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Embraer Legacy 600 private plane that crashed in Russia

Photo: LUBA OSTROVSKAYA / REUTERS

Not all questions about the plane crash, in which Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is said to have died, have yet been clarified. It is not even clear beyond doubt whether the mercenary leader was really on board – even if there is much to be said for it. Despite these ambiguities, there are clear opinions on possible backgrounds.

US President Joe Biden, for example, was "not surprised" by the possible death of the Wagner boss in Russia. I don't know exactly what happened, but I'm not surprised," Biden said Wednesday in the Californian city of South Lake Tahoe, where he is currently staying with his family. Biden added that he had recently said with regard to the Russian mercenary chief that he had to be "careful".

Asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the plane crash, Biden said: "There's not much happening in Russia that Putin doesn't stand behind. But I don't know enough to know the answer."

For the adviser to the Ukrainian president's office, Mykhailo Podolyak, the development was foreseeable. "Prigozhin signed his own death warrant the moment he stopped 200 kilometers from Moscow," Podolyak told the Bild newspaper. Prigozhin's uprising in June really frightened Putin" and should have foreseeable consequences, because: "Putin does not forgive anyone for their own fear."

Earlier, US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said that the government had seen the reports of the crash of the plane, on whose passenger list Prigozhin was. "If it's confirmed, it wouldn't be a surprise to anyone," Watson said. "The devastating war in Ukraine has led to a private army marching on Moscow, and now, it seems, to this (the crash)."

Several German politicians have also taken a clear position.

"It was to be assumed that Prigozhin would pay for his attack on Putin with his life," said the chairman of the Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), to the editorial network Germany on Wednesday, speaking of a "devil who gets involved with the devil" with regard to Prigozhin. But it also shows "that there is obviously a lot of nervousness among Putin and his henchmen in the Kremlin," she added.

CDU foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter suspects that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the death of the Wagner boss. "It was a matter of time," he said in the program "RTL Direkt" on Wednesday evening. The fact that it happened so quickly (...) and that ten more deaths were accepted shows the brutality of the Putin system," he explained.

The alleged murder of Prigozhin was a "warning" for Germany as well, Kiesewetter stressed. We must be clear that this system does not negotiate (...) and only understands the language of strength."

CDU foreign policy expert and member of the Bundestag Norbert Röttgen sees President Putin weakened even after Prigozhin's death. "Either Putin or Prigozhin – that remained the situation even after the cancelled coup," he told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. "Whether the Wagner Group, beheaded by Putin, will form into a rebellion or submit without a leader is an open question. But Putin's power system has cracked, and he can't stop that."

Prigozhin was allegedly killed in a plane crash in Russia on Wednesday evening. As the Russian aviation authority Rozaviatsiya announced, citing the airline, both Prigozhin and his deputy Dmitry Utkin were "on board the plane". The Ministry of Emergencies in Moscow said that, according to initial information, all ten occupants of the machine had died. According to Rozavisasia, the flight took place "within the framework of a properly granted airspace permit".

jok/AFP