Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, was one of the ten individuals who died when a private plane crashed near Moscow on Wednesday evening, according to the Russian aviation authorities.
More than 200 kilometers northwest of Moscow, in the Tver Region, in a little town called Kuzhnkino, the Embraer jet crashed.
According to the TASS news agency, the Rosaviatsiya aviation agency stated that “an investigation has been initiated into the Embraer plane crash that occurred in the Tver Region this evening.”
The agency stated, “According to the passenger list, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s first and last name were included in this list.”
The two-engine corporate jet was intended to go from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the home of Prigozhin’s businesses.
In June, Prigozhin, 62, led a brief armed uprising, posing the most serious threat yet to President Vladimir Putin’s almost two-decade hold on power.
Even months later, it’s still unclear what led up to the daylong rebellion and the agreement that put a stop to it.
Prigozhin deployed military columns advancing towards Moscow after having his hired guns take the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
He has been disparaging the Russian military’s top brass for months, focusing his criticism on Chief of Staff Sergei Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in particular.
He had bemoaned the lack of ammunition available to his soldiers fighting on the front lines of Putin’s conflict in Ukraine.
Shoigu was charged by Prigozhin with authorizing a missile attack on Wagner camps in Ukraine.
At the time, Putin called the uprising “treason”.
However, Prigozhin ordered a withdrawal shortly before his forces arrived in Moscow following talks with the Kremlin, in which Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko served as a mediator.
Updates:
The Telegram channel of Yevgeny Prigozhin says that the plane of the Wagner mercenary chief, in which he was said to have been killed in a crash, was shot down over Russia in a targeted strike. Prighozin usually used the Gray Zone channel to distribute his videos. The aircraft was downed by anti-aircraft defences over the Tver region, the Telegram channel Gray Zone reported, but it cast doubt as to whether Prigozhin had actually died.
