Putin sends condolences over Wagner boss plane crash, says Prigozhin was ‘talented businessman’By Ronny Reyes
August 24, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin made “serious mistakes” — but praised the warlord, who led a rebellion against him over the summer, as “a talented businessman” while offering his condolences following his death in a fatal plane crash.
“It is always a tragedy,” Putin said in a televised event Thursday in regards to the apparent death of Prigozhin and 9 other occupants aboard the plane.
“I knew Prigozhin for many years, since the beginning of the 1990s. He was a person with a complicated background,” Putin said of his former ally.
“He made serious mistakes in his life and he achieved the necessary results, both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as during the past few months.”
Putin also touted Prigozhin’s business prowess as a Russian oligarch, who previously secured about $1 billion in government contracts for his catering company to provide food to the army as he also headed the Wagner mercenary group that fought in the frontlines of the Ukraine war.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/24/putin-sends-condolences-says-prigozhin-was-talented-businessman/
