Yevgeny Prigozhin ‘killed in fatal plane crash’ after possible missile attack

Yevgeny Prigozhin is confirmed dead after a plane on which he was listed as a passenger crashed over Russia, with eyewitnesses claiming it was shot down amid speculation he faked his death.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man who angered Vladimir Putin with a bizarre attempted coup in June, has been confirmed dead in a fiery plane crash over Russia.

Russia’s aviation authority Rosaviatsia has confirmed that the Wagner boss and Wagner chief commander Dmitry Utkin were on board Mr Prigozhin’s private plane when it exploded above the Tver region, 100km north of Moscow on Wednesday.

Mr Prigozhin, the leader of the paramilitary group Wagner, was listed as a passenger, and all 10 on board the Embraer were declared dead by Russian authorities.

Intelligence analysts had reported that a second business jet owned by Mr Prigozhin headed to Moscow shortly after the plane crash, leading to speculation the presence of the second plane could be a “dead man switch” or a way for the Wagner leader to fake his death.

Smoke rises over plane wreckage near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region.Picture: AFP.

Extraordinary footage quickly emerged on social media showing a stricken plane on fire, falling from the sky. It had the tail number RA-02795 which is owned by Prigozhin, and it exploded into flames upon impact with the ground.

Eye witnesses said the plane, believed to be heading to St Petersburg, was shot down by a missile.

🚨🇷🇺 Russian air defences caught on camera shooting down private jet belonging to Wagner Leader Yevgeny Prigozhin over Tver region.

Pretty clear message from Putin. pic.twitter.com/DAOcz16yr4

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) August 23, 2023

Wagner associates called Grey Zone claimed on Russian social media: “Before the plane crash, two local residents listened to two bursts of characteristic air defence.

“This is confirmed by contrails in the sky in one of the videos, as well as the words of direct eyewitnesses.”

Early unconfirmed reports suggested that a business jet with the tail number RA-02795 0 registered to Wagner crashed in the region after turning its transponders off, according to The London Times.

Russian sources were claiming a terrorist attack, or perhaps sabotage of the aircraft, caused an explosion on board.

Russia’s federal air transport agency said: “An investigation of the Embraer plane crash that happened in the Tver Region this evening was initiated.

“According to the passenger list, first and last name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was included in this list.”

Burning plane wreckage near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region. Picture: Telegram/AFP.

Mr Prigozhin, 61, was rarely seen after Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal to turn around the Wagner Group rebellion when Wagner troops were 300km from their Moscow target on June 26.

Mr Prigozhin had been demanding the sacking of both the defence minister Sergey Shoigu and the chief of the Russian general staff Valery Gerasimov for their incompetence, gathering his troops from Ukraine in the southern Russian military base of Rostov on Don to the Russian capital in a “March for Justice”. They shot down seven Russian military aircraft and helicopters on the way, before backing down.

This video grab taken from the footage posted on a Wagner linked Telegram channel shows a plane falling in the sky near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region. Picture: Telegram/AFP.

The astonishing one day rebellion meant the future of Mr Prigozhin, a St Petersburg teenage thug turned troll farmer and Mr Putin’s former personal chef, had always been under threat for embarrassing Mr Putin’s leadership despite his troops helping Russia win the long siege of Bakhmut.

At the time it was suggested Mr Prigozhin’s future may be measured in weeks, not years. He survived less than nine weeks.

On Wednesday, just before the plane was shot down, one of Russia’s senior military figures, General Sergei Surovikin was relieved of his command of the Russian aerospace forces. His sacking was seen as retribution for being close to Mr Prigozhin. Questions had been raised about what MR Surovikin knew of the short lived rebellion.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the presidential office of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said on twitter: “We have to wait for the fog of war to clear.”

He added: “However, it is clear that Putin does not forgive anyone for his own beastly fear - the very one that nullified him in June 2023 - and was waiting for the moment. It is also obvious that Prigozhin signed a special death sentence for himself the moment he believed in the strange “guarantees of Lukashenko” and in the no less absurd “honest word” of Putin.”