Russia’s aviation authority has said Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who launched an abortive mutiny in June, and top Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin were on board a private jet en route from Moscow to St Petersburg when it crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region on Wednesday. All 10 people on board the plane – seven passengers and three crew members –died, according to Russia’s emergencies ministry. The other five of the seven passengers who were with Utkin and Prigozhin were named as Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov and Nikolay Matuseev. The crew were named as Commander Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova. In addition to Utkin, Prigozhin had been accompanied on the plane by a cameraman, Wagner’s logistics manager, and Prigozhin’s personal security detail, according to Fontanka, a St Petersburg news outlet that has covered Prigozhin’s operations extensively. Flightradar24 online tracking showed the Embraer Legacy 600 (plane number RA-02795) dropped off the radar at 6.11pm Moscow time. An unverified video clip posted to social media showed a plane resembling a private jet falling out of the sky. Another unverified clip showed burning wreckage on the ground. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Prigozhin’s allies quickly accused the Russian defence ministry of assassinating him. Grey Zone, a Telegram channel with more than 500,000 subscribers linked to Wagner, hailed him a hero and a patriot who had died at the hands of unidentified people it called “traitors to Russia”. Russian investigators opened a criminal investigation. Unnamed sources told Russian media they believed the plane had been shot down by one or more surface-to-air missiles, according to Reuters. Neither Reuters nor the Guardian could confirm that. There was no immediate official comment from the Kremlin or the defence ministry on Prigozhin’s apparent death, which comes two months after his failed mutiny against the Russian defence establishment, perceived by many as humiliating for Vladimir Putin. The plane showed no sign of problems until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data. It made a “sudden downward vertical”, said Ian Petchenik of Flightradar24. Within about 30 seconds it plummeted more than 8,000 feet from its cruising altitude of 28,000 feet. “Whatever happened, happened quickly,” Petchenik said. The type of jet has a good safety record, with only one recorded accident in more than 20 years of service, and that was not related to mechanical failure. Embraer said it was aware of a plane crash in Russia involving a Legacy 600 aircraft but it did not have further information about the case and had not been providing support services for the jet since 2019, when the plane was placed under international sanctions. There was little surprise abroad over Prigozhin’s apparent death. After a briefing on the incident, the US president, Joe Biden, said: “I don’t know for a fact what happened. But I’m not surprised ... There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer.” Russia meanwhile has also relieved Gen Sergei Surovikin of his command of the Russian aerospace forces, in the highest-level sacking yet of a military commander after Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny. Surovikin was seen as an ally of Wagner in the defence ministry and questions had been asked about whether he or other senior commanders aided the mutiny or had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans. A Russian military pilot has reportedly defected with his helicopter to Ukraine after a six-month intelligence operation. A Russian military blogger said a helicopter crossed the border with three people on board “a couple of weeks ago” but claimed the aircraft had lost its way. Ukrainian officials appeared to confirm that the aircraft had landed in Ukraine but did not give any further details.
