Putin has not yet closed the investigation into Prigozhin's death
The Kremlin spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, clarified this Friday that the investigation into the death of the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeni Prigozhin, has not yet been completed, despite the fact that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, assured the day before that ” there was no external influence” in the plane crash.
“There have still been no final conclusions or a final report from the investigators,” said Peskov, who has advocated waiting for the investigations to be completed, although he has not ventured to name a specific date to know the final report, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
These statements come just a day after Putin assured that the plane in which Prigozhin and nine other prominent members of the Wagner Group were traveling crashed without external influence, and that “fragments” had been found in the mortal remains of the leader of the mercenaries. of hand grenades”.
A report that “is not yet final”
Peskov came forward this Friday to qualify Putin's words by assuring that the investigations into the accident have not yet been concluded, and that the Russian president in any case remarked the day before that said report “was not yet definitive.”
After the accident, Putin acknowledged that “unfortunately” the investigative services had not analyzed possible traces of alcohol or drugs in Prigozhin's body, adding that, during searches of Wagner's headquarters in St. Petersburg, up to five kilos of cocaine and millions of rubles in cash.
In this way, the Russian president left in the air the possibility that the Prigozhin accident occurred after the leader of the mercenaries and his companions mistakenly activated a hand grenade, all under the possible effects of alcohol or drugs.
At the end of August, Russian authorities confirmed the death of Prigozhin and nine other people who were flying aboard a plane that crashed in Tver, north of Moscow, just under two months after he led an attempted rebellion, mobilizing his mercenaries heading towards the capital.