A private jet carrying the head of the Wagner Group crashed in Russia without any survivors.
All those on board a private plane that founder of the Wagner Group Evgeny Prigozhin was recorded as being on when it crashed on Wednesday between Moscow and St. Petersburg have been confirmed dead by Russian officials.
What specifics have been verified?
The three crew members and seven passengers on board the jet were all killed when it crashed in the Tver Region, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry. According to the government, the jet, an Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600, was flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg when the incident occurred.
Prighozhin was on board, according to Rosaviatsiya, the Russian government’s air transport service, along with a number of senior Wagner officers.
Was the collision recorded on camera?
Social media has seen the spread of several brief videos of the collision. The jet is seen falling towards the ground in videos posted on the Mash and Baza Telegram channels, spinning erratically and leaving a trail of black smoke in its wake. The clips don’t make it apparent which area of the aeroplane was on fire.
Other videos allegedly taken at the crash site depict burning debris scattered across a grassy meadow.
Is Prigozhin truly deceased?
Rosaviatsiya mentioned that Prigozhin’s name was aboard the ship but did not officially declare the Wagner leader dead. Russian authorities reported recovering eight remains as of late Wednesday night, but none had been identified. All were said to be severely burned.
According to certain Russian media, the jet had the tail number RA-02795, which is thought to belong to Prigozhin. A second aircraft connected to Prigozhin with the tail number RA-02878 took off from Moscow immediately after the first, but it made a landing after the incident was reported, according to the flight-tracking website FlightRadar24. These rumours have not been formally confirmed.
Who else rode along?
On the jet was Valery Chekalov, who the US believes to be the deputy head of Wagner and a Russian special forces operator and accused PMC co-founder. The remaining travellers were mentioned as being Wagner, Nikolay Matuseev, Sergey Propustin, Evgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, and
Evgeny Prigozhin: Who is he?
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In 2014, Prigozhin, a thriving caterer and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, established the Wagner Group, a private military firm (PMC). Prigozhin would not acknowledge his affiliation with the Wagner Group until last year, despite the fact that the organisation was established in 2014 and actively participated in hostilities in the formerly Ukrainian Donbass region.
In addition to operating in several African nations, Wagner forces have also reportedly engaged in combat with US soldiers in Syria in 2018.
Prigozhin publicly feuded with the Russian Defence Ministry earlier this year while his troops were engaged in the protracted battle for the city of Artyomovsk (also known as Bakhmut in Ukraine). He accused senior officials of the Russian Defence Ministry of mishandling the conflict and depriving him of enough ammunition.
What happened to Wagner’s mutiny?
In June, Prigozhin alleged that Russian forces shelled a Wagner field camp, where the PMC’s soldiers were recuperating and restocking after taking Artyomovsk the month before. The creator of Wagner then said that he would lead his troops on a march towards Moscow to overthrow allegedly dishonest military leaders.
Putin called the rebellion a “stab in the back” and pledged to take “decisive actions” to put things right. However, less than a day after it started, the uprising was put down courtesy to Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus’s mediation. Prigozhin concurred that those who participated in the rebellion would be transferred to Belarus, while those who objected would be absorbed into the Russian Defence Ministry’s commanding units.
After going silent for two months, Prigozhin released a video on Monday that was reportedly shot in Africa. The Wagner Group had resumed recruitment, he claimed in the video, and was engaged in “reconnaissance and search activities” against “ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other bandits” across the continent.
