News from Moscow, 10 people killed at a private plane crashed north of Moscow.
Russia’s Civil Aviation Authority said Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of the plane that crashed.
According to the Russian Ministry of Emergencies, the plane that crashed north of Moscow – with Prigozhin on board – was heading from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
Photos of the plane crash, which Prigozhin was on board, were published on social media.
In the initial reactions, Sergei Markov, former adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Prigozhin’s death is the main achievement for Ukraine, and all enemies of Russia will rejoice.
Prigozhin owns a group of companies, including companies accused of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election.
He, his companies and his partners are subject to economic sanctions and criminal charges in the United States.
Prigozhin controls a network of companies, including the paramilitary Wagner Group, which recruits armed mercenaries in several regions of the world, such as Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and conflict areas in some countries of the Sahara and Sahel in Africa, to support pro-Russian parties and take care of Moscow’s interests.
Wagner fighters had been campaigning alongside the regular Russian army for months in Moscow’s war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022.
In the last week of last June, Wagner’s forces declared their rebellion against the Russian military leadership, and had already captured the city of Rostov in the southwest of the country, but the intervention of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko led to a reduction in tension, and Wagner’s forces retreated to their barracks.
Reportedly, the Kremlin promised Prigozhin immunity from prosecution, and one of the conditions of the amnesty was his departure to neighboring Belarus. However, it was reported that Prigozhin appeared again in Russia on the sidelines of the Africa Summit in St. Petersburg at the end of last July.
