United States President Joe Biden has raised suspicions of Vladimir Putin’s potential involvement in the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner private military group, who died in a plane crash on Wednesday.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, along with nine others, tragically lost their lives in a plane crash involving an aircraft believed to be associated with the Wagner group. While the exact cause of the crash remains unclear, Mykhaylo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential aide, suggested that the crash might be interpreted as a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections, as reported by The Guardian.
When asked about the incident and Prigozhin’s death, President Biden stated, “I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised. There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”
Notably, Prigozhin had orchestrated a mutiny in June, leading his troops to move from Ukraine, capture the southern Russian city of Rostov on Don, and pose a threat to Moscow. This move followed months of tensions with Russian military commanders concerning the Ukraine conflict. The situation was eventually resolved through an agreement allowing Wagner troops to transition to Belarus or join the Russian army.
Following the mutiny, during which he was labeled a “traitor” by Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin remained relatively reclusive. His last appearance was in a video recorded on Tuesday that seemed to have been filmed in Africa.