Vladimir Putin killed rogue Wagner mercenary group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin because he is “weak,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Friday — as he predicted the Russian leader would try to terrorize the West with nuclear weapons.
Zelensky weighed in on the death of the mutinous warlord in passing while responding to a question about Putin at a conference in Kyiv Friday.
“The fact that he [Putin] killed Prigozhin — at least that’s the information we all have, not any other kind — that also speaks to his rationality, and about the fact that he is weak,” Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian president did not offer any proof to support the claim that his Russian counterpart was behind last month’s mysterious plane crash outside Moscow that killed 10 people, including Prigozhin and his second-in-command.
The Kremlin has dismissed the suggestion that Putin ordered the deaths of the Wagner Group boss and his cohorts as an “absolute lie.”
Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a probe into the aviation disaster, with “deliberate wrongdoing” not being ruled out as a possible cause.
Prigozhin’s death came two months to the day after he led a brief revolt against Russia’s military brass, which prompted Putin to label him a “traitor.”
During Friday’s press conference at the opening of the annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy, Zelensky said that Putin “has been deflated as a person and as a politician.”
Ukraine’s leader, however, warned that this coming winter, the Russian president would try to “instill fear” in the West with Russia’s nuclear arsenal, while continuing to inflict suffering on Ukrainians as he had done last year.
Putin will “put pressure on the West, and, above all, on the United States, as they will also be at a fragile time, as this is an electoral time,” Zelensky predicted, referring to the 2024 presidential elections that will pit President Biden against a yet-to-be-determined Republican contender.
“There will be intimidation, but there is a distance between intimidation and action,” he added. “I think it’s important not to panic.”
