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Moscow: Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was formally confirmed dead on Sunday following genetic analysis, investigators said, as anger and questions over what caused his plane to crash earlier in the week continued to mount.<\/p>\n
Speculation that the Kremlin may have been involved in the crash has been rife, with the incident coming exactly two months after Wagner staged a mutiny against Moscow\u2019s military leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cMolecular-genetic examinations have been completed as part of the investigation into the plane crash in the Tver region,\u201d Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman from Russia\u2019s Investigative Committee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to their results, the identities of all 10 victims were established, they correspond to the list stated in the flight list,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Among the nine other people listed onboard the Embraer private jet that crashed on Wednesday was Dmitry Utkin, a shadowy figure who managed Wagner\u2019s operations and allegedly served in Russian military intelligence.<\/p>\n
Russian officials opened an investigation into air traffic violations after the crash but have otherwise not disclosed details about its possible cause.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the incident as \u201ctragic\u201d to reporters on Friday, calling rumours of Yevgeny Prigozhin been killed on Moscow\u2019s orders an \u201cabsolute lie\u201d.<\/p>\n
His comments came as the Kremlin appeared to rein in groups like Wagner, with a presidential decree signed Friday stipulating that paramilitary fighters will have to swear an oath to the Russian flag.<\/p>\n
In an address Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said he had known Yevgeny Prigozhin \u2014 once a loyal ally \u2014 since the early 1990s, describing him as a man who made mistakes but \u201cachieved results\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, his comments did little to stem mounting questions and anger over the mercenary\u2019s chief\u2019s death, with makeshift shrines to Yevgeny Prigozhin springing up across Russian cities.<\/p>\n
Video taken by AFP showed a makeshift memorial on Moscow\u2019s Varvarka street, just outside the Kremlin, as men stood solemnly before a line of red roses and pictures of the mercenary chief.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was killed,\u201d said one man wearing a shirt marked with the letter \u201cZ\u201d \u2014 a symbol representing Russia\u2019s offensive in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was killed by his enemies. We won\u2019t say who. The investigation will reveal. But we hope that revenge will catch up with those who committed this crime,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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[ad_1] Moscow: Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was formally confirmed dead on Sunday following genetic analysis, investigators said, as anger and questions over what caused his plane to crash earlier in the week continued to mount. Speculation that the Kremlin may have been involved in the crash has been rife, with the incident coming exactly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6421,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6419\/revisions\/6421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}