{"id":79787,"date":"2023-08-24T18:49:36","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T18:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/08\/24\/us-intel-believes-intentional-blast-downed-wagner-chiefs-plane\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:50:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T15:50:47","slug":"us-intel-believes-intentional-blast-downed-wagner-chiefs-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/flashpoints\/2023\/08\/24\/us-intel-believes-intentional-blast-downed-wagner-chiefs-plane\/","title":{"rendered":"US intel believes \u2018intentional\u2019 blast downed Wagner chief\u2019s plane"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Editor\u2019s note: This story was last updated at 5:40 p.m. EST.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that an intentional explosion caused the plane crash presumed to have killed a Russian mercenary leader who was eulogized Thursday by Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as suspicions grew that he was the architect of the assassination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the U.S. and Western officials who described the initial assessment said it determined that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2023\/08\/23\/mercenary-chief-who-mutinied-against-putin-reportedly-on-crashed-plane\/\" target=\"_blank\">Yevgeny Prigozhin<\/a> was \u201cvery likely\u201d targeted and that the explosion falls in line with Putin\u2019s \u201clong history of trying to silence his critics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, did not offer any details on what caused the explosion, which was widely believed to be vengeance for the mutiny in June that posed the biggest challenge to the Russian leader\u2019s 23-year rule. Several of Prigozhin\u2019s lieutenants were also presumed dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pentagon spokesman Gen. Pat Ryder said press reports that a surface-to-air missile took down the plane were inaccurate. He declined to say whether the U.S. suspected a bomb or believed the crash was an assassination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Details of the intelligence assessment surfaced as Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those who were reported to be aboard the jet and referred to \u201cserious mistakes\u201d by Prigozhin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"4500\" height=\"3000\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23236286134207.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"A Russian serviceman inspects a part of a crashed private jet near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.\" class=\"wp-image-108345\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23236286134207.jpg.jpg 4500w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23236286134207.jpg.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23236286134207.jpg.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23236286134207.jpg.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23236286134207.jpg.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP23236286134207.jpg.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 4500px) 100vw, 4500px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Russian serviceman inspects a part of a crashed private jet near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023. (AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The jet carrying the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2023\/06\/29\/belarus-leader-welcomes-wagner-forces-but-others-see-them-as-a-threat\/\" target=\"_blank\">founder of the Wagner military company<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/f6cf109ccf19fea4cb87993c8f2d6aaa\" target=\"_blank\">six other passengers<\/a>&nbsp;crashed Wednesday soon after taking off from Moscow with a crew of three, according to Russia\u2019s civil aviation authority. Rescuers found 10 bodies, and Russian media cited anonymous sources in Wagner who said Prigozhin was dead. But there has been no official confirmation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, said that he believed Putin was behind the crash, though he acknowledged that he did not, at that time, have solid information verifying his belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t know for a fact what happened, but I\u2019m not surprised,\u201d Biden said. \u201cThere\u2019s not much that happens in Russia that Putin\u2019s not behind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The passenger manifest also included Prigozhin\u2019s second-in-command, who baptized the group with his nom de guerre, as well as Wagner\u2019s logistics chief, a fighter wounded by U.S. airstrikes in Syria and at least one possible bodyguard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was not clear why several high-ranking members of Wagner, including top leaders who are normally exceedingly careful about their security, were on the same flight. The purpose of their joint trip to St. Petersburg was unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Wagner\u2019s headquarters in St. Petersburg, lights were turned on in the shape of a large cross, and Prigozhin supporters built a makeshift memorial, piling red and white flowers outside the building Thursday, along with company flags and candles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this first comments on the crash, Putin said the passengers had \u201cmade a significant contribution\u201d to the fighting in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe remember this, we know, and we will not forget,\u201d the president said in a televised interview with the Russian-installed leader of Ukraine\u2019s partially occupied Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Putin recalled that he had known Prigozhin since the early 1990s and described him as \u201ca man of difficult fate\u201d who had \u201cmade serious mistakes in life, and he achieved the results he needed \u2014 both for himself and, when I asked him about it, for the common cause, as in these last months. He was a talented man, a talented businessman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russian state media have not covered the crash extensively, instead focusing on Putin\u2019s remarks to the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/brics-russia-china-summit-b5900168d165cc78b36d5d5c068b7a50\" target=\"_blank\">BRICS summit<\/a> in Johannesburg via