Furious Wagner have vowed to take revenge for Prigozhin death – insisting that the “Kremlin will be taken”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was among 10 people killed in a crash north of Moscow this evening, Russian officials have said.
Prigozhin was among seven passengers onboard the Embraer aircraft en route from Moscow to St Petersburg, with three crew also on-board.
Wagner-linked Telegram channels have since warned of “consequences” over the killing of Prigozhin.
One says that the “Kremlin will be taken”. Unconfirmed media reports say the jet belonged to Prigozhin, who founded the Wagner private military company.
Russia’s civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, said Prigozhin was on the passenger list. While it was not immediately clear if he had boarded the flight, Russian officials later confirmed his being on board.
READ MORE: Prigozhin’s death means ‘end of Wagner’ but Putin ‘won’t escape civil war’
Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported the jet was shot down by air defences in the Tver region, north of the Russian capital. Tass reported that the aircraft had been in the air for less than an hour.
They said in a statement tonight: “The head of the Wagner Group, Hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia.”
Flight tracking data reviewed shows a private jet registered to Wagner, which Prigozhin had used previously, take off from Moscow on Wednesday evening and its transponder signal disappearing minutes later. The signal was lost in a rural region where there are no nearby airfields where the jet could have landed safely.
Rosaviatsia said: “An investigation has been launched into the Embraer plane crash that occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the passenger list, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin.”
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The crash comes two days after Prigozhin made his first video appearance since Wagner’s failed mutiny. That mutiny began on June 23, exactly two months to the day of the crash.
In a short clip, Prigozhin claims Wagner is making Africa “more free”, fighting Islamist militants and searching for natural resources.
Wagner was believed to be recruiting again and focusing more attention on Africa which the military business considers a lucrative source of income.
The Kremlin had said after the failed mutiny that Prigozhin would be exiled to Belarus, and his fighters would either retire, follow him there, or join the Russian military.
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