Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that intoxicated fighters may have let off hand grenades under the influence of cocaine, causing the plane crash that killed their boss, Wagner mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, in August.
He issued this statement while speaking at a meeting of the Valdai Club in the Black Sea city of Sochi, which was attended by oligarchs and apparatchiks.
The Embraer Legacy 600 jet had crashed on August 23 while flying between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Putin claimed that there was no “external influence” on the jet.
“The head of the Investigative Committee reported to me just the other day that hand grenade fragments were found in the bodies of those killed in the plane crash,” he said.
Putin added that 5 kilograms of cocaine was recovered along with Prigozhin’s stacks of cash, weapons and fake documents in a raid conducted by the police at the Wagner Group’s St. Petersburg headquarters.
“Unfortunately, no tests were carried out for the presence of alcohol and drugs in the victims’ blood. In my opinion, it would’ve been important to do that analysis,” he said.
Less than a week after the crash claimed his life and those of his lieutenants, the body of Prigozhin, 62, who had launched a rebellion against Putin two months before his untimely death, was buried at a private ceremony. Following this incident, it was speculated that Kremlin was behind the incident, since it came just two months after Prigozhim’s revolt against Russia’s top brass.
Prigozhin was a former ally of Putin, and the President had initially termed his action as “treason.” However, after his death, the President softened his tone.
“He was a man with a complex fate. [Sometimes] he made mistakes; and [sometimes] he got the results he wanted — for himself and in response to my requests, for a common cause,” Putin said at the time.
