The crash of the private plane of the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, overwhelmed media in the past 48 hours as still there are no full details.
However, it became official that Wagner leader and nine others were at the plane, all killed in the incident.
The identities of those who were on board become main questions.
The Russian Federal Aviation Authority announced the names of all the dead, who are seven (including Prigozhin) close to Prigozhin, in addition to three flight crew members of the private plane, owned by the commander of the Wagner Group.
Dmitry Utkin:
Born in 1970, in the Ukrainian city of Kirovograd, during its existence within the Soviet Union, he’s a former senior officer, in the special forces, within a brigade of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel from the Russian army.
Utkin participated in the Special Forces Brigade, in the first and second Chechen wars, and remained in military service until 2013.
He moved to private work, within a private Russian security group, and participated in war in Syria.
He was at the so-called operation of the Slavic Corps, to control the main transportation center in Deir al Zour, eastern Syria.
Since 2015, he founded the Wagner Group, and chose its name because of his fondness for the controversial German musician, Richard Wagner.
Utkin was honored by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, at a ceremony in the Kremlin in honor of “Heroes of the Fatherland Day”, and he was awarded the Medal of Courage.
The founder of Wagner entered into a working relationship with Prigozhin in 2017, through the management of Concord Management and Consulting Company, took over the management of his luxury restaurants, and went on tours with well-known employees of Prigozhin’s security service.
Western reports said that Utkin accompanied Prigozhin on a trip to the Russian Rostov region, in order to recruit prisoners, to work with Wagner as fighters in Ukraine, in exchange for amnesty for their remaining sentences.
He was known for his Nazi tendencies, which is evident from a number of his photos, which show the presence of tattoos of Nazi slogans and symbols.
Valeri Chekalov:
One of the most prominent managers of Prigozhin’s Concorde company, and one of the Russian elite oligarchs, took charge of the school food campaign launched by the company in Moscow, and was primarily responsible for the project.
Chekalov assumed responsibility for Concorde contracts to supply the Russian army with foodstuffs.
He also assumed supervision of all Prigozhin’s civilian investment projects outside Russia, including geological exploration or oil production and agriculture.
He was also responsible for the logistics services of the Wagner Group, assumed the presidency of the GSC Niva Company, and founded the “Euro Police” company, which was associated with projects in Syria and Africa.
Evgeni Makaryan:
A former lieutenant in the Russian police, who bore a military call sign by the name “Makar”, joined Wagner in 2016.
Makaryan participated in many combat missions within the Wagner Group in several regions, most notably the 4th offensive detachment in Syria, which was hit by US aircraft fire in February 2018, and as a result he was wounded in the left thigh, and he is believed to be a member of the security team to protect Prigogine.
Sergey Propostin:
A bodyguard for Prigozhin, who bore a military nicknamed, “Keder”.
He participated in the second Chechen war, and joined the Wagner Group in 2015.
He was part of a special combat unit in Wagner, which in 2016 named the Second Reconnaissance Detachment.
In 2016, Prigozhin selected several members of protection and bodyguards from this unit, because of its capabilities, combat efficiency, and the high-level training it received.
Nikolai Matusev:
One of the members of the Wagner Group, as he joined in 2017.
There’s not much known about the details of his life, however he worked in the ranks of Wagner, as a fighter at the 4th assault detachment that participated in Wagner activates in Syria.
Alexander Totmin:
He born in 1995, he started his life as a boxer participating in schools competitions and local tournaments.
He served at the Russian Special Forces, and resigned from the Russian Special Forces, after serving for a couple of years.
Later, Totmin joined Wagner Group, and due to his combat capabilities and competence, Prigozhin chose him to be one of his bodyguards.
Totmin hails from the Russian city of Altai, but after working with Prigozhin, he moved to St. Petersburg.
As for the three-flight crew:
Alexey Levshin:
The pilot of the plane owned by Prigozhin, works in the field of civil aviation.
Levshin and throughout his life, worked on civil flights, studied Boeing aircraft management in Switzerland, and flew long international flights around the world.
He had been working with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s team for a long time.
Levshin, 51, is married and has a daughter.
Rustom Karimov:
The co-pilot, 29-year-old worked as a pilot in St. Petersburg, he flew commercial flights planes such as A-320 and Emb-135 BJ.
A few days before the plane crash, he celebrated his fourth wedding anniversary.
Graduated from the Sasovo Russian Civil Aviation School, 2014.
Kristina Raspopova:
A flight attendant and the only women at the plane.
She was 39 years old, and her brother works as deputy prosecutor for the Chelyabinsk region in the southern Urals.
Raspopova posted a photo, one day before the plane crash, on her Facebook account, while she was eating her breakfast, and next to her was a small travel bag, which appears clearly in the photo.
