Russia: Grenade traces found among crash victims

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said investigators found grenade fragments in the bodies of the victims of the plane crash that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former leader of the mercenary Wagner Group. The results align with preliminary U.S. intelligence findings that an internal explosion caused the crash. The plane carrying Prigozhin went down in August, killing him and nine other people.

Why would someone want to kill Prigozhin? Prigozhin led a brief and largely peaceful uprising earlier this year to protest the Kremlin’s military decisions about the war in Ukraine, where many Wagner troops served. Putin promised amnesty to Wagner troops that relocated to Belarus after the mutiny. The Kremlin has denied claims that it was involved in the crash.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard discuss Prigozhin’s death with policy analyst John Hardie on The World and Everything In It podcast.