Germany says Russia to continue its ‘cynical’ plans ‘with or without Wagner’

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday that she is not expecting any major changes in Russia's aggressive policies or actions following the death of Wagner's mercenary chief.

"I don't want to speculate about where the whole thing will now lead to but we must fear that Russia, with or without Wagner, will continue in its cynical games not only in Ukraine but above all in Africa," Baerbock told public radio Deutschlandfunk.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, was confirmed to be onboard a private jet that crashed on Wednesday in Russia's northwestern Tver region, killing all 10 passengers.

Baerbock said it was too early to draw any big conclusions from this plane crash, or make a prediction about the future of the Wagner group and its military operations.

"We must not forget that Prigozhin and Wagner are responsible for terrible acts against people in Ukraine, and in African countries. Wherever Wagner goes, consequences are death, destruction, and exploitation," she said.

During a news conference later in the day, the top German diplomat said she did not want to speculate about the plane crash, but implied that Russian President Vladimir Putin could be behind this.

"It is no coincidence that the whole world is now looking at the Kremlin after a former close confidant of Putin, literally falls out of the sky, two months after he staged an uprising against him," Baerbock said.

"We know this pattern. In Putin's Russia, deaths, dubious suicides, falls from windows, all of them ultimately remain unresolved," she continued.

"This underscores a dictatorial system that is built on violence, that only knows violence, both internally and externally," she added.

Two months ago, Prigozhin launched a mutiny against Putin but called it off and settled in neighboring Belarus.