“I knew Prigozhin for a long time, from the early 1990s. He had a difficult path and made serious mistakes in his life. But he got results – for himself, and when I asked him,” Putin said in a televised address.

The Russian leader expressed his condolences to the victims of the plane crash, which occured on Wednesday evening in the Tver region north-west of Moscow. A total of 10 people died, including six passengers and three crew members.

Putin said that the Wagner members killed in the incident had made a “significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine”.

[The unspoken context: Don’t make “serious mistakes” like Prigozhin did. Putin also promised an ‘investigation’ into the cause of the explosion, but investigators likely also got the hint. Any attempt to publish the *actual* reason for the explosion would probably be considered another “serious mistake.” — Ed]