video link and Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several Russian social media channels reported that the bodies were burned or disfigured beyond recognition and would need to be identified by DNA. The reports were picked up by independent Russian media, but The Associated Press was not able to independently confirm them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately downed, including suggesting it could have been hit by a missile or targeted by a bomb on board. Those claims could not be independently verified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sergei Mironov, the leader of the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party and former chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament suggested on his Telegram channel that Prigozhin had been deliberately killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPrigozhin messed with too many people in Russia, Ukraine and the West,\u201d Mironov wrote. It now seems that at some point his number of enemies reached a critical point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russian authorities have said the cause of the crash is under investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kuzhenkino resident Anastasia Bukharova, 27, said she was walking with her children Wednesday when she saw the jet, \u201cand then \u2014 boom! \u2014 it exploded in the sky and began to fall down.\u201d She said she was scared it would hit houses in the village and ran with the children, but it ended up crashing into a field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSomething sort of was torn from it in the air, and it began to go down and down,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Numerous opponents and critics of Putin have been killed or gravely sickened in apparent assassination attempts, and U.S. and other Western officials long expected the Russian leader to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is no coincidence that the whole world immediately looks at the Kremlin when a disgraced ex-confidant of Putin suddenly falls from the sky, two months after he attempted an uprising,\u201d said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, while acknowledging that the facts were still unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe know this pattern \u2026 in Putin\u2019s Russia \u2014 deaths and dubious suicides, falls from windows that all ultimately remain unexplained,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also pointed the finger. \u201cWe have nothing to do with this. Everyone understands who does,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Soon after the plane went down, people on social media and news outlets began to report that it was a Wagner plane. Minutes after Russian state news agencies confirmed the crash, they cited the civil aviation authority as saying Prigozhin\u2019s name was on the mainfest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prigozhin was long outspoken and critical of how Russian generals were waging the war in Ukraine, where his mercenaries were some of the fiercest fighters for the Kremlin. For a long time, Putin appeared content to allow such infighting \u2014 and Prigozhin seemed to have unusual latitude to speak his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Prigozhin\u2019s brief revolt raised the ante. <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ukraine-war-russia-nuclear-647a545db4e4628676ff7db5b1bded34\" target=\"_blank\">His mercenaries<\/a> swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there without firing a shot. They then drove to within about 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Moscow and downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen Russian pilots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Putin first denounced the rebellion \u2014 the most serious challenge to his 23-year rule \u2014 as \u201ctreason\u201d and a \u201cstab in the back.\u201d He vowed to punish its perpetrators, and the world waited for his next move, particularly since Prigozhin had publicly questioned the Russian leader\u2019s justifications for the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But instead Putin made a deal that saw an end to the mutiny in exchange for an amnesty for Prigozhin and his mercenaries and permission for them to move to Belarus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now many are suggesting the punishment has finally come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe downing of the plane was certainly no mere coincidence,\u201d Janis Sarts, director of NATO\u2019s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, told Latvian television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Institute for the Study of War argued that Russian authorities likely moved against Prigozhin and his top associates as \u201cthe final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for President Putin turned political consultant, said Putin had to step in because, by carrying out the mutiny and remaining free, Prigozhin \u201cshoved Putin\u2019s face into the dirt front of the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Failing to punish Prigozhin would have offered an \u201copen invitation for all potential rebels and troublemakers,\u201d so Putin had to act, Gallyamov said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone showed a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting wildly as it fell, one of its wings apparently missing. A free fall like that typically occurs when an aircraft sustains severe damage, and a frame-by-frame AP analysis of two videos was consistent with some sort of explosion mid-flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Burrows reported from London.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment found the crash presumed to have killed Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was intentionally caused by an explosion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":108340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[100,8,12,25],"tags":[],"coauthors":[7074,3159],"class_list":["post-79787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"36EBMYUMH5AMVHAFBNPDWZFWSE","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2023\/08\/24\/us-intel-believes-intentional-blast-downed-wagner-chiefs-plane\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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