1692816745 Ukraine Russia War Latest Live News The plane carrying Prigozhin

The plane in which the boss of the Wagner mercenaries was a passenger crashes in Russia

A plane carrying the head of the Wagner mercenary company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, crashed in Russia on Wednesday. According to the Ministry of Disaster Management, all ten passengers on board died. From those close to Wagner, they confirm the death of both his boss and one of his key commanders, the far-right Dmitri Utkin, a former army intelligence agent who was involved in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas region after the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Gray Zone, a Telegram channel close to the businessman, has confirmed his death: “The head of the Wagner Group, a hero of Russia, a true patriot of his homeland, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, died as a result of the actions of Russian traitors.” . But even in hell it will be for the best! Glory to Russia!” This group accuses the Defense Ministry, headed by Sergei Shoigu, a declared enemy of Prigozhin, of having shot down the plane with an anti-aircraft system.

“I just spoke to some prominent ‘musicians’ [El apodo que reciben los miembros de Wagner]. “You confirm the deaths of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin,” assured the president of the ultranationalist movement Together with Russia, Vladimir Rogov. Russian media Fontanka also points out that mercenary personnel were traveling with the device, according to their sources in Saint Petersburg, the city where the trading center of the businessman known as Putin’s chef had its operations headquarters.

This incident happened two months after the uprising that Prigozhin staged against the Kremlin. Then, for hours, columns of tanks moved toward Moscow, posing the greatest threat President Vladimir Putin has faced in his more than two decades in power.

After the coup failed, Putin promised the Wagner members a pardon in his message to the nation two days later. But the President indicated that he would not forget the rebellion, distinguishing between its leaders and its soldiers. “The overwhelming majority of the fighters and commanders of the Wagner group are also Russian patriots,” the president stressed. “The organizers of the rebellion betrayed their country and their people, they betrayed those who were drawn into crime. They lied to them, put them under fire to shoot their own,” he added.

“An investigation into the Embraer plane crash that happened in the Tver region tonight has been launched. According to the list of passengers, among them are the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the Russian Federal Aviation Administration confirmed. The Emergencies Ministry assures that the ten people who were traveling on board the crashed plane died. It is an Embraer Legacy 600, rear number RA-02795. Authorities report that the device crashed around 18:40 in Moscow and at 17:40 in mainland Spain near the village of Kuzhenkino.

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The mutiny on June 23-24 was the last red line that Prigozhin crossed. He previously broke the Kremlin’s law of silence by showing the bodies of his soldiers and insulting Minister Shoigu for not arming his men. “These comrades died yesterday. Due to lack of ammunition. A fifth, a fifth! Mothers, women and children will receive their bodies. Who is to blame for her death? The culprit is the one who does not solve the ammo supply. at the end of the list [de suministros] The signature should appear [el jefe del Estado Mayor ruso] Valeri Gerasimov or Shoigu. You don’t want to make the decision. “They don’t want Wagner to exist,” Prigozhin denounced in a somber February 22 video as the first anniversary of the war drew to a close.

Prigozhin reappeared this Monday in an unknown country in Africa. The businessman, who was allegedly pardoned by President Putin in exchange for moving the Wagner group to Belarus, released a video in which he appeared in a camouflage suit and carrying an assault rifle. “We work,” said the leader of the mercenaries. “Temperature, 50+ degrees, just the way we like it. The Wagner group takes on reconnaissance tasks. “Make Russia even bigger on all continents and make Africa even more free,” the businessman said nearly two months after challenging the president.

Prigozhin entered Kremlin circles in the 1990s. It was St. Petersburg where the Russian President and his entourage came from thanks to his catering company. With the troll factory muddying elections in various countries and with the company of mercenaries, he extended his services to power. Having denied Wagner’s existence since his men intervened in Ukraine’s Donbas region in the spring of 2014, he merely admitted that this venture was a reality and had already begun invading the country.

“Putin forgives nobody”

The first international reactions came on the same Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the plane crash became known. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m not surprised,” said US President Joe Biden, recalling the phrase he had said when asked about Prigozhin’s fate after the failed mutiny: “I would be careful. Biden does not seem to have many doubts about the responsibility of the Russian President for what happened. “Not many things happen in Russia that Putin doesn’t stand behind,” he replied.

The government of Ukraine pointed in the same direction. Mikhailo Podoliak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, asked to wait until the situation was clarified. “By now it is obvious that Putin does not forgive anyone for his own bestial terror. I’ve been waiting for this moment. It is also evident that Prigozhin signed his death warrant the moment he believed in Lukashenko’s ‘guarantees’ and Putin’s equally absurd ‘word of honour’,” Zelenskyy’s adviser wrote on the social network X, formerly Twitter.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told CNN: “If this is confirmed, it shows that Putin is eliminating his opponents and scaring anyone who disagrees with him.”

Removal of his ally Surovikin

The incident happened on the same day that leaked the dismissal of his ally, General Sergey Surovikin (Novosibirsk, 56 years old) as head of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation due to his proximity to the mercenary company.

After the setbacks last autumn on the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts, on October 8, 2022, the Kremlin elected Surovikin to be the sole commander of its armed forces in Ukraine. His first step was to organize an orderly withdrawal from the city of Kherson to the opposite side of the river. Second, to fortify their new lines and launch a continuous mid-winter bombing campaign against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, which included power plants.

Prigozhin, openly at odds with Shoigu and Gerasimov, openly welcomed Surovikin’s appointment in October 2022. The same was true of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, then a staunch public defender of Wagner’s boss.

The president of this Caucasus republic began to distance himself from Prigozhin earlier this year, when Surovikin was replaced by Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov and the owner of Wagner began to voice increasingly harsh criticism of the ministry in public. the defense for not providing him with the ammunition he had requested in the Bakhmut offensive.

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