“You will perish yourself…”: Belarusian President said warned Wagner chief

Minsk [Belarus], August 27 (ANI): A few days after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he warned him twice to watch out for threats to his life, CNN reported. 

“The first time was when I phoned him and negotiations (were taking) place while they were marching on Moscow,” Lukashenko told reporters in comments carried by Belarusian state news agency Belta on Friday.

“I told him, ‘Yevgeny, do you understand that you will doom your people and will perish yourself?’ He had just come back from the front. On an impulse, he said: ‘I will die then, damn it!” he claimed.

Earlier, a Russian aviation agency confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, was on board a plane that crashed without a survivor northwest of Moscow, TASS reported.

The plane crash occurred months after Prigozhin staged a mutiny against Russia’s military leadership.

An investigation has been launched into the crash of the Embraer plane in the Tver Region on Wednesday, Russia’s Federal Agency for Air Transport said noting that Prigozhin was among the passengers, according to TASS.

The Embraer business jet, carrying the Wagner mercenary group chief, crashed in the Tver Region near the settlement of Kuzhenkino. According to preliminary data, all 10 people on board the plane have died. The plane was en route from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport to St Petersburg, TASS reported.

Prigozhin was a former close aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin until he initiated a rebellion in June 2023. Prigozhin controlled a network of companies including the Wagner private military group.

On June 23, 2023, the Wagner Group led by him launched a mutiny against the Russian military leadership. Negotiations led to the rebellion being called off. Prigozhin relocated to Belarus and charges against him were dropped.