Russia says Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed dead in plane crash

Russia’s Investigative Committee says it has confirmed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder and head of the mercenary power Wagner who led a short-lived armed rebel towards Russia’s army, was killed in a aircraft crash.

Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko mentioned in a press release launched on Sunday that after forensic testing, all 10 our bodies recovered on the web site of Wednesday’s crash had been recognized, and their identities “conform to the manifest”.

Russia’s civil aviation authority earlier this week mentioned Prigozhin, 62, and a few of his prime lieutenants, had been on the listing of the passengers and crew members on board the aircraft.

FILE - In this handout image taken from a video released by Prigozhin Press Service on Friday, May 5, 2023, head of Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin stands in front of multiple bodies lying on the ground in an unknown location. The president of Belarus says the mercenary leader who led a short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin is in Russia and his troops are in their field camps. (Prigozhin Press Service via AP, File) — Russia’s Investigative Committee says it has confirmed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a aircraft crash. (AP)

All seven passengers and three crew died when the aircraft plummeted from the sky midway between Moscow and St Petersburg, Prigozhin’s hometown.

Questions have remained, nonetheless, about whether or not Prigozhin finally would face a comeuppance for the transient rebellion that posed the largest problem to Putin’s authority of his 23-year rule.

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Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, in addition to Wagner logistics mastermind Valery Chekalov, additionally had been killed within the crash. Utkin was lengthy believed to have based Wagner and baptised the group together with his nom de guerre.

The destiny of Wagner, which till not too long ago performed a outstanding position in Russia’s army marketing campaign in Ukraine and was concerned in quite a few African and Middle Eastern nations, has remained unsure.

People carry a physique bag away from the wreckage of a crashed personal jet, close to the village of Kuzhenkino. (AP)

After the mutiny, the Kremlin mentioned Prigozhin can be exiled in Belarus, and his fighters had been supplied three choices: to comply with him there, retire or enlist in Russia’s common military and return to Ukraine, the place Wagner mercenaries had fought alongside Russian troops.

Several thousand Wagner mercenaries opted to maneuver to Belarus, the place a camp was erected for them south-east of the capital, Minsk.

Source: www.9news.com.au