Latest information on Wagner Prigozhin's plane crash

Russian authorities have confirmed that the name of Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a private plane that crashed en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg on August 24, killing all on board.

What information has been confirmed?

The Russian Emergencies Ministry confirmed that the plane crashed in the Tver region, and that all three crew members and seven passengers on board were killed. The ministry said the plane was an Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600, which crashed during a flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

Rosaviatsiya, Russia's federal aviation agency, said that Mr Prighozhin and several senior Wagner commanders were on board the plane.

Was the accident caught on camera?

Several short clips of the crash have been circulating on social media. The videos, posted by the Telegram channels Mash and Baza, show the plane plummeting to the ground in an uncontrolled spiral, leaving a trail of black smoke behind. It is unclear from the videos which part of the plane was on fire.

Other clips, believed to be filmed at the scene of the crash, show burning debris scattered across the grass.

Is Mr. Prigozhin dead?

Although Rosaviatsiya said Prigozhin’s name was on the plane’s boarding list, it did not specify that the Wagner leader had died. By the evening of August 24, Russian officials said they had recovered eight bodies, but had not released their identities. All of the bodies were badly burned.

Several Russian news outlets have identified the tail number of the plane as RA-02795, which is believed to belong to Prigozhin. According to flight tracking site FlightRadar24, a second plane linked to Prigozhin with the tail number RA-02878 took off from Moscow shortly after the first flight, but turned back after news of the crash. None of this information has been officially confirmed.

Who else was on the plane?

In addition to Prigozhin, Rosaviatsiya said Dmitry Utkin, a co-founder of a private military company, was also on the flight, along with Valery Chekalov, who the US said was the deputy commander of the Wagner group. The remaining passengers, identified by Russian news channels as members of Wagner, were Sergey Propustin, Evgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, and Nikolay Matuseev.

Who is Evgeny Prigozhin?

A successful businessman and a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin founded the Wagner Group — a private military company (PMC) — in 2014. Although Wagner was founded in 2014 and has been involved in combat operations in the Donbass region, Prigozhin refused to confirm his role in the company until last year.

Wagner fighters have operated in several African countries and in Syria, where they reportedly clashed with US forces in 2018.

As his troops fought a months-long battle for the city of Artyomovsk/Bakhmut, Mr. Prigozhin spoke frequently to the media and publicly clashed with the Russian Defense Ministry earlier this year, accusing senior officials of mismanaging the conflict and failing to provide him with enough ammunition.

Wagner's Rebellion

In June, Prigozhin said that Russian forces had shelled a Wagner Group training camp where private military company soldiers were regrouping and repairing weapons after seizing Artyomovsk the previous month. Following the incident, Prigozhin announced his intention to send troops to Moscow with the aim of removing military officials he claimed were corrupt.

Putin called the uprising a “stab in the back” and promised to take “decisive steps” to restore order. However, less than a day after it began, the uprising was put down thanks to mediation by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Prigozhin agreed that those who joined the uprising would be sent to Belarus, while those who refused would be placed in units under the control of the Russian Defense Ministry.

After two months of silence, Mr. Prigozhin posted a video on August 21 that appeared to be filmed in Africa. In the video, he said that Wagner had started recruiting again and was conducting “search and reconnaissance operations” against “ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other bandits” across the continent.