25 August 2023 , 05:58
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The body of Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was said to have only been identified by a partially missing finger, after it was recovered from the wreckage.
The Wagner military boss was once a close friend of Putin and had risen from a hot dog vendor owner to being known as ‘Putin’s Chef’. His private military had become vitally important in strategic conflicts across the world for Russia - especially in Ukraine.
But relations soured with Prigozhin and the Russian military hierarchy, ending in a shocking coup that saw the mercenary leader seize Kremlin army buildings in June of this year and march towards Moscow. An uneasy peace was negotiated and the civil war seemingly over, until the plane Prigozhin was on exploded, this week, killing him and everyone on board.
A satellite image of the plane crash which took place north of Moscow, near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region (Planet Labs PBC/AFP via Getty Im)When his body was pulled from the wreckage, Prigozhin was only identifiable thanks to an injury suffered to his left hand during time serving in a penal colony, The Mail reported the Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU said. The announcement said: “The body of Yevgeny Prigozhin was officially identified in the morgue, he was identified by one of the commanders of the PMC Wagner. The main sign was the absence of a finger.”
Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, was also identified by his distinctive tattoos as well. An initial US intelligence assessment of the shocking crash found evidence of an intentional explosion but the Pentagon has said there’s no signs of a surface-to-air missile yet.
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Appearing at the BRICS summit yesterday, Putin failed to make any mention of his one close ally. However, speaking later he sent his “condolences” to Prigozhin’s family and called him a “talented businessman”. In a televised address from his offices, Putin called his ex-pal a “man of difficult fate” who had “made serious mistakes in life”.
He detailed how Prigozhin had worked in Russia and Africa, claiming to be “engaged in oil, gas, precious metals and stones there”, brushing over the shadow army he operated in both regions. As whispers of mutiny and fury emerge from the headless Wagner Company, Putin paid tribute to them, saying they had made a “significant contribution” to the war in Ukraine, adding: "We remember and know it, and we will not forget it,”.
The 62-year-old Prigozhin was reportedly among the 10 people found dead in the wreckage. Witnesses described hearing a loud bang before watching the aircraft tumble from the sky and crash into a burning fireball in a nearby field near Moscow. A stewardess on the doomed flight, Kristina Raspopova, 39, posted on social media that the flight had been delayed at the last minute due to “repairs”.
The warmongering Russian President has been accused of ordering the attack in revenge for Prigozhin's failed coup just two months ago, where he rallied thousands of troops in a march to the capital but turned back just 500km from the city.
During the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin grew increasingly frustrated with Russian military bosses and how he felt his mercenaries were taking the brunt of the costs. Following the march, a tentative peace was announced and Prigozhin left the country, living in exile in Belarus, before the plane crash.
Rescuers were said to have recovered ten bodies. Prigozhin and six other passengers had been on the private jet which crashed on Wednesday after taking off from Moscow, with a crew of three people. Alongside Prigozhin and his second-in-command was Wagner’s logistics chief, Valery Chekalov, and Yevgeny Makaryan, who was believed to have been hurt in US airstrikes in Syria. It isn’t known why the men were all on the same flight, or what the purpose of their trip to St Petersburg was.