built a makeshift memorial, piling red and white flowers outside the building Thursday, along with company flags and candles.
Putin remained silent as speculation swirled, addressing the BRICS summit in Johannesburg via videolink without mentioning the crash. Russian state media also have not covered it extensively, instead focusing on the summit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Police, meanwhile, cordoned off the field where the plane went down in Kuzhenkino, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northwest of Moscow, as investigators studied its wreckage. Vehicles took away the bodies.
Several Russian social media channels reported that the bodies were burned or disfigured beyond recognition and would need to be identified by DNA. The reports were picked up by independent Russian media, but the Associated Press was not able to independently confirm them.
Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately downed, including suggesting it could have been hit by an air defense missile or targeted by a bomb on board. Those claims could not be independently verified.
Russian authorities have said the cause of the crash is under investigation.
Kuzhenkino resident Anastasia Bukharova, 27, said she was walking with her children Wednesday when she saw the jet, “and then — boom! — it exploded in the sky and began to fall down.” She said she was scared it would hit houses in the village and ran with the children, but it ended up crashing into a field.
“Something sort of was torn from it in the air, and it began to go down and down,” she added.
Numerous opponents and critics of Putin have been killed or gravely sickened in apparent assassination attempts, and U.S. and other Western officials long expected the Russian leader to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny.
"It is no coincidence that the whole world immediately looks at the Kremlin when a disgraced ex-confidant of Putin suddenly falls from the sky, two months after he attempted an uprising,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, while acknowledging that the facts were still unclear.
“We know this pattern … in Putin’s Russia — deaths and dubious suicides, falls from windows that all ultimately remain unexplained,” she added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also pointed the finger. “We have nothing to do with this. Everyone understands who does,” he said.
Further fueling speculation that the plane crash was a strike at the heart of Wagner, among those aboard was a top Prigozhin associate, Dmitry Utkin, according to the civil aviation authority. Utkin's call sign was Wagner, which became the company’s name.
The crash also came the same week that Russian media reported that Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former top commander in Ukraine who was reportedly linked to Prigozhin, was dismissed from his post as commander of Russia’s air force.
Prigozhin was long outspoken and critical of how Russian generals were waging the war in Ukraine, where his mercenaries were some of the fiercest fighters for the Kremlin. For a long time, Putin appeared content to allow such infighting — and Prigozhin seemed to have unusual latitude to speak his mind.
But Prigozhin's brief revolt raised the ante. His mercenaries swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there without firing a shot. They then drove to within about 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Moscow and downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen Russian pilots.
Putin first denounced the rebellion — the most serious challenge to his authority of his 23-year rule — as “treason” and a “stab in the back.” He vowed to punish its perpetrators — and the world waited for Putin's move, particularly since Prigozhin had publicly questioned the Russian leader's justifications for the war in Ukraine, seen as a red line.
But instead Putin made a deal that saw an end to the mutiny in exchange for an amnesty for Prigozhin and his mercenaries and permission for them to move to Belarus.
Now many are suggesting the punishment has finally come.
“The downing of the plane was certainly no mere coincidence,” Janis Sarts, director of NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, told Latvian television.
Even if confirmed, Prigozhin’s death is unlikely to have an effect on Russia’s war in Ukraine. His forces fought some of the bloodiest battles over the last 18 months, but pulled back from the frontline after capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut in late May. After the rebellion, Russian officials said his fighters would only be able to return to Ukraine as part of the regular army.
The Institute for the Study of War argued that Russian authorities likely moved against Prigozhin and his top associates as “the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization.”
Flight tracking data reviewed by The Associated Press showed a private jet that Prigozhin had used previously took off from Moscow on Wednesday evening, and its transponder signal disappeared minutes later.
Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone showed a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting wildly as it fell, one of its wings apparently missing. A freefall like that typically occurs when an aircraft sustains severe damage, and a frame-by-frame AP analysis of two videos was consistent with some sort of explosion mid-flight.
People lay flowers at an informal memorial next to the former 'PMC Wagner Centre' in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023. Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, reportedly died when a private jet he was said to be on crashed on Aug. 23, 2023, killing all 10 people on board.
(AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
JON HAWORTH, LUIS MARTINEZ and PATRICIO CHILE
Thu, August 24, 2023
Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was "likely" killed in a plane crash along with 9 others near Kuzhenkino, Russia, on Wednesday, the Pentagon said, but there is no indication a surface-to-air missile was the cause of the crash.
"We don't have any information to indicate right now ... there was some type of surface to air missile that took down the plane, that we assessed that information to be inaccurate," Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said.
He added, "But beyond that, I'm really just not going to have any further information. What was it, something that came internal from inside the plane? Again, I don't have any additional insight to provide on that."
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his first comments on the mysterious plane crash that presumably killed Prigozhin and the private military company's co-founder Dmitry Utkin.
His comments were made hours after the bodies of the crash victims were moved to the Tver Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination, ABC News learned.
"As for the aviation tragedy, first of all, I want to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all the victims," Putin said in an on-camera address, adding that Wagner Group made a "significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine."
"I knew (Yevgeny) Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life," Putin said. "He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months."
He added on the investigation, "But what is absolutely clear - the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me this morning, they have already launched a preliminary investigation into this incident. And it will be carried out in full and to the end. There is no doubt about that here. 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."
