Putin offers 'condolences' after Wagner plane crash

Russian President Vladimir Putin broke his silence Thursday on the plane crash a day earlier that reportedly killed mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and other senior members of the Wagner paramilitary group.

In televised comments Putin offered his "sincere condolences to the families of all the victims", describing the crash as a "tragedy".

Prigozhin was registered on the plane that was carrying nine others who are also presumed to have died.

Wednesday evening's crash took place exactly two months after Prigozhin led a rebellion against Moscow's top military brass, considered by some observers to have been the biggest threat to Putin's long rule.

Although Moscow opened a probe into violations of air traffic rules, investigators have been silent since, as speculation of a possible assassination has grown.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted Kyiv had nothing to do with the incident.

"I think everyone knows who this concerns," he said, in what appeared to be a reference to Putin.

"There is a court in The Hague, there is a court of God. But Russia has an alternative (court) -- President Putin," he said when asked again about the air crash later Thursday.

When Putin broke his silence on Thursday, he paid a qualified tribute to the mercenary boss and the paramilitary group he led.

"I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 90s. He was a man of complicated fate, and he made serious mistakes in his life, but he achieved the right results," Putin said.

In an address to Russians during the Wagner rebellion on June 23-24 in which he warned against "civil war", Putin had called Prigozhin -- once his ally -- a "traitor".

But on Thursday, he said the Wagner members who had died...