MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. Any conclusions about the causes of Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crash may be drawn only after full investigation, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"No, so far it is not possible to find out [the details of the incident]," the Kremlin official told journalists. He stressed that the "conclusive results and investigators’ final report have not yet appeared." Replying to a question as to when these conclusions will be made public, Peskov suggested to wait for the results of the investigation. He also replied in the negative to a question as to whether there are any provisional deadlines of its conclusion.
On October 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed some details about the plane crash at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. The head of state said that he had recently received a report on the matter from the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin. Putin emphasized that fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of the dead and that there was no external impact on the plane. According to him, this is an established fact, the result of an expert opinion. The president stated that there was no examination on the presence of alcohol and drugs in the bodies of the dead, noting that it would be worthwhile to conduct it.
An Embraer business jet flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed on August 23 in Russia’s Tver Region. Ten people were on board, all of them died. A criminal case has been opened into the crash for violating the safety rules of air transportation. On August 27, the Investigative Committee completed the molecular genetic examination. The press service of the Investigative Committee told TASS that the identities of all the dead have been established, they correspond to the declared list, which included Prigozhin.