Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, finally spoke out about the jet disaster that claimed the lives of senior Wagner paramilitary members and mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on Wednesday.
In televised comments Putin offered his “sincere condolences to the families of all the victims”, describing the crash as a “tragedy”.
On the same aircraft as Prigozhin, nine further passengers were registered, and all nine are believed to have perished.
The accident on Wednesday night occurred precisely two months after Prigozhin spearheaded an uprising against Moscow’s senior military officials, which some observers believed to be the largest danger to Putin’s long-standing power.
Moscow launched an investigation into probable infractions of air traffic regulations, but since then, authorities have remained mute while rumors of a potential assassination have risen.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said Kyiv had nothing to do with the tragedy.
“I think everyone knows who this concerns,” he said, in what appeared to be a reference to Putin.
“There is a court in The Hague, there is a court of God. But Russia has an alternative (court) President Putin,” he said when asked again about the air crash later Thursday.
