According to the news agency reutersAn Embraer Legacy 600 private jet crashed on August 23 near the village of Kuzenkino in Russia’s Tver region while en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
All 10 people on board including 7 passengers and 3 crew members died in the accident. Russia’s Civil Aviation Agency confirmed on 23 August that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private military company Wagner, was on the plane.
Mr. Prigozhin was accompanied by Wagner’s senior command, which included two notable names, Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chkalov. Dmitry Utkin was a former Russian special forces operative and is believed to have co-founded the Wagner Organization with Prigozhin. Meanwhile, Valery Chkalov is believed to be Wagner’s deputy commander on the US side.
The remaining names – Sergei Propstin, Evgeny Makarian, Alexander Totmin and Nikolay Matusiev – were all identified by the Russian press as Wagner’s people.
Workers of emergency forces carry body bags to the crash site in the Tver region of Russia on August 24 Photo: Reuters
Russian news agency RIA Novosti The wreckage of the aircraft was scattered about 2 km from the spot. The plane crash comes nearly two months after Prigozhin led an unsuccessful uprising in Russia.
According to flight tracking site FlightRadar24, the Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft showed no signs of malfunction until the final 30 seconds of the crash.
Commenting on the plane’s sudden vertical descent, veteran science and aerospace reporter Miles O’Brien told the radio station. CNN The cause could be an explosion inside or outside the aircraft – it is possible that the aircraft was detonated by an explosive or that it was hit by a missile.
station wise CNNThe Kremlin and the Russian Defense Ministry have yet to comment on the accident. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has launched a criminal investigation, while the Russian Federal Aviation Administration (Rosaviation) has also established a Special Investigative Committee.
Overview of the crash of the plane carrying Wagner
Samuel Charap of the RAND Organization (USA) concluded: “This is the end of Wagner as we know it”.
However, according to the magazine political manExperts have warned that in the near future, even the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin will face a very different Wagner organization without Mr. Prigozhin.
Mr Charap and four observers based in Russia in the US said Russia could allow Wagner troops to “operate freely” in Africa under the leadership of a calm man. Meanwhile, expert Eric Green commented, “It will be difficult for Russia to campaign in Africa as effectively as it did under Prigozhin.”
Experts agree that the biggest question for Moscow right now is what to do with the more than 3,000 Wagner members in Belarus. The force has recently taken part in training of Belarusian special forces near the Polish border.
The Russian Defense Ministry may continue to recruit some Wagner soldiers into the regular army and deploy them in Ukraine or elsewhere.
However, Max Bergman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) argues that a lack of unity within the Russian military ranks could complicate Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.
