Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the dead after a private jet was reportedly shot down over Russia’s Tver region on August 24, killing all ten people on board, Interfax reported, citing the nation’s aviation authority.

All three pilots and seven passengers aboard the plane that was travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg died, state-run Tass news service reported late Wednesday.

Among the other passengers was Dmitry Utkin, Prigozhin’s number two in Wagner and fellow founder of the private military organisation.

The plane was reportedly shot down by surface to air missiles, according to a report in the Financial Times.

“A Western official said they had been told the plane had been brought down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile system but could not confirm whether Prigozhin was on board, adding: ‘[Russian President Vladimir] Putin doesn’t take prisoners’,” the Financial Times reported.

The Wagner Orchestra Telegram channel posted a photo of the burning wreckage and also claimed the Embraer jet had been shot down by Russian air defences.

“The fact that the plane was shot down by air defence systems was almost immediately reported by Gray Zone. Tens of the last seconds of the fall were caught on video — the plane is approaching the ground flat, without part of the wing and tail, that is, the source of damage could be external. According to Flightradar, Embraer did not descend before the fall, but continued to gain altitude — that is, what happened was fast and unexpected. Eyewitnesses on the ground spoke of two explosions in the air, and pro-military channels noticed contrails on the footage,” The Bell reported.

Other reports also claim that the Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with registration number RA-02795, which belonged to Prigozhin, was shot down by air defence fire from the Bologovsky district of the Tver region.

The pro-Kremlin Rybar Telegram channel believes that an “air defence error” will be “chosen” as the main excuse for the downing of the plane, blaming it on the constant Ukrainian drone raids on Moscow.

Another informed channel, Mash, suggested the plane was not shot down, but sabotaged, pointing to the nature of the flat fall which indicates an instantaneous failure of all control systems — that is, an internal explosion or a critical malfunction.

“It was too optimistic for Prigozhin to believe that he would not be annihilated after betraying Putin. [Belarusian President Aleksander] Lukashenko claimed that he would have obtained a "pardon" from Putin. Both Lukashenko and Putin played him quite efficiently,” bne IntelliNews columnist Denis Cenusa said in a tweet. “Prigozhin’s annihilation looks very real and it’s a signal from Putin to all those who think to abandon him. Additionally, Putin seeks to show that Russia is not giving up on Wagner because it needs mercenaries for its hybrid warfare.”

Russian authorities are investigating the circumstances of the jet crash, the press service of the Tver regional government said in a separate statement on its website that gave no details on the identity of the casualties.

One of the main experts on Prigozhin, investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov, wrote that Prigozhin flew to Russia from Africa with the entire command staff of the Wagner PMC, The Bell reports. 

The authorities have opened a criminal case under the article “Violation of traffic safety rules and the operation of air transport".

“Prigozhin was a dead man walking as soon as he bottled the Wagner march on Moscow,” Timothy Ash, the senior sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management in London, said in an emailed note. “No doubt at all that Putin is behind this. Only notable thing is how public Putin made it. A public execution of Prigozhin to signal to Russia and the world that a) Putin is still in charge; b) he will go to any lengths to stay in power and those who cross him will be killed.”

Prigozhin’s death comes only a day after General Sergei Surovikin was fired. Surovikin, the former commander of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, was close to Prigozhin but has not been seen in public since the aborted Wagner coup.

Moscow is on high alert after a series of Ukrainian drone strikes hit the capital in the last weeks, doing superficial damage, but causing no casualties. Another drone hit an office in the prestigious Moscow City district in the heart of the city on August 22, smashing windows, but little else. However, travellers at Moscow’s main airports have experienced multiple delays as flights are regularly delayed due to alerts of imminent drone attacks.

A second plane, reportedly belonging to Wagner, was on its way to St Petersburg but turned back halfway through its journey. The second plane caused confusion as Prigozhin is known to use two planes, where he checks in to fly on one but then flies on the second as a security precaution. After initial reports of the downing of the private jet came in, it was not immediately clear which plane Prigozhin was on.

“In Africa, Yevgeny Prigozhin had a similar situation when his plane was shot down, but that time he flew on a different one. And now, another business jet is circling over Moscow, which belongs to the head of PMC Wagner. Until he lands and it is not clear who was on board this plane, it is impossible to say that Prigozhin is dead with 100% probability,” Wagner associated Telegram channels reported.

