Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s body was allegedly identified by a partially missing finger after being pulled from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in the Tver region of Russia,’ with reports suggesting a ‘bomb’ onboard was to blame.
Prigozhin received the injury to his left hand while serving time in a penal colony, the Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU said.
It added a senior Wagner commander has identified the body from the injury, as well as identifying his second-in-command Dmitry Utkin from his tattoos.
It comes as a preliminary US intelligence assessment found the crash was caused by an intentional explosion, but the Pentagon says there is no evidence so far which points to a surface-to-air defence missile.
Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, offered no further details or evidence as he made his remarks at a Pentagon news conference.
Western officials have said Prigozhin was ‘very likely’ targeted, pointing towards a bomb concealed on board or intentional sabotage of the jet, although Ryder refused to comment on whether the incident was an assassination plot.
An anonymous US official said it was ‘very likely’ that Prigozhin had been targeted.
It came as two Russian media outlets with security sources inside the Kremlin claimed that possibly one or two bombs had been planted aboard the aircraft.
In unverified reports, it was claimed that the bombs had been placed at the rear of an aircraft near the toilet.
This was fueled by revelations from stewardess Kristina Raspopova, 39, who posted on social media before takeoff that her flight had been delayed due to last-minute ‘repairs’. It is possible a bomb was stashed on board during this time, although this is unconfirmed.
Details of the US assessment surfaced as Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those who were reported to be onboard the jet and referred to as ‘serious mistakes’.
The Telegram channel reported: ‘The body of Yevgeny Prigozhin was officially identified in the morgue, he was identified by one of the commanders of the PMC Wagner. The main sign was the absence of a finger.’
The founder of the Wagner military company and six other passengers were on a private jet that crashed on Wednesday soon after taking off from Moscow with a crew of three, according to Russia’s civil aviation authority.
Rescuers found 10 bodies, and Russian media cited anonymous sources in Wagner who said Prigozhin was dead. But there has been no official confirmation amid claims he may have been travelling in a second plane, which was also in the area at the time.
The passenger manifest included Prigozhin and his second-in-command as well as Wagner’s logistics chief, a fighter wounded by US air strikes in Syria, and at least one possible bodyguard.
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