INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A plane carrying Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has crashed northwest of Moscow, Russia's emergencies ministry said
Wednesday.The apparent death of the Kremlin-linked businessman, whose mercenary forces had taken on a leading role in the war on Ukraine,
comes nearly two months after his aborted revolt against Russia's military leadership.Authorities initially said that all 10 people on
the Wagner mercenary group.Five other passengers and three crew were also on board.Interfax later reported that search operations have ended
and the bodies of all 10 people on board have been recovered from the wreckage, citing a source in the emergency services.The cause of the
verified.A Russian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Moscow Times that they believe neither the fact of the
The plane just fell out of the sky," the source added.Independent journalist Andrei Zakharov, citing an unnamed source, said Prigozhin on
Wednesday was returning to Russia from a trip in Africa, where Wagner mercenaries have operated for years and where Prigozhin was recently
comment on the incident, Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak reported."It's a completely clear message to all the elites, to anyone who had
any subversive thoughts about the direction of the special military operation, and [other thoughts] in general," Sobchak said in a Telegram
post.A photo published by the Bumaga news website showed the windows of the PMC Wagner Center, the mercenary group's headquarters in St
Petersburg, lit up in the shape of a cross.In June, a mutiny led by Prigozhin plunged Russia into its most serious security crisis in
The Wagner chief eventually abandoned his march on Moscow, where he sought to overthrow the country's military leadership, as part of a
last-ditch deal that offered him immunity from criminal prosecution.On Tuesday, Prigozhin appeared on video recruiting new fighters for
deployment in Africa, however, the exact location of where the video was filmed was unknown.The Kremlin has yet to comment on the crash.As
the news broke, President Vladimir Putin was attending an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Battle of
Kursk during World War II.
