The Russian president said grenade fragments were found in the bodies recovered from the crash site after the Wagner mercenary leader’s plane went down in August.
The burial of the Wagner mercenary group boss, two months after his mutiny, was shrouded in misinformation, preventing a public display of support the Kremlin did not want to see.
Kyiv has intensified its counteroffensive against the Russian invasion, but has kept things murky on the size of the assault, the casualties and what forces it still has in reserve.
At a summit for African countries, the Russian president insisted that Western hypocrisy rather than his invasion of Ukraine was to blame for disruptions in the global food supply.
Over decades, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin amassed considerable clout in Russia and built businesses in at least 15 countries. His whereabouts and the future of his extensive portfolio are now uncertain.