Putin orders Wagner fighters to sign oath of allegiance after …

✕ Close Wagner chief Prigozhin killed For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Vladimir Putin has ordered Wagner mercenaries to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state after a plane believed to be carrying their leader crashed near Moscow. With immediate effect on Friday, Russia’s president signed the decree, published on the Kremlin website, which obliges anyone carrying out work on behalf of the military or Moscow’s war in Ukraine to swear a formal oath of allegiance to Russia. The oath includes a line in which those who take it promise to strictly follow the orders of commanders and senior leaders. It comes after the Kremlin insisted that claims Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an ‘absolute lie’, as Mr Putin euologised the mercenary chief as a ‘talented businessman’ who had made some ‘serious mistakes.’ Meanwhile, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko claims to have warned Prigozhin to ‘watch out’ for threats to his life during his troops mutinous march on Moscow in June, to which he said Prigozhin had answered: ‘To hell with it – I will die.’