The head of the paramilitary group Wagner Yevgeny Prigoyine, which sparked a riot in June, his deputy and eight other passengers were killed in a small private plane crash in Russia on Wednesday.
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Russia’s aviation authority Rossaviatsia has confirmed that Yevgeny Prigoyine was on board the plane en route from Moscow to Saint Petersburg that crashed in the Tver region, killing everyone on board.
“According to the airline, the following passengers were on board the Embraer-135 plane,” Rossaviatsia said, giving the name of Mr. Prigozhin, but also that of his right arm Dmitry Utkin.
“There were ten people on board, including three crew members. “According to initial information, all people on board died,” the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations had stated shortly before on Telegram.
AFP
According to him, this Embraer Legacy private plane crashed near the village of Kuenkino in the Tver region northwest of Moscow.
Videos were broadcast on several Telegram channels, the authenticity of which AFP could not confirm and which are said to be connected to Wagner. They showed burning debris in a field or a device falling from the sky.
AFP
According to a rescue worker quoted by the Ria Novosti agency, the bodies of eight people have been found at the crash site so far. The agency TASS mentioned seven recovered bodies.
A preliminary investigation into “violation of safety regulations in air traffic” was initiated. “A team of investigators was sent to the scene of the accident (…) to determine the causes of the accident,” the Russian investigative committee said in a statement.
According to Rossaviatsia, the aircraft belonged to the company MNT-Aero, which specializes in business transport.
Early Thursday in St. Petersburg, people gathered in front of Wagner’s headquarters and laid patches of paramilitary groups, red flowers and candles, while near Kujenkino police cordoned off the entrance to the crash zone, according to AFP photographers.
As operations continue, President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk in World War II and visited this region of south-western Russia bordering Ukraine.
Without mentioning the crash, Mr Putin, on stage in front of the crowd, praised the “dedication” and “loyalty” of Russian soldiers in Ukraine who are “fighting with courage and determination”.
An adviser to the Ukrainian Presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, suggested that Mr Prigoyine could have been eliminated by the Kremlin.
“The dramatic elimination of the command of Prigozhin and Wagner two months after (their) attempted coup is a signal from Putin to the Russian elites ahead of the 2024 elections,” he wrote on X (ex-Twitter), believing that “Putin does not forgive.” anyone”.
US President Joe Biden said he was “not surprised” by the possible death of Wagner’s boss.
“Few things happen in Russia without Putin having anything to do with them,” he said.
About Prigozhin: It’s worth waiting for the fog of war to clear … By now it’s obvious that Putin doesn’t forgive anyone his bestial terror. The very one that destroyed him in June 2023. And he waited for the moment. It is also obvious that Prigozhin…
— Mikhail Podoliak (@Podolyak_M) August 23, 2023
Belarusian exile opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya called Prigozhin a “murderer” who “no one will miss”.
She hoped on X that “his death might destroy Wagner’s presence in Belarus,” a country allied with Moscow.
AFP
Yevgeny Prigozhin instigated an uprising against Russian General Staff and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in June, led by his men who briefly seized military bases in southern Russia before heading to Moscow.
Vladimir Putin had called him a “traitor” without saying his name.
Mr. Prigoyine was quick to abandon that mutiny amid the conflict in Ukraine. It ended on the evening of June 24 with an agreement that provided for his departure for Belarus, while his fighters could join him there, join the regular Russian army, or return to civilian life.
But on Monday evening, the Wagner boss appeared in a video posted by Wagner-affiliated groups on social media in which he claimed to be in Africa.
In a desert landscape and armed with an assault rifle, he said he was working to “make Russia even bigger on every continent and Africa even freer.”
After the uprising, part of Wagner’s fighters went to Belarus, where they took part in training the armed forces of this country allied with Moscow.
But for some reason that was never explained, Wagner’s boss, despite his pariah status in Russia, seemed to come and go until he attended a gathering in the Kremlin just days after his revolt.
In Ukraine, Evguéni Prigojine distinguished himself during the long and bloody Battle of Bakhmout in the east, where his men, mostly recruited from Russian prisons, took the city in May with heavy casualties. A “meat grinder,” he said himself.
During this battle, his conflict with senior Russian military officials escalated, with Mr. Prigozhin accusing them of incompetence and not supplying him with enough ammunition.
Wagner is also represented in several African countries, including the Central African Republic, Mali and Libya.
In July, Vladimir Putin assured that he had offered Wagner’s men to serve in the army under someone else’s command, but that their leader, Yevgeny Prigoyine, had turned down the offer.