Wagner Founder Prigozhin Reported Dead in Fiery Plane Crash

Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was aboard an Embraer business jet that crashed Wednesday in the Tver Region of Russia, the Russian federal aviation agency Rosaviatsiya confirmed on Wednesday.

Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said that all ten people on board died in the incident, according to TASS.

The plane was flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry. The Federal Air Transport Agency is launching an investigation into the incident, and is working to collect materials about the training of the crew onboard, the condition of the aircraft, the meteorological situation on the route, and the world of ground radio equipment, according to Rosaviatsiya.

The plane reportedly disappeared from radar at 6:20 p.m. local time, according to the Grey Zone, a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel. The dispatchers reportedly tried to contact the crew but were unsuccessful, after which air traffic controllers contacted the Ministry of Defense.

According to flight-tracking data observed by Reuters, the flight appeared to fine until its final 30 seconds, when it plummeted from the air.

“Whatever happened, happened quickly,” Ian Petchenik of Flightradar24 told the outlet, noting the plane made a “sudden downward vertical” at 3:19 p.m. GMT. There was “no indication that there was anything wrong with this aircraft,” before its sudden drop, Petchenik said, adding that Flightradar24 received its final data on the jet at 3:20 p.m.

Rosaviatsiya said the airline reported Evgeniy Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, a high-ranking Wagner commander, were on the crashed plane, as well as Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, and Nikolay Matuseev. Crew members also aboard included Aleksei Levshin, Rustam Karimov, Kristina Raspopova, a flight attendant.

The news of the apparent death of the Wagner boss comes weeks after he led his Wagner mercenaries to march on Moscow in protest of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the way it was handling Russia’s war in Ukraine, believed to be the largest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power in decades.

His failed rebellion in Russia in June led to tense negotiations between Putin and Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko. Ultimately, the three brokered a deal in which Prigozhin would call off his rebellion and get exiled, along with his Wagner fighters, to neighboring Belarus.

While Prigozhin was leading Wagner mercenaries’ fighting in Ukraine, he publicly raised complaints with the Russian Ministry of Defense about a lack of ammunition and the rate of death of the Wagner mercenaries.

Many Russia watchers at the time predicted that Prigozhin would not be long for this world after the public challenge to Putin’s rule.

Some pro-Russian Telegram channels warned Wednesday that although Prigozhin’s name was on the list of passengers on the plane, it is possible that he wasn’t on it. Prigozhin has long been suspicious of his personal security, and would register for flights but board others to be sure he wasn’t being targeted.

In the wake of his reported death, though, many Ukraine supporters took to social media to mock him with his own words, sharing a clip of him yelling, “Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where’s the fucking ammo?”

Wagner soldiers reportedly responded to Prigozhin’s death in a video message that appeared on social media: “There’s a lot of talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do. We can tell you one thing. We are getting started, get ready for us.” It is unclear who the soldiers were directing their message to. Three soldiers appear in the video–which has not been verified– with their faces covered.

The plane crash is likely no accident, said Ronald Marks, a former clandestine service officer and special assistant to the assistant director of central intelligence for military affairs at the CIA. Prigozhin’s assassination has likely been in the works since the moment he stepped foot in Rostov-on-Don in Russia to stage his march on Moscow, Marks told The Daily Beast.

“It may be one of the least surprising assassinations I’ve ever seen. It was inevitable. There’s no way in the world in that state that Putin could have allowed him to exist for any extended period of time” after “an embarrassing stunt on the international stage,” Marks told The Daily Beast.

“Russia is a mafia-like state. You don’t shoot at the don and miss without consequences” Marks said.

The future of the Prigozhin empire remains uncertain at this hour.

After the failed revolt in Russia earlier this summer, much had changed for Prigozhin’s operations around the globe. Russia blocked the sites of several Wagner-associated propaganda operations, and Prigozhin reportedly announced they were shutting down.

Although reports suggested that Wagner would dissolve—worrying some African countries that rely on Wagner for weapons and military advisers—recruitment for Wagner had continued.

The exile of Wagner fighters in Belarus currently hangs in the balance as well. Although U.S. officials had confirmed that Wagner fighters had funneled into Belarus in recent weeks, just in the last several days, hundreds of Wagner men have begun to leave the country over apparent dissatisfaction with their decreased pay, according to an assessment of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

A Russian journalist who investigates Wagner cited sources close to the group as saying “it will be a miracle if [Prigozhin] is on another plane," adding that “the entire command staff” of the mercenary group was with Prigozhin at the time of the crash.

Vladimir Rogov, one of the Kremlin’s puppet leaders in occupied Ukraine, said he’d “just spoken to some prominent ‘musicians’” who confirmed that both Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin died in the crash. Wagner fighters are frequently referred to as “musicians” as an unofficial nickname. “May the recently departed Yevgeny and Dmitry rest in peace with God,” Rogov wrote on Telegram.

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Services did not immediately return a request for comment and hung up on The Daily Beast when this reporter reached an operator.

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