Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian Wagner mercenary group that staged a short-lived mutiny against the military top brass in June, was listed on the passenger manifest of a private plane that crashed outside Moscow on Wednesday, killing all 10 people on board. The Russian authorities have not confirmed his death.
One day after the crash, here’s what to know:
What happened?
The plane that listed Mr. Prigozhin as a passenger left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Wednesday at about 6 p.m. local time, bound for St. Petersburg. It crashed in a wooded area near the village of Kuzhenkino, in Tver region, less than 100 miles northwest of Moscow.
RIA Novosti, the Russian state media agency, later that day posted an unconfirmed video that appeared to show a plane that was out of control and falling almost vertically from the sky, trailed by a cloud of pale gray smoke. The shaky video, which appears to have been shot from a cellphone, did not show the plane’s impact.
Video footage shared on the Telegram messaging app appeared to show the aircraft, an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, burning on the ground. The paint and a partial registration number, RA-02795, visible on the aircraft match a jet that Mr. Prigozhin is known to use.
Emergency workers were at the crash site on Thursday, and photographs published by Russian and international media showed parts of the plane, including a section of a blue wing or tail fin.
Russia’s aviation authority offered no comment on the reason for the crash, and announced that it had created a special commission to investigate “the circumstances and causes of the accident.”
Who was on board?
The flight’s passenger manifest, released by Russian authorities, listed 10 people on board. The seven passengers listed included Mr. Prighozin and Wagner’s top commander, Dmitri Utkin. It also listed three crew members. Russia’s aviation authorities said that everyone on board had been killed.
Was Mr. Prigozhin killed?
Grey Zone, a Telegram account associated with the Wagner group, said that Mr. Prighozin was dead. But there has been no official confirmation of his fate from Wagner or the Russian authorities.
A senior Western intelligence official said that Prigozhin was on board the plane that crashed. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments, said the judgment was based on “many indicators” that his government had evaluated. American officials said they could not confirm Mr. Prigozhin had been killed in the plane crash, or why the jet went down.
What has the Kremlin said?
There has been no comment from the Kremlin on the crash or on Mr. Prigozhin’s fate. In his only public comments since Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia delivered brief remarks by video link to a summit of BRICS nations taking place in South Africa on Thursday. He made no mention of the latest events in Russia or Ukraine.
Who is Mr. Prigozhin?
Emerging from jail as the…
2023-08-24 07:37:41
Post from www.nytimes.com
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