Russian Authorities Confirm Death Of Wagner Leader Prigozhin

Russia’s Investigative Committee has confirmed the death of Wagner mercenary group head Yevgeny Prigozhin in a private-jet crash north of Moscow on August 23.

The committee said on August 27 that all 10 victims of an August 23 private-jet crash had been identified and that the identities “conform to the flight manifest.”

Earlier Russian authorities had said that Prigozhin and Wagner field commander Dmitry Utkin were listed as passengers on the flight, which was heading from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

The cause of the crash has not been determined.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on August 25 that the crash was “tragic” and dismissed accusations of foul play as an “absolute lie.”

Prigozhin, 62, led a short-lived armed mutiny against Russian military leaders on June 23-24. His fighters briefly held the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and began a march on Moscow, calling for the removal of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov.

The insurrection came on the heels of months of intense public infighting with Russia’s military leadership over the war strategy in Ukraine and ammunition supplies.

The brief uprising was the most serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.

The Wagner chief's whereabouts have been largely a mystery since the mutiny.

He was believed to be moving between Russia and Belarus, where Wagner troops have been setting up camps to train Belarusian armed forces as part of a deal negotiated that helped end the mutiny.

On July 28, he was photographed on the sidelines of an Africa-Russia summit in St. Petersburg shaking hands with an aide to the president of the Central African Republic.

Putin at the time accused Wagner of a treacherous “stab in the back” and confirmed that the Russian government had provided Wagner with over $1 billion in funding over the previous year.