KUALA LUMPUR – Private military group Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and his commander Dmitry Utkin are among the 10 onboard the plane that crashed north of Moscow.
RIA state news agency reported that eight bodies have been found at the crash site by the Russian emergency services.
According to the Russian civil aviation agency, the Embraer aircraft carrying seven passengers and three crew members left Moscow for St Petersburg, and crashed in a village in the Kuzhenkino Tver region, some 257km north of Moscow.
The aviation agency also said Prigozhin, 62, and Utkin, 53, were among those onboard the flight.
“An investigation has been launched into the Embraer plane crash that occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the passenger list, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsia, was quoted as saying.
Flight tracking data showed a private jet previously used by Prigozhin left Moscow yesterday evening (local time) and its transponder signal vanished within minutes.
Meanwhile, a pro-Wagner social media account shared a picture of the burning wreckage, with a partial tail number similar to the said plane.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was said to be at a concert dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Soviet victory in the Battle of Kursk.
In June, Prigozhin who was once a confidant of Putin led a mutiny against the country’s top military leaders.
Prigozhin’s mercenaries reportedly surged most of the way to Moscow before he ordered them to turn back.
The mutiny ended when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal where Prigozhin would relocate to Belarus.
The Wagner Group’s fighters were deployed to aid Russia’s allies Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic in 2014. – August 24, 2023