US President Joe Biden suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been behind the crash of a plane near Moscow.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is listed among passengers of the plane, and Biden said he wasn’t surprised that the Russian mercenary may have been targeted.
“You may recall, I was asked about this,” Biden told CNN’s Kevin Liptak, alluding to comments he made in July in which he said Prighozin should be worried about his safety following the failed mutiny.
“I said I would be careful what I rode in. I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” Biden said today.
At a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, in July, Biden joked that if he were Prighozin, “I’d be careful what I eat, keep my eye on my menu.”
Biden added that there is “not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind but I don’t know enough to know the answer.”
The president had just walked out of a fitness studio in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where the White House says he attended a Pilates class followed by a spin class.
8 bodies found at plane crash site
State media outlet Russia-24 has reported that eight bodies have been found at the plane crash site in Tver, which is north of Moscow.
Russian state media has reported that 10 people were on board the aircraft.
Russian officials have not identified any of the victims, although Russian state news agency TASS reported that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed on the passenger manifest.
