Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is on the passenger list of a plane that crashed in Russia
The announcement was made by the Federal Air Transport Agency and relayed by Russian news agencies Interfax, Ria Novosti and TASS. “According to the list of passengers, among them are the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin”, said the federal agency. The aircraft would have crashed in the Tver region, about 180 kilometers northwest of Moscow, while performing a Moscow-Saint Petersburg connection, without leaving any survivors, the emergency services announced.
“There were ten people on board, including three crew members. According to the first information, all the people on board died”announced, on Telegram, the Russian Emergencies Ministry. The actual presence of Yevgueni Prigojine on board the aircraft has not been confirmed.
The Telegram channel Gray Zone, close to Mr. Prigojine and the Wagner Group, confirms the information. And explicitly accuses the Russian army of having shot him down with an anti-aircraft missile.
Gray Zone says witnesses heard “two characteristic explosions of anti-aircraft defense work” and is also based on traces observed in videos of the crash posted online. According to several Telegram channels, including Baza, which has good contacts with the security forces, Dmitri Outkin was also on board. This discreet man, known for his neo-Nazi sympathies, was the real founder of the militia “Wagner”his nom de guerre.
According to the independent news site Vertska, the aircraft, an Embraer ERJ-135, crashed between the towns of Koujenkino and Khotilovo, located along the Moscow-Saint Petersburg highway. According to Telegram account Ostorozhno Novosti, there were ten people on board: three crew members and seven passengers. According to air traffic monitoring site Flightradar24, the plane took off from Moscow bound for Saint Petersburg at around 7 p.m. local time. Communication with him was lost at 7:11 p.m. The agency responsible for air transport in Russia announced the creation of a special commission to investigate the circumstances and causes of the crash. This would already be working on “the training of the crew, the technical condition of the aircraft, the weather situation or the route taken”.
Journalist Andrei Zakharov, founder of The Insiderone of the best investigative (in exile) media in Russia, ensures that Prigojine was indeed reaching Saint Petersburg today, via Moscow, from an African country.