Russian President Vladimir Putin promised today that all the causes of the crash of a private plane on which the head of the Wagner group was flying will be investigated, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who crashed in the center of Russia on Wednesday.

Putin, in his first statement on the matter, confirmed that the evidence suggests that there were Wagner employees on board the plane, since the official agencies that identified Prigozhin himself in the list of passengers, according to the agency TASS.

investigative committee proceedings are opened to establish the causes This led to the crash of the plane in the Tver region, which was flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

“What is absolutely known, and the head of the Investigative Committee told me about it today, is that they have begun a preliminary investigation of that event and that will be carried out exhaustively and will be carried out to the end“Putin said this during a meeting with Denis Pushilin, the interim head of the Russian-annexed Donetsk region of Ukraine, local news agencies report.

Putin what? met at the end of June in the Kremlin with Prigogine after he starred in failed armed uprising Exactly two months ago, he stressed that technical and genetic tests, which will be carried out by specialists, will require “some time.”

“It’s always a tragedy. In fact, if they were there, and the first information indicates that there were members of the Wagner company, I would like to note that these people made a significant contribution to the common cause of the fight against the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.“, he assured.

He added: “We remember it, we know it and we will not forget it.“.

Putin, who then denied any relationship with Prigozhin, today confessed that he knew him “for a long time, since the early 90s.”

“He was a man with a difficult fate. During his life he made serious mistakes, but he achieved the necessary results. for myself and, when I asked him, for a common cause, as in recent months,” he said.

He emphasized that Prigogine “he was a talented man, a capable businessman and not only in our country, as he worked with results in Africa, he devoted himself to oil, gas, precious stones, metal.”

“As far as I know, he just returned from Africa yesterday. Here he met with various government officials.“, he pointed out.

In turn, Putin expressed condolences to the family of the ten passengers who died on Wednesday in the Tver region when Prigozhin’s Embraer flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

Although the civil aviation agency, Rosaviatsiyaconfirmed that Prigozhin was traveling in a damaged vehicle, ten bodies were found not yet identifiedbecause they were charred.