Who is Dmitry Utkin, the Wagner commander who reportedly died in Russian plane crash?

A Russian plane that crashed Wednesday was carrying both Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and a mercenary commander known as his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, according to Russia’s civilian aviation authority.

The deaths are unconfirmed by authorities, who have only cited a passenger list. But Russian media outlets and Wagner-affiliated social media accounts are reporting that both men died in the crash, the cause of which has yet to be explained.

Prigozhin was the face of the Wagner Group, while Utkin was his second-in-command and played a key role in the formation of the private military company.

Wagner-affiliated Telegram account The Grey Zone mourned Utkin on Thursday, sharing old pictures of him and calling him an experienced military fighter incomparable “with anyone in the world.”

Though Utkin has a controversial history, Wagner fighters respected him, with The Grey Zone describing him with “high growth and good physical fitness, as well as a peculiarly heavy look that many fighters remember.”

“He was absolutely respectful and reverent towards the team of his fighters, for which he received inversely incommensurable respect,” the account posted.

The Wagner Group has been accused of horrendous human rights abuses across the world, particularly in Africa, and has historically close ties to the Kremlin.

Utkin, a veteran of the Chechen wars in the ’90s and early 2000s, was a former member of the military intelligence branch known as GRU and a former commander of an elite Spetsnaz special soldiers unit.

He left the military in 2013 and joined Moran Security Group, another Russian private security company that has operated across the world.

After leading his own mercenary group to fight in eastern Ukraine during a separatist rebellion, Utkin formed the Wagner Group in 2014.

Utkin is considered a co-founder, although the title often goes solely to Prigozhin because of his highly public profile as a known financier of the private military company.

Prigozhin denied his role in founding Wagner Group until September 2022, when he claimed he founded the mercenary company to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

According to the Center for International and Security Studies, Utkin named the company after his old callsign “Wagner,” which may in turn be a reference to famed German musician and composer Richard Wagner (pronounced Vogner). Utkin reportedly was a neo-Nazi who venerated Nazi Germany, and Richard Wagner was Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer.

Prigozhin launched a short-lived mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin in June after protesting what he called widespread corruption among the Russian elite and a failure to prosecute the war in Ukraine.

The rebellion was scrapped after Prigozhin reached a deal — brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — to exile himself in Belarus in return for Putin to drop terrorism charges against him.

It’s unclear what role Utkin played in the rebellion as he had largely stayed out of the spotlight and left the publicity to Prigozhin.

But Utkin was considered the right-hand man to Prigozhin and was regarded highly among the soldiers.

The Wagner account Reverse Side of the Medal said Utkin was looked up to as a man of “unbending will and fortitude” who inspired confidence on the battlefield.

In the West, Utkin is seen as a human rights abuser for his role in deadly conflicts across the world.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the co-founder of Wagner Group for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Kyiv has also sanctioned Utkin.

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