Joe Barnes |
A plane carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary boss, was brought down by a bomb planted under its wing in a plot orchestrated by Vladimir Putin’s oldest ally, according to a new report.
Nikolai Patrushev, a former KGB officer, the powerful head of Russia’s security council, personally oversaw the planning of the operation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Western intelligence sources and a former Russian intelligence officer.
Prigozhin died when his private jet crashed over Russia’s Tver region on August 23, around two months after he led an armed rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership in June, in the biggest threat to Putin’s two-decade rule.
The Kremlin has previously rejected as an “absolute lie” the suggestion by critics and Western countries that Putin had ordered the assassination in revenge for the short-lived mutiny.
Putin had claimed Prigozhin’s jet was destroyed when a hand grenade was accidentally set off on board, while he or his companions were possibly drunk or high on cocaine.
Bomb planted under wing
But now it has been claimed that a small bomb was planted under the wing of the Embraer Legacy 600 plane, while Prigozhin and nine others waited on the tarmac of a Moscow airport for a pre-flight check to be carried out.
Comments are closed.