The Kremlin said on Wednesday that investigators were considering the possibility that the plane carrying mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was downed on purpose, the first explicit acknowledgement that he may have been assassinated.

“It is obvious that different versions are being considered, including the version – you know what we are talking about – let’s say, a deliberate atrocity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the investigation.

[The deuce you say! The admission — such as it is — seems curious. It would be far easier to chalk it up to a catastrophic failure of the plane, rather than a bomb inside or a missile outside. That, however, might force Russia to allow Embraer to conduct its own investigation, which would be much harder to control. Putin might use this opportunity to frame one of his political opponents for the crime while extolling Prigozhin’s qualities, which was how Putin described him in a statement following his death. — Ed]