The Kremlin has yet to comment on the incident. Putin appeared at an event to commemorate the 80^th anniversary of the victory at the Kursk tank battle in WWII. “Devotion to the homeland and loyalty to the military oath is what unites all participants of the special military operation,” he said in his speech, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Wagner reaction

Prigozhin was dubbed “Putin’s chef” thanks to his Concord catering company that supplied the Kremlin, and later the military.

Prigozhin established the Wagner mercenary group at the time of Russia’s partial occupation of Ukraine in 2014, but only publicly admitted to leading Wagner last September.

His death will impact Wagner, but will not see the group break up, say experts. Convoys of Wagner fighters are reportedly departing Belarus, where they have been based since the insurrection in June, and heading to Russia, the National Resistance Center reported on August 23, as cited by the Kyiv Independent.

Wagner soldiers in Belarus released a statement on social media: “There’s a lot of talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do. We can tell you one thing. We are getting started, get ready for us.”

Sources in Belarus said that some Wagner base camps were being dismantled on the evening of August 23, and preparing to move to their bases in southern Russia. "The convoys are likely heading towards the border with Russia," the center said.

According to the center's sources in Belarus, the Belarusian government did not authorise the mercenary group's withdrawal and Belarusian special services are reportedly trying to intercept the convoys at the border, the Kyiv Independent reported.

Part of the row between Prigozhin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, one of Putin’s most trusted allies, was Shoigu’s order that all Wagner troops would be forced to sign up with the regular army on September 1, putting the organisation under the direct control of the defence ministry. Prigozhin ordered his men not to sign the contracts and launched his mutiny shortly thereafter.

In the wake of Prigozhin's death the process of bringing the remaining Wagner troops in Europe under the ministry's control is ongoing. As part of the peace deal in June, those Wagner troops that were willing were offered contracts with the regular army and many of them joined.

Following Prigozhin’s death the process of imposing more control over the mercenaries is likely to continue. A rival private military company Redut, which is close to the defence ministry, has already seen its ranks swell to 7,000 this year thanks to new recruits, some from Wagner, signing up. Several other PMCs have been established by Russian regions and some of the largest state-owned corporations.

Armed mutiny

The crash occurred exactly two months after Prigozhin led an armed mutiny on June 24 that included the “march of justice” towards Moscow, where Prigozhin was demanding that Shoigu and the Russian joint chief of staff Valery Gerasimov be sacked.

Prigozhin was infuriated by a lack of logistical support for his fighters by the Ministry of Defence and even claimed that the army had launched a rocket attack on a Wagner camp in Ukraine. Prigozhin berated Shoigu in expletive laden videos on social media showing scores of what he claimed were dead Wagner fighters.

On the morning of the uprising Putin denounced it as a “stab in the back” and was clearly furious and worried as he disappeared from view for most of the crisis Prigozhin's march provoked. There were reports on the day that Putin and other senior Kremlin officials had flown to St Petersburg after the news broke.

Wagner took control of the southern city of Rostov, but a deal was brokered by Lukashenko the same day that saw Prigozhin and the Wagner forces retreat to Minsk unscathed.

Putin had denounced the June rebellion as “treason”, but Prigozhin escaped any retaliation by the Kremlin, although there was widespread speculation that he would not last long.

“What can’t you forgive?” Russian journalist and TV anchor Andrei Kondrashov asked Putin in an interview in 2018. “Betrayal,” Putin replied.

Since the mutiny Prigozhin appeared to have been rehabilitated to an extent. While he was reportedly seen briefly in an upmarket hotel in Minsk in the last days of June, he was back in Moscow in July where he reportedly met with Putin and also appeared in St Petersburg during the second Russia-Africa summit, posing with various African leaders. Wagner has extensive contacts in Africa where its fighters are supporting several of the regimes, as detailed in the bne IntelliNews report Russia in Africa.

“One more important point: Putin has waited for the Russia-Africa summit to pass so as not to scare off his clientele among rogue African regimes. Prigozhin could have been taken down earlier if not his connections with the African clients,” said Cenusa.

The Africa summit was attended by top politicians from almost all the African countries, although many heads of state stayed away under pressure from the US.

Wagner continues its extensive operations on the African continent, including in the Central African Republic, Mali and now possibly Niger as well, despite Prigozhin’s rebellion.

US President Joe Biden told reporters that he was not surprised: “I can remind you that when you asked me about this, I said that if I were in his [Prigozhin’s] place, I would watch what I move. I don't know exactly what happened, but I'm not surprised. There is very little that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind.”