What caused the plane crash that killed Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin?

The death of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash on Wednesday has left the public with more questions than answers. While the obvious finger of blame is pointed at President Vladimir Putin – CIA chief William Burns and other Russia watchers had predicted Prigozhin was a ‘dead man walking’ and US president Joe Biden said he wasn’t surprised to hear about it – a raft of other theories have been floated.  Let’s take a closer look at what we know and all the leading theories: What we know about the crash Prigozhin, his right-hand man Dmitry Utkin, and eight other people were on board a plane that crashed on Wednesday. Russian officials confirmed that all passengers were killed. CNN quoted a woman from Kuzhenkino telling RIA Novosti she heard the jet and then “something like a bang, like a shot.” “Then suddenly an explosion, I look up and heard a sound above me – it was like pops, like several explosions. The plane started to swerve. Then a plume of smoke emerged and the plane began to descend, to dive.”

Kuzhenkino residents then said they saw a black cloud.

Another resident told the outlet, “A neighbor ran up to me, her hands were shaking. When we got to the window, I saw only one mushroom cloud, like a black cloud.” “She said that it was terrifying. There was a loud bang, then she turned her head to look and the whole plane was in sparkles of fire, it was all lit up. Said they saw it caught fire and began to fall,” she added. Residents of Kuzhenkino, the village near the crash site, said they had heard a bang and then saw the jet plummet to the ground. The plane showed no sign of a problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data. [caption id=“attachment_13036672” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Yevgeny Prigozhin was declared dead by the Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel Grey Zone, which hailed him as a hero and a patriot who had perished at the hands of “traitors to Russia”. Reuters[/caption] One villager, who gave his name as Anatoly, said: “It wasn’t thunder, it was a metallic bang - let’s put it that way.” The Embraer Legacy 600 (EMBR3.SA) executive jet, which had been flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region north of Moscow. A Reuters reporter at the crash site on Thursday morning saw men carrying away black body bags on stretchers. Part of the plane’s tail and other fragments lay on the ground near a wooded area where forensic investigators had erected a tent. The Embraer executive jet model that crashed in Russia had only recorded one accident in more than 20 years of service, and that was not related to mechanical failure. Russian investigators have opened a probe into what happened, but have not yet said what they suspect caused the plane to suddenly fall from the sky northwest of Moscow on Wednesday evening. Nor have they officially confirmed the identities of the 10 bodies recovered from the wreckage. A Telegram channel linked to Wagner, Grey Zone, pronounced Prigozhin dead on Wednesday evening, hailing him as a hero and a patriot who had died at the hands of “traitors to Russia”. Russian militants who fight on Ukraine’s side and have carried out several attacks on Russian border regions urged the Wagner Group to avenge Prigozhin’s death and join their ranks. It was not immediately clear how members of the Wagner Group reacted to their call. Putin ordered the hit The leading theory from many Russia experts is that Putin ordered the hit on Prigozhin. Speaking to MSNBC, Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis called it a ‘public execution.’

“The only mystery here is why it took so long,” Stavridis added.

Stavridis had in June called Prigozhin ‘a snake whose head has been cut off’ and warned that Putin was a ‘never forgive, never forget’ type of person. Stavridis, a four-star general, added, “What really struck me and chills me is the public nature of this. This was essentially a public execution.” Stavridis said it is a marker of just how ‘deadly, lethal and unscrupulous’ Putin is. [caption id=“attachment_13033432” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Face masks depicting Russian president Vladimir Putin and owner of private military company Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin are displayed among others for sale at a souvenir shop in St. Petersburg, Russia. File image/AP[/caption] CNN quoted Putin critic Bill Browder as saying he was ‘surprised’ the Wagner chief lived for as long as he did after the uprising. Browder posted on X:

 Surface-to-air missile Top US officials say it is likely that a surface-to-air missile from inside Russia brought down the plane carrying Prigozhin and his inner circle. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the information was still preliminary and under review, and did not rule out a change to the assessment.  But the US Department of Defence on Thursday said there was currently no information to suggest that a surface-to-air missile took down the plane. Another official said that there were a number of theories and no definitive conclusion had been reached. It is not uncommon for there to be competing, even contradictory, intelligence views in the US government in the hours and days after major international events.  Bomb or sabotage?  The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, quoted unnamed US officials as saying that the crash was not caused by surface-to-air missiles but rather by a bomb aboard the aircraft or some other form of sabotage. Ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, of the famed Steele Dossier, told Sky News it is possible that a bomb in a wine crate caused the plane to go down.

“That’s a kind of ironic end for Putin’s former caterer,” Steele added.

LBC quoted family of a 39-year-old flight attendant on board the aircraft as saying that the flight was delayed after “maintenance or some urgent repairs”. Stavridis also subscribes to the bomb theory, telling MSNBC, “Who is randomly filming a private jet between Moscow and St Petersburg? We have very dramatic footage…They knew roughly when the bomb would go off.” The Baza news outlet, which has good sources among law enforcement agencies, reported that investigators were focusing on a theory that one or two bombs may have been planted on board. Faked his death? But some have suggested that Prigozhin may have faked his own death. Daily Mirror quoted Keir Giles, from the London-based think tank Chatham House, as saying, “It’s been announced that a passenger by the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board - but it is also known that multiple individuals have changed their name to Yevgeny Prigozhin, as part of his efforts to obfuscate his travels. Let’s not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa.” ‘Made bad mistakes’ US president Joe Biden on Wednesday said he was not surprised by reports that Prigozhin had died in a plane crash, adding that not much happens in Russia that President Vladimir Putin was not behind. The crash came months after Prigozhin launched a short-lived rebellion – seen as the biggest challenge to Putin’s authority since he came to power. Prigozhin, 62, head of the Wagner mercenary group, frequently criticized the Russian army top brass over what he said was its incompetent prosecution of the war in Ukraine. At the time, President Vladimir Putin denounced the rebellion as “treason” and a “stab in the back” and vowed to avenge it.

But the charges against Prigozhin were soon dropped.

The Wagner chief, whose troops were some of the best fighting forces for Russia in Ukraine, was allowed to retreat to Belarus, while reportedly popping up in Russia from time to time. While portraying it as a purely private commercial operation, the Kremlin has used Wagner to expand Russian influence on the continent in competition with Western powers such as France and the United States. Prigozhin and a Russian company he controlled were indicted in 2018 and accused of funding a propaganda operation to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election to sway it in favour of Republican candidate Donald Trump and to disparage rival Hillary Clinton. Putin on Thursday said he wished to express sincere condolences to the families of those who died in the crash, and said it was necessary to await the outcome of the official investigation. [caption id=“attachment_13012522” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Russian president Vladimir Putin offered sincere condoleences to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s family. AP[/caption] Putin’s comments, which suggested he harboured decidedly mixed feelings about Wagner’s mercenary boss, were the most definitive yet on Prigozhin’s fate. Putin paid generous tribute to the renegade mercenary calling him a talented businessman who knew how to look after his own interests and who could, when asked, do his bit for the common cause. But he also described Prigozhin as a flawed character who had made some bad mistakes. “I want to express my most sincere condolences to the families of all the victims. It’s always a tragedy,” Putin said in televised remarks made during a meeting in the Kremlin with the Moscow-installed chief of Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. “I had known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the start of the 90s. He was a man with a difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life.” Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, one of Putin’s most loyal allies, said that Prigozhin was his friend and he had asked the mercenary chief “to set aside his personal ambitions”. With inputs from agencies