Moscow – The chief of the Wagner militia, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a rebellion against the Russian government in June, appears on the passenger list of a plane that crashed in the Moscow region, it was reported yesterday.
“The list of passengers of the plane that crashed in the Tver region includes Yevgeny Prigozhin,” said the Rosaviatsia aeronautical service, quoted by the TASS, Ria Novosti and Interfax agencies, after rescuers pointed out that the ten people had died. who were aboard the aircraft.
After an old friendship with Vladimir Putin and the intervention of his mercenaries in key offensives of the war in Ukraine – as well as in other conflicts around the world – Prigozhin had become a fierce critic of the Kremlin’s defense policies. This escalation led to the attempted coup in June, apparently intended to remove the leadership of the Armed Forces, and to its final fall from grace.
Initially taking refuge in Belarus, a country allied with Russia, the fate of the leader of the Wagner group became hazardous, to the point that observers from all over the world said that he could face the same fate as other dissidents or Putin’s enemies: assassination.
According to Rosaviatsia, the Brazilian-made Embraer Legacy private plane crashed near the village of Kujenkino, in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow.
“The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations carries out search operations” for the victims of the crashed plane, the authority said.
Videos were circulating on Telegram, the authenticity of which could not be confirmed, in which a plane was seen impacting the ground or remains of the device on fire.
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Prigozhin, 62, rose to fame after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, in which his fighters – including thousands of convicts he conscripted from prison – led the Russian assault on the city of Bakhmut in the longest-running battle and bloody war.
Prigozhin used social networks to trumpet the successes of the Wagner group, which alienated him from the formal military establishment, which he accused of incompetence and even treason. In June, he led a mutiny in which his fighters seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down several military helicopters, killing their pilots, as they advanced on Moscow. President Putin called it an act of “treason” that would meet with a harsh response.
The revolt was defused by an agreement whereby the Kremlin said that, to avoid bloodshed, Prigozhin and some of his fighters would leave for Belarus and the criminal case against him for armed mutiny would be dropped. However, the implementation of that agreement and Prigozhin’s own future have been shrouded in confusion.
The Kremlin said it had attended a meeting with Putin five days after the riot. On 5 July, state television claimed that Prigozhin was still being investigated and broadcast footage showing cash, passports, weapons and other items seized in a raid on one of his properties.
Still, at the end of July, Prigozhin was photographed in Saint Petersburg while a Russia-Africa summit was taking place in the city. This week he appeared in a video that he suggested was taken in Africa, where the Wagner group operates in several countries embroiled in civil wars.
Biography
Born in St. Petersburg on June 1, 1961, Prigozhin spent nine years in Soviet prisons for crimes including theft and fraud. Released in 1990, in the throes of the Soviet Union, he embarked on a career as a hotelier and restaurant owner in his hometown. It is around this time that he is believed to have met Putin, then a top adviser to the mayor of St. Petersburg.
Leveraging his political connections, Prigozhin landed major state contracts and became known as “Putin’s chef” after serving meals at Kremlin events. He most recently joked that “Putin’s butcher” would be more appropriate.
In 2014, Prigozhin founded the Wagner group, a private military company whose fighters have been deployed in support of Moscow’s allies in countries including Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic. The United States has sanctioned her and accused her of atrocities, which Prigozhin has always denied.
Instead, he did admit to founding and financing the Internet Research Agency, a company Washington says is a “troll farm” that meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. In November 2022, he admitted to interfering in the US election and that I would do it again.
Forehead
Meanwhile, in an increasingly unpredictable war, Ukrainian forces raised the national flag in the town of Robotine, in the southern Zaporizhia region, the Kiev Army said yesterday, though it was unclear whether the entire community had been liberated from the Russian forces.
“A historic day! Soldiers of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade raised the flag of Ukraine in the village of Robotine, in one of the hottest destinations: Melitopol,” the brigade said in a post on its Telegram channel.
In a video posted by General Valeri Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ukrainian flag is seen on the roof of a badly damaged building surrounded by burned trees.
“A blue and yellow flag signed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was raised at the school destroyed by Russian invaders on National Flag Day!” the 47th brigade said.
kyiv now intends to recapture the strategic southern city of Melitopol as part of its counteroffensive against a full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022.
Source: Ambito
