Sky’s Moscow correspondent Diana Magnay says there have been reports of a second plane behind the one that crashed that was zig-zagging through the sky.
Sky’s military analyst Sean Bell, referring to footage of the incident, said: “This aircraft looks as if it’s completely out of control - it’s spiralling down, there are vapour trails coming from it - all of which indicates it’s had some sort of catastrophic failure in the air.”
Security and defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke says the way the plane came down doesn’t indicate there was a bomb on board - but it did look like an aircraft that had been hit by something outside that did enough damage to wreck the controls. The security and defence analyst expects more details to emerge in the coming hours - and said caution is needed. “It is not obvious he is dead at the moment, he probably is, but there is still some plausible idea this might be some sort of setup,” he added.
Sean Bell has said the crash could be a ploy to let the Wagner boss live peacefully in exile. “This might have been an engineered story for Prigozhin to slip quietly away and live in exile somewhere, under a wig and with a degree of privacy,” he added.
Interestingly, Grey Zone reports that a second business jet owned by Prigozhin landed safely in the Moscow region.
Putin has an “alibi” - he was attending a concert in Kursk, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Soviet troops’ victory in the Battle of Kursk.
When the western press have put their spin on it, anything is possible Summer.
Either way, it will be Putin’s fault…Somebody’s got to justify the umpteen billions of £’s we send to Ukraine while people struggle to pay their energy bills and being driven off the roads by being charged to enter most cities or buy an expensive EV…
The fact that any / all of Putin’s critics end up dead is definitely not an indicator of bad luck or Putin being blameless. Whether its an ex-KGB spy in Salisbury or an opposition critic or an oligarch being too vocal the result is always the same. Shot, poisoned, blown up, push out a window. Who can possibly defend Putin, this criminal? Oh, that’s right, Trump.
Vladimir Putin says he has sent his condolences to the family of Yevgeny Prigozhin after the Wagner Group leader was presumed killed in a plane crash.
The Russian president said Prigozhin was a talented businessman who he had known since the 1990s.
The president described Prigozhin as “a person with a complicated background who made serious mistakes in his life” - but noted that he was also a successful entrepreneur.
An explosion onboard a plane presumed to be carrying the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin probably brought down the aircraft on Wednesday, the New York Times has reported
If Russia’s propaganda machine seemed caught off guard by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, its reaction to his death in a plane crash has been far more disciplined. Across the state apparatus, the narrative is clear: The crash is likely a technical affair and Prigozhin is, indeed, dead. Nothing much to see here. It took less than two hours after the plane disappeared from flight radars for Russia’s federal aviation agency to confirm the crash and announce the St. Petersburg warlord as having been among those on board.
The government’s disciplined message stood in marked contrast to the rumours washing around online.
The GreyZone Telegram channel linked to Wagner was first to report on Wednesday that a second plane belonging to Prigozhin was intact and circling above Moscow, eventually landing at Vnukovo airport, fuelling suspicion Prigozhin might have escaped death.
“A burnt-out plane provides a suitable opportunity to disappear forever, one of many spare passports on hand. No bones for ravens to pick at, limbs reduced to ashes, the trail gone cold,” independent political analyst Yekaterina Schulmann wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
Prigozhin - a lover of the theatrical and a Houdini-style master of trickery and deceit - offered myriad reasons to suspect a final twist in an eventful life. After finally stepping out of the shadows as the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, his public performances became increasingly dramatic, erratic and surreal.
Law enforcement official raiding his St. Petersburg mansion uncovered fake passports and photos of Prigozhin in a variety of wigs, adding to earlier reports he had several lookalikes on his payroll whom he took on his travels to confuse potential enemies.
So, if you see any of these men, they are all one and the same … and best avoided …
“Right now, of course, there are lots of speculations around this plane crash and the tragic deaths of the passengers of the plane, including Yevgeny Prigozhin. Of course, in the West those speculations are put out under a certain angle, and all of it is a complete lie,” Peskov told reporters during a conference call.
Shall we ever know the truth Summer…However, the Russians are complete amateurs when it comes to black ops stuff that the American special services, CIA and FBI among others, get up to, or have done in the past…Even our own security forces…And they can control the media that you and me read. That’s even worse!
