The mercenary leader's plane crashed with no survivors two months after he led a mutiny against army superiors, and on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences to his family.
Although they cautioned that the information was preliminary and under evaluation, two U.S. officials told Reuters that Washington thought a surface-to-air missile that originated from within Russia most likely brought down the airliner. They provided no evidence and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
There has been no official word from Moscow on what may have caused Wednesday night's tragedy, despite Russian police having begun a criminal investigation. A statement from the aviation authority stating that Prigozhin was on board was the only official confirmation of his death prior to Putin's remarks.
Putin finally spoke out, praising Prigozhin as a successful businessman he had known since the 1990s and announcing that the crash inquiry would take some time.
The leader of the Wagner mercenary force and a self-declared adversary of the army's senior brass due to what he claimed was their inept handling of Russia's war in Ukraine, Prigozhin, 62, was a self-declared enemy.
Prior to that, Putin virtually addressed the BRICS meeting in South Africa, where his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was also present. Neither mentioned the reported plane tragedy that claimed the lives of ten individuals.
State media barely mentioned the disaster.
On stretchers, persons were seen being taken away from the disaster site on Thursday morning by a Reuters reporter. Nearby a forested area where forensic investigators had pitched a tent, pieces of the jet, including its tail, were scattered over the ground.
According to the Baza news outlet, which has reliable contacts in law enforcement, investigators are concentrating on the hypothesis that one or more bombs may have been installed on board.
On June 23–24, Prigozhin led a coup against the army's top brass that, according to Putin, may have swung Russia into civil war.
The mercenary leader also spent months criticizing Russia's conflict in Ukraine, which Moscow refers to as a "special military operation." He reportedly attempted to remove Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister.
