Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin listed in Russian plane crash with no survivors
(VOVWORLD) - Head of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board a plane which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors, Russian authorities said.
 Plane wreckage near the crash site in the Tver region, Russia. (Photo: REUTERS) |
A Telegram channel linked to Wagner, Grey Zone, pronounced him dead. Prigozhin’s death would leave the Wagner Group leaderless and raise questions about its future operations in Africa and elsewhere. The Brazilian Embraer Legacy 600 model of executive jet showed no sign of a problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data. The model has only recorded one accident in over 20 years of service, according to website International Aviation HQ, and it was not due to mechanical failure. Rosaviatsia, Russia’s aviation agency, published the names of all 10 people on board the downed plane, including Prigozhin and that of Dmitry Utkin, his right-hand man who helped found the mercenary group and bore the call sign “Wagner”. Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal investigation. The aircraft, which had been travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver Region, Russia’s emergency situations ministry said.