Russian Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin has said that the plane with the Wagner group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin suffered no external impact when it crashed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
"Well, we know about the plane crash, the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me just the other day, fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of those killed in the plane crash. There was no external impact on the plane," Putin said at the Valdai forum in Sochi.
From Monday to Thursday, Sochi hosted the Valdai forum of the Russian think tank, the Valdai Discussion Club. Putin has addressed the participants of the event on its final day.
Earlier, the Kremlin said that it does not think that the investigation into the crash of a plane that killed Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin is going too slow.
“No, they [the Kremlin] absolutely don’t think so [that the investigation is too slow]. This is a complex investigation, a complex incident. The investigation is ongoing, so it would be premature to give any comments now,” the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry peskov told reporters.
The Russian Investigative Committee is considering different potential causes as they analyze the crash, Peskov said. Peskov has also refuted claims that the Kremlin was responsible for the crash.
In late August, Prigozhin was listed as a passenger aboard a plane that crashed in Russia’s Tver region. The Russian Investigative Committee concluded using genetic testing that Prigozhin and nine other passengers died in the plane crash.