Genetic DNA analysis and forensic tests confirm that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, died in the Embraer Legacy plane crash last Wednesday in the Tver region, north of Moscow. The Investigation Committee, which is in charge of the investigation, announced this Sunday that it has identified the ten occupants of the plane, including the head of the main army of Russian mercenaries and his right-hand man, Commander Dimitri Utkin.
After completing the molecular genetic tests, “the identity of the ten dead has been established, which corresponds to the list declared on the flight sheet,” says a message released by the investigators.
According to the list released by the Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia, in addition to those mentioned, five other Prigozhin lieutenants and three crew members were traveling in the device.
The Embraer Legacy private jet crashed in the Tver Oblast on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 23. He was on a journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
Russian President Vladimir Putin waited almost 24 hours to speak about the accident and the disappearance of a man who in recent years was considered a Kremlin ally.
Putin praised him as a talented businessman and a “man with a difficult fate.” He assured that he achieved “results for a common cause”, but also pointed out that he had made “big mistakes”.
The Russian leader did not explain these last words, but he could refer to the rebellion he led at the end of June, when he took up arms against the Russian military leadership and challenged Putin himself. He then spoke of a “stab in the back”, “traitors” and warned of the danger of a “civil war”.
Prigozhin accused his two personal enemies within the Army, the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, of an attack on the camp of his fighters. He asked for them to be arrested and handed over to him and urged other Russian servicemen to join his cause. He then took Rostov-on-Don, a major city in southern Russia, under his control, and thousands of his men marched in column on Moscow. A challenge to Putin himself.
The mutiny ended with an agreement between Prigozhin and the Kremlin with the medication of the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, when the mercenaries were already 200 kilometers from the Russian capital. In exchange for not being punished in Russia, the Wagner Group and Prigozhin himself agreed to go into exile in Belarus and cease their activity in Russia.
Taking this “betrayal” into account, several versions of the cause of the incident have appeared these days. On Russian social networks there has been speculation that it was a surface-to-air missile, a terrorist bomb attack or a Ukrainian drone. From the western secret services and some leaders, Putin’s shadow has been seen.
He denied on Friday that he had killed Yevgeny Prigozhin. Commenting on the West’s version of the involvement of Russian power in the accident, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov said that “all this is a lie.”
Putin’s press secretary complained about Western “speculations” and asked “to wait for the facts to be confirmed by the investigation.”
The causes of the Prigozhin plane crash remain unknown.
Lukashenko said on Friday that he warned Prigozhin through Putin that he had information that an attack was being prepared against him. Lukashenko added that the Wagner leader later confirmed that he had received the notice.
The Belarusian leader also denied the participation of his ally, Vladimir Putin, in what happened. He assured that he could not imagine that “Putin was to blame.”
The Investigation Committee, which has opened a criminal investigation, is studying, according to the newspaper RBK, several hypotheses about the cause of the accident: pilot error, mechanical failure of the plane and an external cause.
