Russian President Vladimir Putin has indirectly confirmed the death of the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the day after the crash of a jet that authorities said he was travelling in.
In an apparent tribute to his former close confidante – whose fighters played a crucial combat role in Ukraine – Mr Putin called Mr Prigozhin a “talented man,” Russian news agencies reported.
“He was a man of a complicated fate. He made some serious mistakes in his life, but he also achieved the needed results – both for himself and, when I asked him to, for the common cause,” Mr Putin added.
He was speaking at a meeting with the Russian head of the Donetsk administration, Denis Pushilin.
The Russian government agency in charge of civil aviation, Rosaviatsiya, said Mr Prigozhin, as well as top Wagner commander Dmitri Utkin, were among the 10 people on board the Embraer plane that crashed on Wednesday in the Tver Region, about 300 kilometres north-west of the Russian…