The leader of the paramilitary formation, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane that crashed in Russia.
The boss of the paramilitary group Wagner Yevgeny Prigojine, at the origin of a rebellion in June, his deputy and the eight other passengers died in the crash of a small private plane on Wednesday in Russia.
The Russian air transport agency Rossaviatsia has confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board the plane operating from Moscow to Saint Petersburg which crashed in the Tver region, killing all occupants.
“According to the airline, the following passengers were on board the Embraer – 135 plane,” Rossaviatsia said, citing the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin but also that of his right arm Dmitri Utkin.
“There were ten people on board, including three crew members. According to the first information, all the people on board died”, had indicated a little earlier on Telegram the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. According to him, this Embraer Legacy private plane crashed near the village of Kujenkino, in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow.
Videos whose authenticity AFP could not confirm were broadcast on several Telegram channels claiming to be linked to Wagner, showing burning debris in a field or a device falling from the sky.
According to an emergency services official quoted by the Ria Novosti agency, the bodies of eight people have so far been found at the crash site. The TASS agency mentioned seven bodies recovered.
An investigation has been opened for "violation of air transport security rules". “A team of investigators was sent to the scene (…) to establish the causes of the accident,” the Russian Investigation Committee said in a statement. According to Rossaviatsia, the plane belonged to the company MNT-Aero, which specializes in business transport.
Putin praises the soldiers
As operations continue, President Vladimir Putin gave a speech on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk in World War II, visiting this region of southwestern Russia, bordering Ukraine.
Without mentioning the crash, Vladimir Putin praised on stage in front of the crowd the “dedication” and “loyalty” of the Russian soldiers in Ukraine, who “fight with courage and determination”.
An adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, implied that Evguéni Prigojine could have been eliminated by the Kremlin. “The dramatic elimination of Prigozhin and Wagner's command two months after (their) coup attempt is a signal from Putin to the Russian elites ahead of the 2024 elections,” he wrote on X (ex- Twitter), believing that "Putin does not forgive anyone".
US President Joe Biden told him he was "not surprised" by the possible death of Wagner's boss. "Few things happen in Russia without Putin having something to do with it," he said.
Belarusian opposition leader in exile Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called Prigozhin a "murderer" who "no one will miss". She hoped on X that "his death could dismantle Wagner's presence in Belarus", a country allied with Moscow.
Video in Africa
Yevgeny Prigozhin instigated a rebellion in June against the Russian General Staff and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, led by his men, who briefly captured military sites in southern Russia before to go to Moscow. Vladimir Putin had called him a "traitor", without pronouncing his name.
Evguéni Prigojine had quickly given up on this mutiny, in the midst of the conflict in Ukraine. It ended on the evening of June 24 with an agreement providing for his departure to Belarus, while his fighters could join him there, enter the regular Russian army or return to civilian life.
But on Monday evening, the Wagner boss appeared in a video posted by groups close to Wagner on social media, where he claimed to be in Africa. In a desert landscape and armed with an assault rifle, he said he was working to "make Russia even greater on all continents and Africa even more free".
After the revolt, part of Wagner's fighters went to Belarus, where they participated in the training of the armed forces of this country allied with Moscow. However, for some reason never explained, the boss of Wagner seemed to come and go in Russia despite his pariah status, until he participated a few days after his revolt in a meeting in the Kremlin.
In Ukraine, Evgeni Prigojine distinguished himself during the long and bloody battle for Bakhmout, in the East, where his men, notably recruited from Russian prisons, captured the city in May at the cost of heavy losses. A "meat grinder", he said himself. It was during this battle that his conflict with senior Russian military officials escalated, with Yevgeny Prigozhin accusing them of incompetence and not delivering enough ammunition to him.
Wagner also has a presence in several African countries including the Central African Republic, Mali and Libya. In July, Vladimir Putin assured that he had offered Wagner's men to serve under the command of another person in the army, but that their leader, Yevgeny Prigojine, had refused the offer.
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