2023-08-23 22:49:36
The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgueni Prigozhin, was traveling in the private Embraer plane that crashed in central Russia on Wednesday, the civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported.
The Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations reported the death of the ten occupants of the plane, of which eight bodies have already been recovered.
(Read here: The Wagner group: what is it and what is its relationship with the Russian government?)
The Embraer private plane crashed on Wednesday in the Russian region of Tver with ten passengers on board, including the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgueni Prigozhin, according to the civil aviation agency, Rossaviatsia.
“An investigation has been opened into the Embraer plane disaster that occurred this afternoon in the Tver region. According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” Rossaviatsia told local agencies.
For now, the Russian emergency services rescued eight bodies at the scene of the accident. At the moment, according to the official RIA Novosti agency, the rescue services have not confirmed the identity of the bodies found near the town of Kuzhenkino.
According to the press, the bodies are completely charred, so it will probably be necessary to carry out a DNA test to confirm their identity. The Baza portal ensures that one of the passengers was decapitated in the accident.
The Ministry for Emergency Situations confirmed that the incident took place near the town of Kuzhenkino and that three of the ten people traveling on board the device were crew members.
“According to preliminary data, all those on board have died,” the Ministry for Emergency Situations reported.
The plane crashed in Tver, which is less than 200 kilometers from Moscow, when it was making a flight between the city of Saint Petersburg and the Russian capital.
(Also: The videos of the fatal plane crash in which militia chief Wagner would go)
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, and Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, the governor of Tver, Igor Rudenia, assumed personal control of the investigation into what happened to the civil plane.
Prigozhin, 62, led a failed military rebellion against the Kremlin two months ago, in which he came to take one of the most important cities in southern Russia, Rostov-on-Don.
After the mediation of the Belarusian president, Alexandr Lukashenko, Prigozhin agreed to withdraw his mercenaries and transfer his base to the territory of that former Soviet republic.
After accusing him of treason, Russian President Vladimir Putin received him in the Kremlin, after which Prigozhin announced the restart of Wagner’s operations in Africa.
Precisely, Prigozhin appeared on Monday for the first time since the riot on video, in which he suggested that he had returned to Africa to make Russia “even bigger on all continents.”
“The Wagner Group makes Russia even bigger on all continents and Africa even freer,” Prigozhin says in the recording, broadcast by Telegram channels close to the Russian militia.
What has Putin said?
While the search operations were underway, Russian President Vladimir Putin was taking part in a commemorative ceremony for the Battle of Kursk during World War II, in which he refrained from any allusion to the incident.
In his speech in that region, bordering Ukraine, Putin praised soldiers mobilized for the offensive in the former Soviet republic who “fight with courage and determination.”
“Devotion to the homeland and loyalty to the military oath unite all participants in the special military operation,” he proclaimed, referring to the offensive launched by Russian troops at the end of February 2022.
Putin had branded Prigozhin a “traitor” when he led an uprising by Wagner’s mercenaries against the Russian General Staff and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the end of June, seizing southern Russian barracks and marching on Moscow. .
But the rebellion broke down less than 24 hours later, after an agreement called for Prigozhin to leave for Belarus and for Wagner’s militiamen to join the regular Russian army.
The last of which there was a record
On Monday night, Prigozhin, 62, appeared in a video released by groups close to Wagner claiming to be in Africa.
“We are working. The temperature is above 50 degrees, just the way we like it. The Wagner group is carrying out a reconnaissance mission, making Russia even bigger on all continents and Africa even freer,” he declares in that video, which shows him in a desert landscape.
After the aborted rebellion, a part of Wagner’s militiamen, many of them recruited from Russian prisons, took part in the formation of the Belarusian armed forces.
In the Ukraine, Wagner’s militiamen played a key role in the conquest of the city of Bakhmut (east), after one of the bloodiest battles of this conflict.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE and AFP
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