Wagner Group Leader Prigozhin Confirmed Deceased in Moscow Plane Crash.
Genetic Testing Confirms Identities of Deceased on Wagner Leader’s Ill-Fated Flight, Including Evgeny Prigozhin – Moscow
Russia’s Investigative Committee has officially confirmed the tragic passing of Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company, Wagner Group, in a plane crash earlier this week. In an announcement made on Sunday, Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for the committee, disclosed that Russian investigators had concluded DNA testing on the remains of all individuals who were aboard the Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600 aircraft. This aircraft tragically crashed in the Tver Region on its route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
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Petrenko stated, “The identities of all ten individuals who lost their lives have been established, and they match the flight’s passenger list.”
The list of passengers had previously been released by Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency and included Prigozhin, along with several other high-ranking members of the Wagner Group, among them Dmitry Utkin, reportedly the co-founder of the private military company, and Valery Chekalov, widely recognized as Wagner’s logistics head.
The aircraft’s crew, consisting of two pilots and an air hostess, has also been confirmed as deceased.
Evgeny Prigozhin gained notoriety after his private military company became involved in the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, with a prominent role in the battles around the pivotal Donbass stronghold of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut.
Prigozhin openly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry, accusing it of shelling a field camp operated by his personnel in late June. He then declared a ‘march of justice’ on Moscow in an attempt to root out alleged corrupt officials. However, this rebellion proved short-lived and ended with mediation by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Just last week, Prigozhin released a video that appeared to be filmed in Africa, announcing that the Wagner Group had resumed recruitment and was engaged in reconnaissance and search operations targeting “ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other extremist groups.”
In response to the plane crash involving Prigozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin described him as a “talented” individual with a “complex destiny” who made a significant contribution to combatting neo-Nazism in Ukraine.
