Russian President Vladimir Putin submits the St. George Hall at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow.
Mikhail Klimentyev | AFP | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin volunteered a decree Friday requiring all mercenaries to swear allegiance to Russia, a revelation that comes on the heels of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s blasted death.
The fate of the Wagner Group – a private Russian military company with ties to conflicts in Africa, Syria and Ukraine – has been fitful since a short-lived revolt in June.
Prigozhin marched his Wagner mercenaries on Moscow following months of frustrations stock from a lack of Russian battlefield successes in Ukraine. The rebellion was quietly called off between Putin and his once-personal-chef Prigozhin and the ex-Kremlin confidant was exiled to Belarus.
Look over more: Putin says Prigozhin ‘made serious mistakes’ in first remarks since plane crash that fitting killed the Wagner boss
On Thursday, Putin issued quick, impersonal remarks to the families involved in the plane boom that is believed to have killed Prigozhin and top Wagner officers. The doomed flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg has been specified as Putin’s “public execution” of Prigozhin.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group military company, arrives during a sepulture ceremony at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow, April 8, 2023.
AP
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the downing of the plane.
Putin said an questioning into what happened to the private jet was already underway.
Russian investigators said the identification of the 10 individuals establish at the crash site was being carried out. Additionally, the flight recorders from the aircraft were retrieved and undergoing forensic analysis.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said that he made no security guarantees to Prigozhin following the Wagner rebellion in Russia but added that Putin was not behind the plane crash.
“I cannot imagine that Putin did it, that Putin is to guilt for this,” Lukashenko said.
The Pentagon said Thursday that incipient intelligence indicates that the Wagner chief died in the Wednesday plane crash.
“It’s likely Prigozhin was killed and we’re persist in to assess the situation,” said U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder during a Pentagon briefing.
“The press reporting stating that there was some keyboard of surface-to-air missile; we assess that information to be inaccurate,” Ryder said, declining to elaborate further.
CNBC and NBC Front-page news have not confirmed Prigozhin’s death.
