Hand grenade fragments have been found in the bodies of people who died with Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash, Vladimir Putin claimed on Thursday.
The Russian president added investigators found no indication that the jet suffered an “external impact” causing it to explode mid-air in August.
All 10 people on board, including Wagner leader Prigozhin and his top lieutenants, were killed when it went down.
Putin noted that a probe by experts was still ongoing and stopped short of saying what caused the crash.
But his statement appeared to hint that the plane was brought down by an accidental grenade explosion.
Prigozhin’s aborted rebellion in June marked the most serious challenge to Putin, who has been in power for more than two decades and eroded his authority.
Prigozhin was a key ally of the Russian president but their relationship soured after the Wagner boss staged the aborted uprising against Moscow’s military leadership over dissatisfaction about the treatment of his fighters in Ukraine.
Exactly two months after the rebellion’s start, the plane carrying Prigozhin and his team exploded while flying from Moscow to St Petersburg.
Videos and photos circulated on social media appearing to show it plummeting out of the sky and a burning heap of aircraft wreckage.
A preliminary US intelligence assessment concluded the aircraft was brought down by an intentional explosion.
The Russian state has a history of links to the deaths or serious illnesses of Russian elites and spies who have fallen out of favour with the Putin regime, including on UK soil.
Meanwhile Putin, said Russia has successfully tested an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile.
He also warned that the country’s parliament could revoke its ratification of a treaty banning nuclear tests.
In a speech at a forum of foreign policy experts, Putin announced Russia has effectively completed the development of the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile and will work on putting them into production.
Little is known about the Burevestnik, which was code-named Skyfall by Nato, and many Western experts have been sceptical about it, noting that a nuclear engine could be highly unreliable.
It is believed to be able to carry a nuclear warhead or a conventional one and, potentially, cover much more distance.
The Burevestnik reportedly suffered an explosion in August 2019 during tests at a Russian navy range on the White Sea, killing five nuclear engineers and two servicemen and resulting in a brief spike in radioactivity that fueled fears in a nearby city.
