Breaking: Bodies, flight recorder found at #Wagner crash site

Russia says 10 bodies and flight recorders have been recovered from the scene of a jet crash presumed to have killed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Molecular-genetic tests are now being carried out,” investigators say.

The plane crashed near Moscow on Wednesday, prompting speculation that a bomb or a missile was to blame.

Claims that the Kremlin gave an order to kill Prigozhin were a “complete lie”, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman told the BBC earlier.

Prigozhin – once a Putin loyalist – led an aborted armed revolt by his mercenary fighters in June.

 

Mr Putin at the time described the mutiny as “treachery”, but a deal was later struck for Wagner mercenaries to either join Russia’s regular army or go to Belarus – Moscow’s ally.

 

Even so, in the wake of the rebellion, many observers described Prigozhin, 62, as a “dead man walking”, arguing that the Russian president would never forgive the Wagner boss.

During Friday’s conference call with journalists, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC there was “lots of speculation” around the “tragic” deaths of all 10 people in Wednesday’s air crash in the Tver region, north-west of the Russian capital.

 

Details later…