PHOTO: People hang out portraits of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin as they pay tribute to them at the makeshift memorial in front of the PMC Wagner office in Novosibirsk, on August 24, 2023. (Vladimir Nikolayev/AFP via Getty Images)
Earlier Thursday, Putin addressed the BRICS summit of leaders meeting in Johannesburg remotely, but made no mention of the crash in his remarks.
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg -- Prigozhin’s home town -- dozens of people have been arriving to light candles and drop flowers at a pop-up memorial.
The jet manufacturer that Prigozhin and Utkin were reportedly on has an impeccable record and it was the first recorded crash in the history of the Embraer Legacy 600.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made remarks commemorating marking Ukrainian Independence Day and handed out medals to Ukrainian solders.
MORE: Russian rebellion timeline: How the Wagner uprising against Putin unfolded and where Prigozhin is now
Among the 10 dead were three crew members and seven passengers, Russian officials said. The seven passengers identified on a flight list were Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Dmitriy Utkin, Nikolay Matuseev and Prigozhin. The crew was identified as Cmdr. Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova.
The Federal Air Transport Agency said the plane was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg when it went down near Kuzhenkino.
A member of private mercenary group Wagner pays tribute to Yevgeny Prigozhin (L) and Dmitry Utkin at the makeshift memorial in front of the PMC Wagner office in Novosibirsk, on August 24, 2023. (Vladimir Nikolayev/AFP via Getty Images)
White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement on Wednesday that officials were watching the reports of the plane crash.
"If confirmed, no one should be surprised. The disastrous war in Ukraine led to a private army marching on Moscow, and now -- it would seem -- to this," she said.
Prigozhin was the head of the private paramilitary organization Wagner Group, which played a key role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine before briefly launching an insurrection against the Russian military in June. Forces loyal to Prigozhin marched toward Moscow, before turning back after several days.
ABC News' Joe Simonetti, Will Gretsky, Mark Osborne, Ivan Pereira and Tanya Stukalova contributed to this report.
The Associated Press
Updated Wed, August 23, 2023
In this handout photo released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Saturday, June 24, 2023, the top Russian military commander in Ukraine, Gen. Sergei Surovikin records his appeal to armed rebellion at the unknown location. Gen. Surovikin, a former commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine who was linked to the leader of an armed rebellion, has been dismissed from his job as chief of the air force, according to Russian state media. The report Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, came after weeks of uncertainty about his fate following the short-lived uprising.
Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine who was linked to the leader of a brief armed rebellion, has been dismissed as chief of the air force, Russian state media reported Wednesday after weeks of uncertainty about his fate.
Surovikin has not been seen in public since June 23-24, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, sent his men to march toward Moscow. In a video released during the uprising, Surovikin — who was believed to have close ties to Prigozhin — had urged him to pull the mercenaries back.
The Wagner uprising posed the most serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year rule and reports circulated that Surovikin had known about it in advance. Prigozhin called off the rebellion short of reaching Moscow after he said he wanted to avoid bloodshed.
Surovikin's absence has been one of several enduring mysteries surrounding the rebellion. During his absence, Russian media have speculated about Surovikin’s whereabouts, with some claiming he had been detained, but his daughter told the Russian social media channel Baza in late June that her father had not been arrested.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, citing an anonymous source, reported that Surovikin has been replaced as commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces by Col. Gen. Viktor Afzalov, who heads the main staff of the air force.
The agency frequently represents the official position of the Kremlin through reports citing anonymous officials in Russia’s defense and security establishment.
The Russian government has not commented on the report, and The Associated Press was not able to confirm it independently.
The Russian daily newspaper RBC reported that Surovikin is being transferred to a new job and is now on vacation.
Alexei Venediktov, the former head of the closed radio station Ekho Moskvy, and Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of a Putin-linked politician, both wrote on social media Tuesday that Surovikin had been dismissed.
Sobchak said Surovikin was removed from his post Aug. 18, “by a closed decree. The family still has no contact with him.”
Surovikin was dubbed “General Armageddon” for his brutal military campaign in Syria and led Russia’s operations in Ukraine between October 2022 and January 2023. Under his command, Russian forces unleashed regular missile barrages on Ukrainian cities, significantly damaging civilian infrastructure and disrupting heating, electricity and water supplies.
Both Surovikin and Prigozhin were both active in Syria, where Russian forces have fought to shore up President Bashar Assad’s government since 2015.
Surovikin was replaced as commander in Ukraine by Chief of General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov following Russia’s withdrawal from the southern city of Kherson amid a swift counteroffensive by Kyiv's troops, but the air force general continued to serve under Gerasimov as a deputy commander.
Prigozhin had spoken positively of Surovikin while criticizing Russia’s military brass, and suggested he should be appointed General Staff chief to replace Gerasimov.
While the reports circulated about actions against Surovikin, Prigozhin, appears to be still in charge of the mercenary group, which won a key battle to capture the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut earlier this year. Prigozhin said he launched the rebellion to oust Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other military leaders who he accused of mismanaging the war in Ukraine.
Shortly after the rebellion, the Kremlin confirmed Putin had a three-hour meeting with Prigozhin and Wagner commanders shortly before they apparently agreed to depart for exile in Belarus. In July, Prigozhin was seen on the sidelines of a Russia-Africa summit in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, and this week he posted his first video address since the mutiny, saying he was seeking “bogatyrs” — courageous and strong men — to work for Wagner in Africa.
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