Moscow: Russian investigators said that they had recovered flight recorders and ten bodies from the scene of a plane crash thought to have killed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin two days ago.
An investigation is underway into what caused Wednesday’s crash, which came exactly two months after Wagner’s short-lived rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership.
“In the course of initial investigative work, the bodies of 10 victims were found at the site of the plane crash,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said on social media.
“Molecular genetic analyses are being carried out to establish their identities,” it said, adding that “flight recorders” were also recovered from the scene.
Since the crash, which also claimed the lives of some of Prigozhin’s close entourage, many Western countries and Kremlin critics have speculated the Wagner chief could have been assassinated.
The Kremlin has rejected suggestions it was involved, calling the incident “tragic” and dismissing rumours of possible foul play as an “absolute lie”.
Russian officials said they had opened a probe into violations of air traffic rules, but have otherwise been silent about what may have caused the incident.
Russia said Saturday that its air defences shot down one drone approaching Moscow and another in a border region while Ukrainian shelling wounded six in a border town.
Russia and the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula have been hit by a wave of attacks in recent days as Kyiv warns it aims to bring the conflict back to Russia.
The Russian defence ministry said one drone was destroyed approaching Moscow at around 03:00 Moscow time (0000 GMT) and another close to the border in Belgorod region at 09:00 (0600 GMT).
Moscow, which was rarely attacked during the early stages of the conflict, is now being targeted by almost daily drone strikes.
“Tonight, air defence forces destroyed a drone on approach to Moscow in the Istrinskii district,” the capital’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.
“Preliminarily, there were no casualties or damage. Emergency services are working on the site,” he added.
The drone attacks came as the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said Kyiv shelled the town of Urazovo, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Ukrainian border, injuring six people.
Russian regions bordering Ukraine have regularly reported indiscriminate shelling by Kyiv’s armed forces and occasional cross-border incursions by Ukrainian-backed militants.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov accused Ukraine of firing “cluster munitions” in the attack, and said residential buildings had been damaged.
“As a result of the cluster munition strike, 6 civilians sustained shrapnel wounds,” he said in a social media update, after initially reporting four had been injured.
“One victim is in extremely serious condition,” he wrote on Telegram.
