US President Joe Biden Wednesday said he was not surprised by reports that Russian Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin may have died in a plane crash. Biden said not much happens in the country that President Vladimir Putin is not behind, Reuters reported.
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner Commander Dmitry Utkin were on board the plane that crashed north of Moscow, Russian Civil Aviation Authority said.
There was no confirmation that Prigozhin was physically on board.
“I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” Reuters reported quoting Biden.
“There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer,” he added.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted social media platform X
“…It is obvious that Putin does not forgive anyone for his own bestial terror…. The demonstrative elimination of Prigozhin and the Wagner command two months after the coup attempt is a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections. ‘Beware! Disloyalty equals death'”
British lawmaker Alicia Kearns and chair of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee said, “The speed at which the Russian Govt has confirmed Yevgeny Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg should tell us everything we need to know. Reports Russian Air Defence shot down the plane suggests Putin is sending a very loud message.”
“Despite any presumptions whether or not Prigozhin was killed by Putin according to his order or his plane was destroyed due to an inter-agency clash within the Russian elite, this event demonstrates that the Russian elite is not united, that the contradictions within the Kremlin are growing, that the coordination between different branches within the Russian leadership is really bad. In the end, if Vladimir Putin is so powerful, why didn’t he arrest Prigozhin?” reported Reuters quoting Pavel Luzin, an expert with the Center for European Policy Analysis and a US thinktank.
Prigozhin spearheaded a mutiny against Russia’s top army brass on June 23-24 which Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Updated: 24 Aug 2023, 02:06 AM IST