White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that it is "very clear" how Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died, claiming the Russian government has a "long history of killing its opponents."
Jean-Pierre claimed that Prigozhin, whom she described as a "warlord" and "cold-blooded murderer," launched a mutiny after he became "frustrated" by the way the Kremlin was waging its "unprovoked" war in Ukraine. She stressed that he later reached a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin but that, just two months after that deal, he got killed. "It's very clear, it's pretty evident what happened here," she added.
Earlier, US President Joe Biden said that "there's not much that happens in Russia that Putin's not behind" and that Prigozhin's fate comes as "no surprise." Meanwhile, the Kremlin described the West's allegations of its involvement in the plane crash that killed the Wagner Group leader as "an absolute lie."