MOSCOW: Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors, the Russian authorities said.

There was no confirmation that Prigozhin was physically on board and Reuters could not immediately confirm that he was on the aircraft.

However, Russia’s aviation agency Rosaviatsia said the founder of Wagner group Prigozhin was on board the plane.

“According to the airline, the following passengers were on board the Embraer — 135 (EBM-135BJ) aircraft:... Prigozhin, Yevgeny,” said Rosaviatsia, which also listed Dmitry Utkin, a shadowy figure who managed Wagner’s operations.

Russia’s emergency situations ministry said in a statement that the aircraft travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg had crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver Region.

It said that 10 people had been on board, including three crew members. According to preliminary information, everyone on board had been killed, it said.

Prigozhin, 62, spearheaded a mutiny against Russia’s top army brass on June 23-24 which President Vladimir Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war.

The mutiny was ended by negotiations and an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But he had appeared to move freely inside Russia after the deal nonetheless.

Prigozhin, who had sought to topple Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, on Monday posted a video address which he suggested was taken in Africa.

Unconfirmed Russian media reports said that Dmitry Utkin, Prigozhin’s right-hand man, was also on board and that Prigozhin and his associates had attended a meeting with officials from the Russian Defence Ministry.

Reuters could not confirm that and there was no immediate comment from the defence ministry or the Kremlin.

Soon after the plane dropped out of the sky, a second private jet linked to Prigozhin which also appeared to be heading to St Petersburg, Prigozhin’s home base, turned back to Moscow, flight tracking data showed, and later landed.

The flight radar 24 online tracker showed that the Embraer Legacy 600 (plane number RA-02795) had dropped off the radar at 6:11pm time. An unverified video clip posted to social media showed a plane resembling a private jet falling out of the sky towards the earth.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2023