5 Horrible Plane Accident Facts of Russian Wagner Boss Prigozhin. Russian authorities confirmed a private jet with Wagner Group Founder Evgeny Prigozhin was registered as a passenger crashed between Moscow and St. Petersburg on Wednesday (23/8/2023). The accident killed all on board. The following are various facts related to this disaster.
What Details have been Confirmed?
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry confirmed the jet crashed into the ground in the Tver Region, and all three crew members and seven passengers on board died. The ministry said the jet, which was an Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600, was traveling from Moscow to St Petersburg at the time of the incident. Rosaviatsiya, Russia’s federal air transport agency, said Prigozhin was on board, along with several top Wagner commanders.
Was the accident caught on camera?
Several short clips of the accident have been circulating on all social media. Video published by Telegram channels Mash and Baza shows the jet crashing to the ground in a seemingly uncontrollable spin, leaving a trail of black smoke. It’s not clear from the clip which part of the plane is on fire.
Another clip taken at the crash site shows burning debris strewn across a grassy field.
Is Prigozhin Definitely Dead? Although Rosaviatsiya listed Prigozhin’s name among the passengers on board, it did not explicitly state Wagner’s head had died. As of Wednesday evening, Russian officials said they had found eight bodies, although no names had been releas at the time. All of them are describ as badly burnt. Several Russian media identified the plane’s tail number as RA-02795, which is believed to belong to Prigozhin.
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According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, a second plane linked to Prigozhin with tail number RA-02878 departed from Moscow shortly after the first, but returned to land after news of the crash broke. None of these reports have been officially confirm.
Who Else Was in It?
As well as Prigozhin, Rosaviatsiya said Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian special forces operator and alleged PMC co-founder, was also traveling on the jet, as was Valery Chekalov, whom the US considers Wagner’s deputy chief. The other passengers listed were Sergey Propustin, Evgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin and Nikolay Matuseev, who the Russian news outlet identified as Wagner.
Who is Evgeny Prigozhin?
A successful entrepreneur in the catering industry and a confidant of Russian. President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin founded the Wagner Group, a private military company (PMC), in 2014. Although the Wagner Group was found in 2014 and took part in hostilities in the former Ukrainian territory of Donbass. Prigozhin refused to confirm his role at the company until last year. Wagner’s troops have been operating in several African countries and Syria, where they reportedly clashed with US troops in 2018. As his troops fought a months-long battle in the city of Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine). Prigozhin made a statement routinely to the media and publicly clashed with the Russian Ministry of Defense earlier this year. Prigozhin accused top officials of mismanaging the conflict and denied he had sufficient ammunition.
