The aircraft on which Yevgeny Prigozhin was travelling had long been linked with the Wagner group. An Embraer Legacy 600 jet, the flight tracking service FlightRadar identified it as being in regular use in recent months, flying from both St Petersburg and Moscow.
According to some reports, the Wagner party on board had been attending a meeting with officials from Russia’s defence ministry.
The aircraft, manufactured in 2007, fell under US Treasury sanctions in 2019 when it was listed under a prior registration, M-SAAN, according to a US government press release.
It said that by October 2018, Prigozhin’s employees had arranged for the purchase of the private jet M-SAAN, which was registered to the owner Autolex Transport, a company cited in the release for materially assisting the Wagner chief.
Flight data reviewed by the Guardian showed the jet – tail number RA-02795 – was logged taking off from Moscow at 5.46pm local time (15.46 UK), and climbing to a cruising altitude of 28,000 ft, outside the range of many small anti-aircraft missiles.
Thirty-three minutes into the flight, while about a mile south of the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region, the aircraft rapidly lost altitude and lost contact. Amateur footage showed what appeared to be the jet falling from the sky. Villagers on the ground reported hearing a loud metallic bang and seeing the jet land in several pieces in a field.
Weather conditions during the short flight were reported to be good.
What caused the crash?
Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane had been deliberately downed. Some suggested it could have been hit by an air-defence missile, or targeted by a bomb on board. These claims could not be independently verified. Numerous opponents and critics of Vladimir Putin have been killed or gravely sickened in apparent assassination attempts.
Witnesses and experts who have reviewed video footage of the incident describe a break-up in mid-air associated with some kind of explosion, either originating within the jet, suggesting a bomb or catastrophic failure, or from outside, suggesting a missile strike.
Footage of the incident is inconclusive, even when broken down frame by frame. In one video, vapour resembling a missile contrail may be visible, and some witnesses on the ground spoke of hearing two explosions.
What is clear is that the blast was powerful enough to separate one wing section of the jet from the fuselage. Low-quality images of the wreckage of the aircraft on the ground suggest there may be holes in parts of the fuselage.
Vitaly Stepenok, 72, a Kuzhenkino resident, described what he saw. “I hear an explosion or a bang … and I looked up and saw white smoke. One wing flew off in one direction … and then it glided down on one wing. It didn’t nosedive, it was gliding.”
Western sources, including the US president, Joe Biden, have pointed to Putin’s potential role in the incident. . The French government’s spokesperson, Olivier Véran, told France 2 television:
“We don’t yet know the circumstances of this crash. We can have some reasonable doubts.”
Russia’s aviation authority offered no comment on the reason for the crash and said it had created a special commission to investigate “the circumstances and causes of the accident”.
What are the chances it was an accident?
There has only been one recorded accident involving an Embraer Legacy 600, and that involved a mid-air collision which the jet survived. There have been no recorded accidents involving mechanical failure.
There were unconfirmed reports that the aircraft had undergone repairs just before its last flight. Because of sanctions, Embraer, the Brazilian maker of the Legacy 600, said it had stopped providing support for the aircraft in 2019.
Who are the other Wagner group leaders presumed dead in the crash?
According to the official passenger list published by Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation authority, several other senior Wagner members were on the plane with Prigozhin.
Among them was Dmitry Utkin, who was often described as the founder or co-founder of the mercenary group, although his exact role was disputed.
His own call sign was “Wagner”, after Hitler’s favourite composer. The investigative website Bellingcat wrote in 2020 that Utkin had “an obsessive fascination with the history of the Third Reich” while another recent report described him as “festooned with numerous Nazi tattoos, including a swastika, a Nazi eagle, and SS lightning bolts”. The Wagner group was apparently named after him.
Rarely seen or heard from in public, he was last seen in a video posted by Prigozhin in July, in which the Wagner boss addressed fighters in Belarus, where they were sent after their aborted mutiny a month earlier. In the video, Prigozhin introduces a man he says is Utkin; it was the first time the commander had been filmed speaking to his troops.
“This is not the end, this is only the beginning of the greatest work in the world, which will continue very soon,” Utkin says in the video. “And welcome to hell,” he adds, speaking the last words in English.
Valery Chekalov was also listed on the passenger list. A longtime Prigohzin ally, Chekalov was said to be overseeing Priogzhin’s catering firm that provided food for schools across Russia and fed the military. He also reportedly managed some of Prigozhin’s business assets in Syria, including his investment in oil in the war-torn country.
According to Russian independent media, Chekalov was also in charge of Prigozhin’s travel arrangements, making him one of the only people aware of the warlord’s secretive movements, and was responsible for Prigozhin’s personal security. He had been accused by journalists of leading harassment campaigns against them. The US imposed sanctions on Chekalov last month over his links to Prigozhin and for facilitating munitions shipments to Russia.
Another commander on board was Evgeniy Makaryan, who joined Wagner in 2016 and fought as part of the mercenary group during Russia’s intervention in Syria. He was reportedly injured in the Battle of Khasham, where hundreds of Russian mercenaries perished after US airstrikes against pro-Assad forces.
Members of Prigozhin’s personal security guard were also listed among the passengers killed, including Sergey Propustin, a Chechen war veteran who joined Wagner in 2015.
Although the crash killed much of Wagner’s leadership, a number of veteran commanders remain alive. But they lack Prigozhin’s charisma, economic powers and political connections, raising serious questions over the mercenary group’s future.
