There is no information that Prigozhin's plane was hit by a missile.

US Air Force Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, did not provide further comment or details on the US official's view on the cause of the plane crash during a news conference at the Pentagon.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the US government was investigating several theories about what caused the crash of Prigozhin's plane, citing two US officials who said a surface-to-air missile could have brought down the plane.

The two officials requested anonymity and also confirmed that the information they mentioned was only preliminary, being verified and it was entirely possible that those assessments could change.

“At this time, we have no information to support the theory that the press is positing that a surface-to-air missile may have shot down this aircraft,” Mr. Ryders said.

Russian aviation authorities said Mr Prigozhin, close adviser Dmitry Utkin and eight others were on board the plane when it crashed north-west of Moscow on Wednesday.

World - Pentagon: No information to support the hypothesis that Mr. Prigozhin's plane was attacked by a missile — A satellite image shows the site of a plane crash near Kuzhenkino, Tver region, Russia on August 24, 2023. Photo: PLANET LABS PBC/Via REUTERS.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal also reported another theory, citing unnamed US officials: A bomb planted on the plane or some other method of sabotage caused the crash.

It is not unusual for conflicting intelligence views to coexist within the US government in the immediate aftermath of a major international event.

The crash came two months after Mr Prigozhin and the Wagner group staged a coup in which they seized the southern Russian city of Rostov and moved troops towards Moscow.

US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he was not surprised to hear that Mr Prigozhin had died in a plane crash, but also commented that there was not much going on in Russia and Mr Putin was unlikely to be behind the incident.

On Thursday, Mr Putin expressed his sincere condolences to the families of those killed and said it was necessary to wait for the conclusions of the official investigation.

Mr Prigozhin, 62, director of the private military organisation Wagner, has frequently criticised the top echelons of the Russian military, accusing it of poor operational performance in the war in Ukraine.

The Embraer private jet involved in the crash had been involved in only one accident in its 20 years of operation, and that accident was not related to mechanical failure.

Nguyen Quang Minh (according to Reuters)

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