A suspect appears to be responsible for the plane crash that killed Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to Russian accounts on Telegram known to be close to the Kremlin’s security services.
The French Le Parisien newspaper described the current investigation into the plane crash of Yevgeny Prigozhin as strange, noting that investigators began investigating the circumstances of the accident that killed the commander of the Wagner militia and 9 other passengers, including a number of executives in this paramilitary group, and since then they have not Something about the circumstances of the accident is revealed.
The Le Parisien pointed out that the person whose involvement in the aforementioned plane crash was revealed by these accounts is none other than Prigozhin’s personal pilot, noting that this pilot, whose name is Artem Stepanov, wasn’t present in the cockpit of the stricken plane on the day of the accident.
It added that the suspect, Stepanov, had previously been sanctioned by the US because of his links to Prigozhin, and is now under investigation for his alleged involvement in the plane crash.
According to Telegram channels “Serena” and “Baza”, which are linked to the Russian security services.
According to Russian sources, Stepanov had filed a lawsuit against the United States and the US Treasury when the sanctions were imposed on him, claiming at the time that he hadn’t seen Prigozhin in 10 years.
Stepanov’s name as a suspect was mentioned, mostly, because he is the owner of the company that owns Prigozhin’s pivate plane.
According to Baza Telegram channel, investigators believe Stepanov may have gained access to Prigozhin’s private plane the day before it left Moscow.
Le Parisien quotes another Russian Telegram channel interested in the matter as saying that Stepanov’s co-owner of the foundation, Kirill Shcherbakov, cannot be contacted either and hasn’t been in Moscow for work for several days.
According to Russian security source, the investigation is examining the version of placing an explosive device in the structure of the plane.
Several sources on the Telegram channel confirm that Stepanov’s brother claimed that his brother was on vacation in the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia.
However, it appears that Stepanov is already in contact with Russian investigators, because his brother declared that “people who need him have already contacted him”, of course, none of these leads has been officially confirmed by the Russian authorities, and the investigation is continuing.
