The death of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was confirmed after the plane he was flying on fell out of the sky in northern Russia near Kuzhenkino, Russia. The mercenary leader had tried to stage a mutiny against the Ukraine War was in fact on a plane that crashed, killing all on board. The Embraer Legacy was registered to one of Prigozhin’s companies.
Genetic testing was required to confirm that the bodies at the crash site were actually the names on the manifest for the flight, one of whom was Prigozhin. Russia’s civil aviation authority said some of the other passengers were members of his inner circle.
No cause has been given for the crash of the business jet, which is shown in footage obtained by BBC, falling from the sky somewhere between Moscow and St. Petersburg, where Prigozhin is from.
The timing of the crash raised questions of a possible Kremlin-directed hit. Prigozhin’s fate has been speculated over since his mutiny attempt against Russian military leadership earlier this summer. He was said to have been in the process of being exiled to Belarus.