Plane crash in Russia assumed to have killed Prigozhin: reports

A Russian private aircraft overnight crashed north of Moscow with officials saying all 10 passengers and crew onboard were killed and the country’s Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the flight’s passenger list.
“According to the (plane’s) passenger list, the first and last name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was included in this list,” Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported quoting the country’s Federal Agency for Air Transport on late Wednesday.

TASS said The Embraer business jet crashed in the Tver Region near the settlement of Kuzhenkino and “according to preliminary data, all 10 people on board the plane have died”.

The plane was en route from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport to St. Petersburg.

The crash came months after Prigozhin launched a mutiny against Russia’s military leadership while his Wagner group revolt was suddenly called off in a deal that required Prigozhin and his fighters to relocate to Belarus.

State media outlet Russia-24, meanwhile, reported that eight bodies were found at the crash site while the plane was carrying 10 people.

The US-based CNN Television recalled that top Biden administration officials repeatedly and publicly warned that Prigozhin could be killed after he led the armed rebellion earlier this year.

“If I were he, I’d be careful what I ate. I’d keep my eye on my menu,” US President Joe Biden said in July while CIA Director Bill Burns and Secretary of State Antony Blinken had echoed Biden.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), meanwhile, released a report quoting a White House official who said Prigozhin’s death would be no surprise.

“We have seen the reports (of the crash) . . . no-one should be surprised,” BBC quoted national security spokesperson Adrienne Watson as saying.

According to the Russian Emergencies Ministry the private aircraft “came down” near the village of Kuzhenkino – and all were killed.

Prigozhin has been keeping a low public profile since heading his short-lived mutiny in June, which lasted only 24 hours.

He last appeared in a video earlier this week which was said to have been filmed in an unspecified location in Africa

The Wagner group was founded in 2014 and was highly active in the Ukraine war until the June mutiny. (BSS)