The Kremlin on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time that a plane carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, mercenary chief of the paramilitary Wagner Group, was possibly downed on purpose.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that investigators are looking into the possibility that the 62-year-old Prigozhin was 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," Peskov said when asked about the investigation.

The plane carrying Prigozhin and nine others crashed in Russia's Tver region on Aug. 23, killing everyone aboard, according to the press service of Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency.

The crash came about a month after Prigozhin led a chaotic armed rebellion that threatened the longstanding leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, Peskov denied speculation that the Kremlin was involved in the plane crash, calling the allegation an "absolute lie."

The crash investigation is being conducted by the Russian Investigative Committee as a domestic incident and Peskov said that allowing in international investigators "is out of the question."

-ABC News' Will Gretsky

Ukraine conducted a massive drone attack in Crimea Thursday night into Friday morning, Ukraine Defense Intelligence spokesman Andrii Yusov told ABC News.

An attack was made on the Russian 126th Separate Guards Coastal Defense Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet in the village of Perevalne, Yusov said.

"We are still calculating enemy losses at the moment," Yusov said

-ABC News' Ellie Kaufman

The explosion that downed a plane carrying Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others in Russia was likely caused by a bomb, two U.S. officials told ABC News on Friday.

A senior U.S. official said the preliminary belief is that the private jet was downed Wednesday by an explosion on board, potentially caused by a well-placed bomb.

Another U.S official said the United States believes that a bomb was very likely the cause of the explosion.

-ABC News' Josh Margolin and Luis Martinez

Russian President Vladimir Putin had no recent meetings with Yevgeny Prigozhin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

We don't know yet how long the investigation procedures will be," Peskov said when asked if Putin will attend Prigozhin's funeral.

"The president has a busy schedule in general," he added.

Peskov would not comment on the cause of the plane crash.

-ABC News' Anastasia Bagaeva and Ellie Kaufman

CIA Director Bill Burns said Yevgeny Prigozhin's mutiny showed the "corrosive effect" of President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine during remarks in England on Saturday.

"It is striking that Prigozhin preceded his actions with a scathing indictment of the Kremlin’s mendacious rationale for its invasion of Ukraine, and of the Russian military leadership’s conduct of the war," Burns said during a lecture to Britain's Ditchley Foundation. "The impact of those words and those actions will play out for some time, a vivid reminder of the corrosive effect of Putin’s war on his own society and his own regime."

Burns, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, also noted how Russian disaffection will gnaw away at the Kremlin and that the CIA is taking this opportunity to step up its recruitment efforts in Russia.

"Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership, beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression," Burns said. "That disaffection creates a once-in-a generation opportunity for us at CIA, at our core a human intelligence service. We're not letting it go to waste."

-ABC News' Cindy Smith