Investigators trawl site of plane crash believed to have killed Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin

Two months after leading a mutiny against the army leadership, investigators searched through the wreckage of a plane believed to be carrying Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on Thursday. Even though a criminal investigation was launched, there was no official word on what may have caused the crash on Wednesday night, and the aviation authority’s assertion that Prigozhin was on board was the only official confirmation of his death. Additionally, neither the Kremlin nor the Defence Ministry commented on what became to Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group and an open adversary of the army’s senior leadership for what he claimed was its inept conduct of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Virtual remarks were delivered by President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS conference in South Africa, which his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was also attending. Neither mentioned the reported plane tragedy that claimed the lives of ten individuals. State media barely mentioned the disaster. In addition to carrying top members of Prigozhin’s staff, the Embraer Legacy 600 (EMBR3.SA) executive aircraft that crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver area north of Moscow was travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Residents of Kuzhenkino said they had heard a bang and then saw the jet plummet to the ground. One villager, who gave his name as Anatoly, said: “In terms of what might have happened, I’ll just say this: it wasn’t thunder, it was a metallic bang - let’s put it that way.” Unnamed sources told Russian media they believed the plane had been shot down by one or more surface-to-air missiles. Mourners left flowers and lit candles near Wagner’s offices in St. Petersburg. On Wednesday night, 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” it had not named. In the absence of concrete evidence, some of his followers have blamed the Russian government while others have blamed Ukraine, which was set to celebrate its Independence Day on Thursday. Regardless of who or what caused the accident, Putin would no longer have to deal with someone who had launched the most significant threat to his authority since he took office in 1999. Wagner, which provoked Putin’s wrath in June by mounting a failed mutiny against the army high brass, would similarly be left without a leader following Prigozhin’s death. According to flight-tracking data, the jet did not exhibit any symptoms of a problem until a sharp descent in the last 30 seconds of flight. All 10 passengers on the downed aircraft were identified by name by Rosaviatsia, including Prigozhin and his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin. Former Putin speechwriter turned critic Abbas Gallyamov claimed without providing any proof that the Russian president was responsible for the crash and had since increased his power. “The establishment is now convinced that it will not be possible to oppose Putin,” Gallyamov wrote on Telegram. “Putin is strong enough and capable of revenge.” Bill Browder, a businessman with years of experience in Russia and another Kremlin critic, agreed with that theory. “Putin never forgives and never forgets. He looked like a humiliated weakling with Prigozhin running around without a care in the world (after the mutiny). This will cement his authority,” Browder wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters he did not know what had happened. “But I’m not surprised,” Biden said on Wednesday. “There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind.” At 6:11 PM (1511 GMT), the flightradar24 online tracker indicated that the aircraft had fallen off the radar. Unverified social media video footage revealed what appeared to be a private flight plummeting to the ground. A second private aeroplane believed to be connected to Prigozhin, which also appeared to be travelling to St. Petersburg, his home base, shortly after the plane crashed, turned back to Moscow and subsequently landed, according to flight monitoring data. On June 23–24, Prigozhin, 62, led the army coup that Putin claimed had the potential to plunge Russia into civil war. During the uprising, Wagner fighters fired down Russian helicopters, angering the military and killing an unknown number of pilots. He had also spent months condemning Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, which Moscow refers to as a “special military operation,” and had attempted to assassinate Valery Gerasimov, the head of the General Staff, and Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister. Many Russians had questioned how he had been allowed to criticise so blatantly without suffering any repercussions. A purported Kremlin agreement that saw Prigozhin consent to move to Belarus’ adjacent country put a stop to the rebellion. But in reality, following the arrangement that allegedly secured his personal protection, he seemed to be able to roam around without restriction inside of Russia. On Monday, Prigozhin published a video speech that he said was produced in Africa. He showed up during a July conference between Russia and Africa in St. Petersburg. (With agency inputs)