BBC reported it was missing a wing on the way down, so either it just decided to shed its wing on its own or it was knocked off by something. Not too many things flying around in the air that can take off a plane wing.
I mean it would totally make sense for Putin to kill him and the Wagner leaders because they know too much and have opposed him at once.
Was it shot down? I haven't looked into it much. But Putin's cronies could definitely have sabotaged the plane to crash as well.
Okay cool. I don't think Putin would be that obvious since his future bargaining with challengers kind of depends on it. He just sent a message that he can't be reasoned or bargained with.
He hasn't bothered with bargaining with his challengers BEFORE, either. I mean, he tried to assassinate his biggest public political rival Alexei Navalny, then when everyone got angry at him for trying to do that in pretty blatant fashion, just threw him in prison and will likely keep him there on whatever charges they think they can make sound reasonable for as long as possible.
Theres a phone recording of the plan crashing...
Theres a bit of smoke etc
Doubt it was just pilot error