Russian mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin has been presumed dead, as he was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday.
According to the press service of Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, 10 people were killed in the crash near the town of Kuzhenkino, including Prigozhin.
“An investigation has been launched into the crash of the Embraer aircraft, which occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the department said in a statement.
Among the 10 dead were three crew members and seven passengers. The seven passengers were identified as Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Dmitriy Utkin, Nikolay Matuseev and Prigozhin.
The crew was identified as Cmdr. Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova.
Information Nigeria understands that several pro-Wagner groups have claimed that Prigozhin was killed.
The Transport Agency said the plane was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
“The head of the Wagner Group, a Hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland – Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia.
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“But even in Hell, he will be the best! Glory to Russia!” a post in the Grey Zone on Telegram said.
Reacting, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a statement, “The demonstrative elimination of Prigozhin and the Wagner command two months after the coup attempt is a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections.”
President Joe Biden of the United States who was also briefed on the plane crash told reporters he didn’t “know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised.”
“There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer,” he told reporters in Lake Tahoe, where he is on vacation.
Prigozhin is the head of the private paramilitary organization Wagner Group, which played a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before briefly launching an insurrection against the Russian military in June. Forces loyal to Prigozhin marched toward Moscow, before turning back after several days.
He allegedly struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin where he didn’t face prosecution and was relocated to Belarus, according to the Kremlin.
