The Wagner Group’s leaders said in a brief statement that Yevgeny Prigozhin and his deputy Dmitry Utkin were on board the Embraer RA-02795 that crashed on Wednesday in the Tver region. Their bodies were identified shortly afterward.
The plane took off from Seremetyevo at 5:54 Moscow time and was headed for Pulkovo, but it disappeared from radar 26 minutes after take-off.
The Federal Aviation Agency has set up a special commission to investigate the circumstances and causes of the accident. The FSB has also launched an investigation.
The aircraft was flying on the Moscow-St. Petersburg route with seven passengers and three crew on board.
Footage of the plane’s burning wreckage was believed to have been posted on social media.
The commission started to collect facts about the training of the crew, the technical condition of the aircraft, the meteorological situation on the flight route, the work of the dispatching services, and the ground radio equipment.
Semyon Pegov, the editor of War Gonzo, provided video footage of the accident scene.
Another Wagner group aircraft, registration RA-02748, was also in the air at the time of the crash. It then changed course and landed in Moscow.
Ever since his abortive coup attempt in June, Prigozhin’s whereabouts were rarely known exactly, and those close to him said he often traveled under various aliases.
