Vladimir Putin offers sickening tribute to Yevgeny Prigozhin

Vladimir Putin has offered a sickening tribute to Yevgeny Prigozhin as Western officials said the Wagner chief was assassinated.

Breaking his silence after Wednesday’s plane crash, the Russian president praised Prigozhin’s “substantial” contribution to the conflict in Ukraine.

But he added: “He was a man with a difficult fate and he made serious mistakes in life”.

Prigozhin’s death just weeks after he led a rebellion against the Kremlin threatens to plunge his mercenary group into chaos and could herald the start of a major purge by Putin.

It comes as:

• Russian media reported that a pilot familiar with Prigozhin’s jet faces questioning;
• US intelligence officials said the crash was caused by an explosion on board;
• Western officials offered differing theories, with some claiming the plane had been hit by a cruise missile.

Former MI6 head Sir John Sawers said:”All the indications point to the fact that Putin has taken him out, he has reasserted his control, he is making clear to everyone both inside Russia and outside that he is not going to be challenged.

“That’s how Stalin managed to keep control in Russia for almost three decades and he of course died in his sleep in his bed,” he told the Today program. “He maintained control by ruthless purges.”

The US Department of Defence said on Thursday night that nothing suggested a surface-to-air missile took down the plane.

A preliminary assessment concluded that the crash was intentionally caused by an explosion on board, a source said.

The source added that Prigozhin was “very likely” targeted and the explosion fell in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics”.

Two Russian media outlets with sources inside the Kremlin last night reported that one or possibly two bombs had been planted near the toilet at the rear of the plane.

At the time of the abortive Wagner coup in June, Putin called Prigozhin’s actions “treacherous” and “a stab in the back”, and the Wagner chief was described by Western security officials as a “dead man walking”.

Prigozhin, two senior colleagues, bodyguards and aircraft crew members were killed after their jet was struck by a missile or destroyed by an explosive device.

In dramatic footage, the plane was filmed circling at low altitude, its engines ablaze, before it plummeted to earth in the Tver region north of Moscow.

There were no survivors.

The bodies of ten victims were recovered from the crash site yesterday and, according to Russian media reports, Prigozhin was identified from his remains.