Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the private jet that crashed Wednesday, killing everyone aboard on its way from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Russian aviation authorities said.
The crash occurred exactly two months after Prigozhin led a mutiny that posed the greatest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s nearly quarter-century rule. Putin had denounced the June rebellion as “treason” but Prigozhin appeared to escape immediate retaliation by the Kremlin under a deal brokered to end the revolt as his fighters came within 200 kilometers (124 miles) of Moscow.
The aviation regulator said Dmitry Utkin, Prigozhin’s No. 2 in Wagner, was also among the passengers on the plane. Authorities are investigating the circumstances of the jet crash, the press service of the Tver regional government said.
There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin on the crash but US officials were quick to suggest Prigozhin may have faced Putin’s retribution.
“I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised,” President Joe Biden told reporters.
US officials had speculated that Putin would seek to take revenge for the unprecedented rebellion that shattered his image as Russia’s invincible leader and left the US, Europe and China puzzling over the political fallout.
“Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback,” CIA Director William Burns said at the Aspen Security Forum last month.
In the months since the uprising, Prigozhin had seemed to upstage Putin by appearing in St. Petersburg last month meeting with African officials at the same time as the president was hosting a showcase Russia-Africa summit. His Wagner fighters also avoided punishment under the deal and the mercenary group was allowed to keep some of its extensive operations in Africa.
The jet, an Embraer SA Legacy 600, flew on what appeared to be a routine route to the northwest for about 12 minutes after departure, according to a preliminary flight track provided by Flightradar24.com.
Putin has been seeking to restore his shaken authority at home since the rebellion, amid rising nationalist anger over the Russian leader’s stalled invasion of Ukraine, now in its 18th month.
The Russian president is already making preparations for his bid to secure a fifth term in March 2024 elections, even as anxiety spreads among senior officials and business tycoons.
The plunge in the ruble to above 100 per dollar last week has also jangled nerves among officials and prompted the central bank to make an emergency rate hike, amid concerns the currency’s weakness will stoke inflation and erode Russians’ incomes in the run-up to the election.
Update, Aug. 23, 2023: This article has been updated with confirmation that Prigozhin died in the plane crash.