Notorious Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has been killed in a plane crash along with 10 people on board.
A private business jet owned by Prigozhin has crashed in Russia killing everyone on board – and the notorious warlord was on the passenger list, the Russian Civil Aviation Authority confirmed.
The business jet was en route from Moscow to St Petersburg when it plummeted to the ground and exploded in a fireball in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow. Ten people were on board – three of them crew members.
Prigozhin, 62, had led a coup against Putin’s regime exactly two months ago. He had been warned that his life was in danger. A channel linked to Wagner said the plane had been shot down by air defences. There was no offocial confirmation of this.
Dramatic footage posted online shows an aircraft plummeting in a straight line from the sky down onto the group, and exploding in flames.