but it s mr prigozhin s fate that is centre of attention. for years the kremlin s mr fix it, his mercenary group had fought in ukraine. but two months ago, it mutinied. they took over the city of rostov and moved on towards moscow. it was an unprecedented challenge to the kremlin. so is yevgeny prigozhin s reported demise in the plane crash president putin s revenge? today, the kremlin leader broke his silence on the crash. he said he d known mr prigozhin a long time, since the early 1990s. he called him a man with a difficult fate who d made mistakes, but who was talented. but president putin has previously called the wagner mutiny a stab in the back and betrayal he cannot abide. if the crash was an act of revenge,
i ll be talking to our russia editor, steve rosenberg, but first his report on today s events. in a field 60 miles from moscow, the wreckage of a plane. the private jet on which the russian authorities say yevgeny prigozhin was travelling. it had been caught on camera, falling from the sky. we are told that all seven passengers and three crew on board were killed. but it s the fate of mr prigozhin which has been the centre of attention. for years, the kremlin s mr fix it, his mercenary group had fought in ukraine. but two months ago it mutinied. wagner took over the city of rostov and moved on towards moscow. it was an unprecedented challenge to the kremlin. so, is yevgeni prigozhin s reported demise in an air disaster president putin s revenge?
circumstances of the crash, but interestingly this happened two months to the day since the start of the wagner mutiny. if you go back to june and the remarkable events, where we saw the paramilitary group led by prigozhin, beginning when he called the march ofjustice to remove the military leadership of the russian federation, they marched into the city of rostov and basically took over the city, or the major military installations in that city. and they marched on, and the following day it seemed as if they were heading to moscow. and this was a huge challenge laid down by mr prigozhin and the wegner commanders
he wasn t critical publicly of the president, of vladimir putin. and some people thought for a long time that his criticism of the military leadership was supported, to an extent, privately, by vladimir putin. and that criticising, by criticising senior military officials, well, president putin quite liked that. i thought that was a possibility, until those dramatic events of two months ago exactly when mr prigozhin launched what he called the march ofjustice and called the march ofjustice and called on his troops to march within, to read the country of the current military leadership, and that s when we side the wagner troops march into the city of rostov in southern russia and quite easily take over the city, certainly take over the key military installations
seconds of a private jet. on board, reportedly, the head of a private mercenary group, yevgeny prigozhin. look over there by the farm, it is burning, the eyewitness can be heard saying. in the distance, a giant cloud of smoke. the plane had crashed north of moscow. yevgeny prigozhin s right hand man, the wagner commander, was also thought to have been on board. later, a wagner linked telegram channel confirmed that yevgeny prigozhin had been killed. it claimed it was the result of the actions of traitors of russia. it is two months to the day since the wagner chief launched what he called his march ofjustice, his mutiny, the insurrection by wagner forces who had been fighting on the kremlin s side in ukraine. they rolled unopposed into the city of rostov.