REBEL'S 'MISTAKES'

US officials: plane crash was caused by blast | Coup leader had a ‘complex fate’ says Vlad

- CHRIS HUGHES

 

THE plane crash which is believed to have killed Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was caused by an explosion, Western intelligence officials believe.

President Vladimir Putin said the Wagner Group chief, who launched an ill-fated coup against Moscow, had "made mistakes".

Prigozhin, 62, was on a plane which came down north of the capital on Wednesday. There were no survivors.

Although it has not yet been confirmed, it is widely believed Putin ordered the would-be mutineer dead over his botched "march on Moscow" uprising in June.

A US intelligence official said the explosion fitted with Putin's "long history of trying to silence his critics".

The official did not offer any details of what caused the explosion.

The Russian leader said yesterday that a probe would be launched into the crash. He added: "I have known Prigozhin for a long time, from the beginning of the 1990s.

"He was a man with a complex fate.

"He made mistakes; and he got the results he wanted for himself and in response to my requests, for a common cause.

"He was a talented person. He worked in our country, but also abroad, in Africa. He worked with oil, gas, with precious metals."