Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Russian Wagner mercenary group, was presumably lifeless when a personal jet carrying him and 9 others crashed over Russia Wednesday, emergency officers mentioned.
Russia’s state news company Tass cited emergency officers as saying that the aircraft carried three pilots and 7 passengers. It was not initially clear if Prigozhin was amongst these on board, although Russia’s civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, mentioned he was on the passenger checklist.
The aircraft was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg and went down within the Tver area, greater than 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital. Authorities are investigating.
Flight monitoring knowledge reviewed by The Associated Press reveals a personal jet registered to Wagner that Prigozhin had used beforehand took off from Moscow on Wednesday night and its transponder sign disappeared minutes later.
The sign was misplaced in a rural area the place there are not any close by airfields the place the jet might have landed safely.
Prigozhin, whose personal army drive Wagner fought alongside Russia’s common military in Ukraine, mounted a short-lived armed mutiny towards Russia’s army management in late June. The Kremlin mentioned he can be exiled to Belarus, and his fighters would both retire, observe him there, or be a part of the Russian army.
Shortly after that, Wagner fighters arrange camp in Belarus, however Prigozhin’s aircraft, in line with media studies, was flying forwards and backwards between Belarus and Russia.
This week, Prigozhin posted his first recruitment video for the reason that mutiny, saying that Wagner is conducting reconnaissance and search actions, and “making Russia even better on all continents, and Africa much more free.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com
