Russian authorities have confirmed that a private jet with Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin listed as a passenger crashed between Moscow and St. Petersburg on Wednesday, killing all on board.
What details have been confirmed?
The Russian Emergencies Ministry confirmed that the jet plunged to the ground in Tver Region, and that all three crew and seven passengers on board were killed. The ministry said that the jet, an Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600, was traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg at the time of the incident.
Rosaviatsiya, the Russian federal air transport agency, said that Prighozhin was on board, along with several high-ranking Wagner commanders.
Was the crash caught on camera?
Several short clips of the crash have circulated on social media. Videos published by the Mash and Baza Telegram channels appear to show the jet plummeting toward the ground in a seemingly uncontrolled spin, leaving behind a trail of black smoke. It is unclear from the clips which part of the aircraft had caught fire.
Other clips purportedly shot at the crash site show flaming wreckage strewn across a grassy clearing.
Is Prigozhin definitely dead?
Although Rosaviatsiya said that Prigozhin’s name was on board, it did not explicitly pronounce the Wagner chief dead. As of late Wednesday evening, Russian officials said that they had recovered eight bodies, though none had been named by that time. All were described as badly burned.
Some Russian outlets identified the plane’s tail number as RA-02795, which is believed to belong to Prigozhin. According to flight-tracking site FlightRadar24, a second plane linked to Prigozhin with the tail number RA-02878 departed Moscow shortly after the first, but returned to land after news of the crash broke. None of these reports have been officially confirmed.
Who else was on board?
In addition to Prigozhin, Rosaviatsiya said Dmitry Utkin – a former Russian special forces operator and alleged co-founder of the PMC – was also traveling on the jet, as was Valery Chekalov, whom the US considers to be the deputy head of Wagner. The remaining passengers listed were Sergey Propustin, Evgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, and Nikolay Matuseev, identified by Russian news outlets as Wagner
Who is Evgeny Prigozhin?
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