The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency has confirmed that Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board a plane that crashed in the Tver region Wednesday.
The aviation agency reported that, according to the carrier that operated the Embraer that crashed, the following people were on board, in addition to Prigozhin:
- Sergey Propustin
- Evgeniy Makaryan
- Aleksandr Totmin
- Valeriy Chekalov, a senior aide to Prigozhin designated by the US Treasury for acting “for or on behalf of Prigozhin and has facilitated shipments of munitions to the Russian Federation”
- Dmitriy Utkin, a trusted lieutenant of Prigozhin’s since the beginning of the Wagner Group
- Nikolay Matuseev
A Telegram social media channel linked to the Wagner private military group has issued a statement saying Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has been killed in a plane crash north of Moscow.
The channel has previously carried Wagner propaganda videos, and Prigozhin’s official press service has linked to it in the past.
CNN is unable to confirm the assertion. Other channels associated with Prigozhin and Wagner, including his official Telegram channel, have remained silent.
A well-known but unofficial Russian Telegram channel that has been close to Wagner operations, Grey Zone, also claimed that Prigozhin had been killed.
