Kremlin responds to WSJ's version of Patrushev being behind Prigozhin's murder

Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, was involved in the death of PMC Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. It was Patrushev who organised his assassination, The Wall Street Journal said with reference to sources at Russian and Western intelligence services.

Following PMC Wagner's "justice march”, Patrushev instructed his subordinate to develop a plan to kill Prigozhin, the US-based publication said.

On August 23, 2023, while Prigozhin was waiting to board the plane at a Moscow airport, a bomb was planted under the wing of his business jet. After the plane took off, the bomb exploded, The WSJ reports.

Kremlin: The Wall Street Journal is a tabloid

WSJ's version about Prigozhin's plane crash is a hoax that hardly needs comment, Kremlin's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, RIA Novosti reports.

The WSJ has become tabloid reading lately, Peskov added.

On August 23, a business jet carrying PMC Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine other people, including three crew members, crashed in the Tver region.