Plane crash believed to have killed Russian mercenary chief is seen as Kremlin’s revenge

By The Associated Press

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and top officers of his private military were presumed dead in a plane crash that was widely seen as an assassination, two months after they staged a mutiny that dented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority. Russia’s civil aviation agency said that Prigozhin and six of his top lieutenants were on the business jet that crashed Wednesday soon after taking off from Moscow, with a crew of three. Rescuers quickly found all 10 bodies, and Russian media cited sources in Prigozhin’s Wagner private military company who confirmed his death. U.S. and other Western officials long expected Putin to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny.