Russia's Investigative Committee has said it has confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder and head of the mercenary force Wagner, who led a short-lived armed rebellion, was killed in a plane crash.
A portrait of the owner of private military company Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin lays at an informal street memorial near the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023.
Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement that forensic and genetic testing identified all 10 bodies recovered at the site of Wednesday's crash and the findings"conform to the manifest" of the plane. The statement didn't offer any details about what might have caused the crash. Instead, the Kremlin quickly cut a deal with Prigozhin to end the armed revolt, saying he would be allowed to walk free without facing any charges and to resettle in Belarus. Questions have remained, however, about whether Prigozhin eventually would face a comeuppance for the brief uprising that posed the biggest challenge to Putin's authority of his 23-year rule.
One of the Western officials who described the initial assessment said it determined that Prigozhin was"very likely" targeted and that an explosion would be in line with Putin's"long history of trying to silence his critics."
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