According to the US media, the murder plan was executed on August 23, when Prigozhin was waiting for a plane at the Moscow airport.
Director of mercenary company Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin the plane went down because a bomb had been planted on it, says the newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
In its long article, the newspaper says that the person who installed the bomb was the president of Russia Vladimir Putin belonging to a close circle Nikolai Patrushev. He currently works as the secretary of the Russian Security Council. Patrushev also headed the Russian security service FSB for a long time.
The newspaper has interviewed several Russian and Western intelligence service experts. They believe that Patrushev was worried about the growing influence of Wagner and its leader in the Kremlin.
Wagner had amassed a huge fortune through his various business ventures in Africa. At the same time, it had created an army tens of thousands of men strong.
When Prigozhin started marching towards Moscow with his Wagner army last Midsummer, Patrushev considered that the measure was full, the paper writes.
The assassination plan was executed on August 23, when Prigozhin was waiting for a plane at the Moscow airport. The plane underwent a “safety check”, which slightly delayed its departure. During the “check” a small bomb was installed on one of its wings, which exploded half an hour after the plane took off. Everyone in the crashed plane died.
The Kremlin has commented on the WSJ news as “junk journalism”.
Source: Reuters