Investigators from the Russian government reported that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the fiery leader of the mutinous mercenary group Wagner, perished in the crash of a jet.
Earlier today, the Investigative Committee of Russia said via Telegram that it had finished conducting forensic examinations on the 10 deceased passengers.
Svetlana Petrenko, the committee’s spokesperson, said that molecular genetic tests have been finished as part of the investigation into the jet crash in the Tver area.
All ten fatalities have had their identities confirmed based on their findings, and they all match the list provided on the flight sheet.
Prigozhin’s name was found on a passenger list for a flight that crashed earlier in the evening, according to the Russian aviation regulator on Wednesday.
The plane took off from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport around 6pm, heading to St. Petersburg is a city.
But it fell down about 100 miles to the northeast, near the city of Tver.
A video that has not been confirmed shows a plane, called an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, that looks like the one Prigozhin was on, falling from the sky with smoke coming out.
According to local news, 10 people died in the crash. This includes 3 crew members and 7 passengers.
The Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport announced that they have started an investigation into the plane crash of an Embraer aircraft that occurred in the Tver Region tonight, according to a statement reported by Tass.
According to the list of passengers, the full name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the list.
This is the first time it has been officially confirmed that Prigozhin has died. Initially, there were reports that caused a lot of excitement and speculation about whether he was on the plane and if he had died.
It happened just two months after the wealthy businessperson made a big challenge to Vladimir Putin’s long-time leadership.
Prigozhin was seen as a close friend of the president and got paid well by the government. During the war between Russia and Ukraine, he spoke out against the military leaders in the Kremlin.
He talked tough for many months on Telegram posts and this led to a full-on coup on June 24th.
Wagner fighters took control of Rostov-on-Don, a city about 60 miles from Ukraine, and quickly headed towards the capital.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko stopped Prigozhin’s rebellion quickly by making a sudden agreement. The deal involved removing any accusations against Prigozhin and sending Wagner to Belarus.
It is not clear what happened next. Photos, videos, and rumors show that Prigozhin will be in Belarus, Russia, and somewhere in Africa in the next two months.
Some people think that the plane crash might have happened because there was a bomb on the plane. They believe that the Russian government might have planned the bomb as a way to get back at the people who rebelled against them.
The Kremlin said that the accusations were not true and were complete lies.
Prigozhin, who is 62 years old, began his career by selling hot dogs with his mother, Vilotta. Prigozhin was born in 1961 in St. Petersburg, which is also Putin’s hometown. He went to jail multiple times for stealing before he started his own company called Concord Catering.
The company has won many reliable government contracts over the years, including providing food for officials and schools.
It is still unclear how Wagner began his journey. The private armed group started causing trouble in 2014 after the Crimean peninsula was taken over, but it is believed that the group actually formed back in 2005.
Dmity Utkin, who had Nazi SS tattoos and was a close associate of Prigozhin (a person), died on the same plane. It was believed for a long time that he was the one who started the group. Prigozhin is the rich owner of the company.
Wagner fighters are usually connected to Putin’s powerful government, but they can work for any government in the world. Soldiers have been spotted fighting in wars in the Middle East, Africa, and Ukraine.
However, Prigozhin didn’t only focus on food and violence. American intelligence officials have discovered that a group in St. Petersburg called the Internet Research Agency, also known as the “troll factory,” attempted to influence the 2016 US presidential election to benefit Donald Trump.
After the accident happened, Putin talked about Prigozhin as if he had already died, but Russian authorities had not yet confirmed it.
The leader of Russia mentioned that he had met the person who used to provide food services in the 1990s.
“Putin said on TV that this person had a difficult life. ”
‘He messed up a lot in life, but he also accomplished what he needed to. ’