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Aug. 25 (UPI) — The British and American governments assess that it is “likely” Wagner Mercenary Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed when his private plane crashed in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday.
The Russian government has denied any involvement in the death of the once Putin ally.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmirty Peskov denied any Russian government involvement.
“There has been a lot of speculation around this crash and the tragic deaths of the plane’s passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. The West presents all this speculation from a biased perspective. It is all sheer lies,” Peskov said.
The British Ministry of Defense stated that it is “highly likely” that Prigozhin was killed.
“The Russian authorities claim that 10 people on board died, including Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin. Although there is no definitive proof that Prigozhin was on board and he is known to take exceptional security measures, it is highly likely that he is indeed dead,” the British Ministry of Defense said in an update.
“The demise of Prigozhin would almost certainly have a profound destabilizing effect on the Wagner Group. His personal attributes of hyper-activity, exceptional audacity, a drive for results, and extreme brutality permeated Wagner and are unlikely to be matched by any successor,” the Defense Ministry continued.
Pentagon Press Secretary Gen. Pat Ryder said the U.S. believes Prigozhin is dead, but disputed reports of a surface-to-air missile taking down Prigozhin’s jet.
“I’ll say right up front, first of all, our initial assessment is that it’s likely Prigozhin was killed. We’re continuing to assess the situation. We don’t have any information to indicate that the press reporting stating that there was some type of surface-to-air missile that took down the plane is accurate. We assess that information to be inaccurate,” Ryder told a press briefing.
“Again, we have no information to suggest that there was a surface-to-air missile. But beyond that, I don’t have any further information,” Ryder continued.
