White House 'increasingly confident' Prigozhin died in plane crash

WASHINGTON

The White House said Monday it is "increasingly confident" the head of a notorious Russian private military company died when his private jet crashed outside of Moscow last week.

"We are increasingly confident that Prigozhin died in the plane crash that took place on August 23," spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

She was referring to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former head of the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company whose operations were critical to Russia's war in Ukraine, and who has acted on behalf of the Kremlin in Syria and Africa.

Russia has previously said Prigozhin was among the 10 who died when the Embraer private business jet crashed shortly after it departed Moscow for St. Petersburg. Wagner co-founder Dmitry Utkin and other Wagner personnel also died.

The Aug. 23 crash took place exactly two months after Prigozhin led an aborted mutiny against the Russian military that saw his forces overrun a key military installation in southern Russia before closing in on Moscow.

Prigozhin had long clashed with Russian military brass over what he said was a history of insufficient arms supplies as his Wagner forces attempted to take Ukrainian territory for the Kremlin.