Among those presumed dead alongside the Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a plane crash near Moscow 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.
However, according to a 2020 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American thinktank, “it cannot be verified whether Utkin initiated the establishment of Wagner group or was only a frontman for someone else”.
Bellingcat said it had open source data suggesting he was “employed as a convenient and deniable decoy to disguise its state provenance”.
Prigozhin acknowledged founding the group only in September 2022 having previously sued news outlets who linked him to it. The US and EU have imposed sanctions on Prigozhin and Utkin over Wagner’s role in Ukraine.
Born in 1970, Utkin was a former officer in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service and served in both Chechen wars, and in Syria. He was also among the Wagner members who took part in Russian operations in eastern Ukraine, from 2014, and received awards for his service from the Kremlin.
In the early 2000s he served 10 years as commander of GRU’s Second Spetsnaz Brigade on the Estonian border before retiring from the army. However, according to his ex-wife, he missed life on the battlefield.
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.
According to the official passenger list published by Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation authority, several other senior Wagner members were onboard with Prigozhin when his plane crashed.
Among them was Valery Chekalov, a longtime Prigohzin ally who was believed to be in charge of his business empire. Chekalov was said to be overseeing Priogzhin’s catering firm that provided food for schools across Russia and fed the military. Chekalov is said to have 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 in charge of Prigozhin’s travel arrangements, making him one of the only people aware of the warlord’s secretive movements. He was also responsible for Prigozhin’s personal security and 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.
Several veteran Wagner commanders were also listed by Rosaviatsia as being onboard, including Evgeniy Makaryan.
Makaryan 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.
While 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.
