Exactly two months after the Wagner debacle, a business jet with 10 people on board, possibly including private army boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, crashed in the Tver region, with no survivors.
Prigogine was on the passenger list, but it has not been officially confirmed that he boarded the plane and died.
There is no information on how exactly the plane crashed.
There were on board the Embraer plane seven passengers and three crewas they all are diedreported the Russian state agency TASS.
It’s the plane traveled from Moscow to St. Petersburg and crashed near the residence of President Vladimir Putin “Valdai”, next to which S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems are located.
Prigozhin, 62, and Wagner commander Utkin, 53, were among the passengers killed in tonight’s plane crash, according to a Telegram channel affiliated with the Wagner group.
According to the “Tsarigrad” TV channel, their bodies have been identified, but no official information is given until DNA tests are done.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Telegram channel reported that his plane was shot down over Russia in a targeted strike, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
Is Prigogine dead?
The plane was shot down by anti-aircraft defense over the Tver region, says the Gray Zone channel, but casts doubt on Prigozhin’s death.
The Wagner executive usually used the “Grey Zone” to post his videos.
The channel wrote that two planes of the private military company “Wagner” were in the air at the same time. According to “Grey Zone” the second plane reversed course on a flight to St. Petersburg and landed at “Ostafievo” airport south of Moscow.
“Grey Zone” casts doubt on the authorities’ version that Prigozhin was on the passenger list of the first plane and died. “Where Yevgeny Prigozhin was in the end, there is currently no accurate information”, the channel notes.
Russian news agencies reported that an investigation into the crash was underway.
The leader of the mercenary company was last seen in a video released on Monday, said to be from Africa. Two months ago, he led a mysterious mutiny against Russia’s military leadership, an act President Vladimir Putin described as treason.
According to a channel close to “Wagner” in “Telegram” “Grey Zone” the plane was shot down by Russian air defenses.
Various social media accounts linked to Wagner began circulating posts commenting on the Kremlin’s role in the plane crash and vowing to organize another “Justice March” on Moscow.
50 km from Putin’s residence
Near the crash site of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane, not far from Vladimir Putin’s residence in Valdai, there four S-300 battalionswho guard the residence, a Russian government source told The Moscow Times.
According to him, what happened with Prigozhin’s plane and the crash site was not an accident, but most likely punishment for rebellion. “On June 24, a march against Moscow, on August 24, two rockets. Everything is logical. The plane crashed literally 50 km from the residence [на Путин]”, says the source.
“What a strange coincidence. Maybe the cook put stale food in the soup?”, another source close to the Kremlin commented ironically to The Moscow Times. And he adds: If Prigozhin was really in the crashed plane, the reason should be sought in his rebellion in June, which he himself called a “march of justice”.
“The Embraer plane was traveling from Sheremetyevo to St. Petersburg. There were three pilots and seven passengers on board. All the people on board died.” TASS reported.
The plane crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino after flying for less than half an hour.
It burned when it hit the ground.
According to various sources the plane is owned by Prigozhin and he has traveled in it more than once.
The Wagner leader used it, including shortly after the attempted riot in June, and flew it from St. Petersburg to Belarus.
Kyiv: This is a signal to the Russian elites
“The spectacular removal of Prigozhin (. . .) two months after the coup attempt is a signal from Putin to Russian elites ahead of the 2024 elections,” said on social network X (known until recently as Twitter) Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyquoted by France Press.
“It would be very difficult for us to point to anyone who would have intuitively thought that this was a coincidence. It just so happens that political opponents that Vladimir Putin sees as a threat to his power don’t die naturally.” told state news TV Te Fau Pe Info Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau.
The White House: Prigogine’s death is no surprise
A spokesman for the White House National Security Council said that “no one should be surprised” if reports that Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board the crashed plane are confirmed.
“The disastrous war in Ukraine led to the advance of a private army towards Moscow, and now – it seems – to this,” spokesman Adrienne Watson was quoted as saying by CNN.
Metezhyt on Prigogine
Just a day ago, Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared in his first video address two months after the riots he organized in Russia. He was dressed in camouflage clothing, with a machine gun in his hands, and a desert area could be seen around him, suggesting that he was in Africa.
Two months ago, Prigozhin led a riot and with a part of “Wagner’s” fighters in Ukraine, went on a march to Moscow.
They approached Moscow, but at the last moment, after the mediation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, they returned to their camps.
Prigozhin has repeatedly announced that his rebellion was not against Russian President Vladimir Putin, but against the leadership of the army, but what happened has never been clarified.
Prigozhin was in severe conflict with the Russian Minister of War, Sergei Shoigu, who remained in his post after the riot.
Russian telegram channels show (graphic) video of wreckage of plane on which Prigozhin and Utkin/Wagner were registered to have flown. Still anticipating evidence that Prigozhin did fly on that plane (and didn’t just send a decoy). pic.twitter.com/ycLcPOWIDa
— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) August 23, 2023
Prigozhin’s fate after his short-lived attempted rebellion against the Russian Ministry of Defense remained unclear.
The Kremlin has announced that some of its mercenaries, who have fought in some of the fiercest battles of the war with Ukraine, will go to Belarus.
However, Prigozhin attended a meeting with Vladimir Putin 5 days after the riot and was photographed in St. Petersburg, where the Russian president was hosting the Russia-Africa summit.
According to various sources, after his “expulsion” from Russia, he repeatedly traveled to the country.
Who the hell is Prigogine?
Born in 1961 in St. Petersburg, Yevgeny Prigozhin was known by the nickname “Putin’s Chef”.
After Putin became president of Russia in 2000, Prigozhin’s catering company began working in the Kremlin, earning him the nickname Putin’s Chef and the reputation of becoming a billionaire thanks to public procurement tenders.
He became a key figure in the war against Ukraine, after the Wagner mercenary company he headed became one of the most effective elements of the Russian army.
After spending 9 years in prison for fraud and robbery in Soviet times, Prigozhin last year mobilized tens of thousands of prisoners, many of whom died in the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
An attempt by the Russian Ministry of Defense to subdue the “Wagner” led to an open conflict in June of this year.
Surprisingly, the standoff ended with an agreement between the authorities and Wagner, despite threats from President Putin.
2023-08-23 20:51:11
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