MOSCOW
\nThe Kremlin said that Western suggestions Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an \u201cabsolute lie\u201d while declining to definitively confirm his death, citing the need to wait for test results.
\nRussia\u2019s aviation authority has said that Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, was on board a private jet which crashed on Wednesday evening northwest of Moscow with no survivors.
\nPresident Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the families of those killed in the crash on Thursday and spoke of Prigozhin in the past tense, breaking his silence after the incident which occurred exactly two months to the day after Prigozhin led a failed mutiny against army chiefs.
\nPutin cited \u201cpreliminary information\u201d as indicating that Prigozhin and his top associates in the Wagner mercenary group had all been killed and, while praising Prigozhin, said he had also made some \u201cserious mistakes.\u201d
\nWestern politicians and commentators have suggested, without presenting evidence, that Putin ordered Prigozhin to be killed in order to punish him for launching the June 23-34 mutiny against the army\u2019s leadership which also represented the biggest challenge to Putin\u2019s own rule since he came to power in 1999.
\nKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the accusation and many others like it were false.
\n\u201cThere is now a great deal of speculation surrounding this plane crash and the tragic deaths of the plane\u2019s passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. Of course, in the West, all this speculation is presented from a well-known angle,\u201d Peskov told reporters.
\n\u201cAll of this is an absolute lie, and here, when covering this issue, it is necessary to base yourself on facts. There are not many facts yet. They need to be established in the course of investigative actions,\u201d he said.
\nEarlier on Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had scolded U.S. President Joe Biden for expressing his lack of surprise that Prigozhin had been killed in a plane crash, accusing Biden of disregarding diplomatic norms.
\n\u2018WAIT FOR TEST RESULTS\u2019
\nRussian investigators have opened a probe into what happened, but have not yet said what they suspect caused the plane to suddenly fall from the sky northwest of Moscow.
\nNor have they officially confirmed the identities of the 10 bodies recovered from the wreckage.
\nAsked if the Kremlin had received official confirmation of Prigozhin\u2019s death, Peskov said: \u201cIf you listened carefully to the Russian president\u2019s statement, he said that all the necessary tests, including genetic tests, will now be carried out. The official results – as soon as they are ready to be published, will be published.\u201d
\nPeskov, who said Putin had not met Prigozhin recently, also said it was unclear how long the tests and investigative work would take.
\nIt was therefore impossible to start talking about whether Putin would attend Prigozhin\u2019s funeral, Peskov said in answer to a question on the subject.
\n\u201cThere are no dates for the funeral yet, it is impossible to talk about it at all. The only thing I can say is that the president has a rather busy schedule at the moment.\u201d
\nNigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus who is now a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said the funeral would be significant.
\n\u201cIf Putin wishes to emphasise that Prigozhin died as a traitor, he will ignore it,\u201d said Gould-Davies.
\n\u201c(While) Prigozhin\u2019s supporters may use it as an opportunity to eulogise him and his critique of the Kremlin\u2019s conduct of the war — and could strengthen the hostility of a core of Wagner loyalists towards the Kremlin,\u201d he said.
\nBritish military intelligence said on Friday there was not yet definitive proof that Prigozhin had been onboard but that it was \u201chighly likely\u201d he was dead.
\nThe Pentagon has said its own initial assessment is that Prigozhin was killed.
\nRussia\u2019s Baza news outlet, which has good sources among law enforcement agencies, has reported that investigators are focusing on a theory that one or two bombs may have been planted on board the plane.
\nAsked about the future of the Wagner Group, which has series of lucrative contracts across Africa and a contingent in Belarus training the army there but now appears leaderless, Kremlin spokesman Peskov was concise.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t tell you anything now, I don\u2019t know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW The Kremlin said that Western suggestions Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an \u201cabsolute lie\u201d while declining to definitively confirm his death, citing the need to wait for test results. Russia\u2019s aviation authority has said that Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, was on board a private […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-351691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n