2023-08-23 19:52:08
By Euronews español con EFE, AFP, AP
Published 08/23/2023 – 19:25•Last update 22:31
The leader of the Wagner group Yevgueni Prigozhin would have died when the plane in which he was a passenger crashed. For Ukraine it is “a signal” that Putin sends to the Russian elite. A kyiv presidential adviser has said that the Russian president “does not spare anyone.”
A private Embraer plane crashed on Wednesday in the Russian region of Tver with ten passengers on board, including the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgueni Prigozhin, as confirmed by the civil aviation agency, Rossaviatsia.
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Rossaviatsia specified that among the passengers was not only Prigozhin, who led an armed rebellion against the Kremlin last June, but also his right-hand man, Dmitri Outkine.
Everyone on board died
“According to preliminary data, All those on board have died.”reported the Ministry for Emergency Situations.
The plane was heading from Moscow to St. Petersburg. According to unconfirmed information from the media, the plane belonged to Prigozhinfounder of the private military company Wagner.
Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted emergency officials as saying three pilots and seven passengers were on the plane. Authorities said they were investigating the accident, which occurred in the Tver region, more than 100 kilometers north of Moscow.
The plane’s signal disappeared minutes after takeoff
Flight tracking data shows that a private jet registered to Wagner that Prigozhin had previously used took off from Moscow on Wednesday night and its transponder signal disappeared minutes later.
The signal was lost in a rural region where there are no nearby airfields where the plane could have landed safely.
Prigozhin, whose Wagner private military force fought alongside the Russian regular army in the Ukraine, staged a brief armed mutiny against the Russian military leadership in late June. The Kremlin said that he would be exiled to Belarus, and that his fighters would withdraw, follow him there or join the Russian army.
Soon after, Wagner’s fighters camped in Belarus, but Prigozhin’s plane, according to the media, was going back and forth between Belarus and Russia.
This week Prigozhin posted his first video since the rebellion
This week, Prigozhin posted his first recruitment video since the rebellion, saying Wagner is conducting reconnaissance and search activities, and “making Russia even greater on every continent, and (Africa) even freer.”
“Putin forgives no one”
The first reactions from Ukraine point directly to the Kremlin. A Ukrainian presidential adviser claimed that this is a “signal” sent by Vladimir Putin to the Russian elite.
“The spectacular removal of Prigozhin and Wagner’s command two months after (his) attempted coup is a signal from Putin to Russian elites ahead of the 2024 elections,” Mykhaïlo Podoliak declared on X (formerly Twitter), adding that “Putin spares no one”.
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For the White House, Prigozhin’s death “would not come as a surprise.”
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