“An investigation has been launched into the crash of the Embraer aircraft, which occurred tonight in the Tver region,” the Federal Air Transport Agency said in a statement, according to the official state news agency TASS. “According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin.”
There were seven passengers and three crew members on board the private Embraer jet when it crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino, in the Tver region, on Wednesday, according to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Services. All on board were killed, according to preliminary information, the ministry said, adding that they “are conducting search operations.”
Among those on the plane were Utkin Dmitriy, a trusted lieutenant of Prigozhin’s since Wagner was formed, and Prigozhin’s senior aide Valeriy Chekalov, according to list of passengers shared by the Russian aviation agency.
The bodies of eight people have been found at the crash site, state media outlet Russia 24 reported. Earlier, TASS reported the plane “burned up” on impact after being in the air for about half an hour.
Russian investigators have initiated a criminal case following the crash. The Russian Investigative Committee said that a team was on the way to the scene to “establish the causes of the crash.”
The crash comes months after Prigozhin launched a brief rebellion that posed an unprecedented challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority before it was suddenly called off in a deal that required the Wagner chief and his fighters to relocate to Belarus.
Wagner forces were heavily involved in capturing the eastern Ukrainian cities of Soledar and Bakhmut following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Prigozhin then spent months criticizing Russian military leadership and the support it was giving his troops before he called for the armed rebellion.
A senior Ukrainian official told CNN on Wednesday that the plane that crashed north of Moscow “is a manifestation of Putin’s Russia.”
“This is why we are fighting, we don’t want to be a part of Putin’s world,” the senior official, who is close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said.
US President Joe Biden suggested Putin may have been behind the crash. “You may recall, I was asked about this,” Biden told CNN. “I said I would be careful what I rode in. I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised.”
As news of the crash broke, Putin was taking part in an event hundreds of miles away from the site, in the Kursk region, to mark the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany there.
