Russia-Ukraine War: Prigozhin Listed as Passenger on Plane That Crashed, Killing All Aboard (2024)

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Here’s the latest on the crash.

The plane left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport at about 6 p.m. local time, bound for St. Petersburg, and went down less than 100 miles to the northwest, near the city of Tver. In an article about the crash, the Russian state media agency, RIA Novosti, posted an unconfirmed video, widely shared on social media, that purports to show the plane tumbling from the sky, with smoke billowing.

The crash came hours after Russian authorities said that General Sergei Surovikin, a top officer who was seen as an ally of Mr. Prigozhin, had been relieved of his post. Mr. Surovikin and Mr. Prigozhin were seen as among the most ruthlessly effective Russian military leaders, both sidelined in power struggles with officials who had the ear of President Vladimir V. Putin.

Here are the latest developments:

• Russian media have reported that the plane that crashed on Wednesday was an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with the tail number RA-02795. Past news reports have linked the plane to Mr. Prigozhin and Wagner.

• Russian media reported that all 10 bodies had been recovered from the site.

• In the United States, the State Department and the National Security Council released statements saying that “no one should be surprised” if Mr. Prigozhin’s death was confirmed, drawing links to “the disastrous war in Ukraine,” Wagner’s march on Moscow “and now — it would seem — to this.”

• President Biden, at Lake Tahoe, was asked if he thought Mr. Putin, was behind the crash. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind,” he answered. “But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”

• In the evening, Russian television showed Mr. Putin commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Battle of Kursk.

The Brazilian Air Force has also said that the responsibility of the crash investigation is on Russia in this case, and that Brazil (as the home country of Embraer) would only get involved if Russia reaches out. It has not.

Some Wagner supporters voice suspicions of a Russian assassination.

Grey Zone, a channel associated with Wagner, uploaded a photograph of Mr. Prigozhin, praising him as a “true patriot of his Motherland” and saying that he died “as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia.”

“But even in Hell he will be the best!” the channel said. “Glory to Russia!”

Roman Saponkov, a Russian military blogger seen as close to the mercenary group, wrote that the “murder of Prigozhin will have catastrophic consequences.”

“The people who gave the order don’t understand the mood in the army or the morale at all,” he said.

A blogger writing anonymously under the pseudonym Alex Parker, who actively supported Mr. Prigozhin until he aborted a June 24 mutiny, suggested the tycoon’s apparent death was a repeat of what happened in 2015 and 2016 — when a number of militants who had carried out a Moscow-instigated invasion in eastern Ukraine were killed in apparent assassinations.

The blogger blamed Mr. Prigozhin’s apparent death on Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, calling him the “trigger” for such events.

“Today is the end of an era,” wrote the pro-war blogger Boris Rozhin, who posts under the Telegram pseudonym Colonelcassad. “August in Russia never fails in terms of bad news,” he added, referencing a longstanding superstition in Russia about a seemingly cursed month.

Some pro-government commentators were quick to turn the page.

Sergei Markov, a Russian political scientist and former adviser to Mr. Putin, quickly pinned the blame on Ukraine, eliciting more than a thousand “crying laughing” emojis in response.

The pro-war Russian military blog Arkhangel Spetsnaz, which has more than 900,000 followers on Telegram, said it was “closing the issue” of the plane crash.

“Leave all conjectures and investigations for later. When the enemy is defeated and victory will be ours,” the channel wrote. “Don’t muddy the waters now… The enemy takes advantage of every destabilizing situation.”

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Wagner’s future in Africa faces further uncertainty.

Mr. Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in Russia in June, which led Wagner forces to seek refuge in Belarus, had already raised doubts about the group’s operations in Africa, where it has developed a vast business empire and network of relationships with African leaders. But hours after that rebellion was called off, officials with the Russian Foreign Ministry phoned the president of the Central African Republic to assure him that the thousands of Wagner fighters deployed in his country would stay.

Besides the Central African Republic, Wagner’s launchpad in Africa, Wagner mercenaries are known to be deployed in Libya, Mali and Sudan.

In the Central African Republic, Wagner soldiers recently helped the authorities organize a referendum to rewrite the Constitution to allow the president to stay in power indefinitely.

In Mali, about 1,500 operatives have been deployed to fight off an Islamist insurgency, and in recent days they have been on the front line of a nascent conflict against rebel groups in the north of the country. Mr. Prigozhin appeared in an unverified recruitment video this week that several experts on the group said had been recorded in Africa, most likely in Mali.

An adviser to the Central African Republic’s president couldn’t be reached immediately on Wednesday, and a spokeswoman for the Malian military didn’t respond to requests for comment.

For years, questions have swirled around Wagner’s ambitions in Africa and where the group might expand next, especially in countries where military officers seized power.

After the coup in Niger last month, some Western and West African governments feared the country could become Wagner’s next priority. Mr. Prigozhin praised the coup in a voice message on Telegram and offered the group’s services to Niger’s new leaders.

A top civilian official representing the junta told The New York Times last week that to his knowledge, the new authorities had no intention of partnering with Wagner.

Who is Dmitri Utkin, the Wagner commander who gave the group its name?

The group’s name came from Mr. Utkin’s military call sign, which is said to have been taken from the composer Richard Wagner, Hitler’s favorite. Some of the group’s fighters also seemed to share that ideology: Ancient Norse symbols favored by white supremacists have been photographed on Wagner equipment in Africa and the Middle East.

Mr. Utkin, born in 1970, served in both of Russia’s wars against separatists in the Chechnya region, and he was in the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence agency, until 2013. After that he commanded a Spetsnaz special forces unit and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel, according to a 2020 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

While over the years Mr. Utkin has been referred to as the “founder” of Wagner, a 2020 investigation by the investigative website Bellingcat said that open source data “strongly” suggested the Mr. Utkin was “not in the driver’s seat of setting up this private army” but rather a “hired gun.”

“While Dmitry Utkin has been widely presented as the front man and ‘principal’ for the Wagner PMC, there is ample data suggesting that his role was more of a field commander,” the report said.

After denying for years that he had any link to Wagner, Mr. Prigozhin admitted last year that he was its founder and chief.

Whatever his role in establishing Wagner, Mr. Utkin’s notoriety grew along with the military group’s — even though he was rarely seen, described by Bellingcat as “camera shy.”

Wagner expanded to Syria in 2015, tasked not only with bolstering the side of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war — but also with seizing oil and gas fields, American officials said.

In addition to Ukraine and Syria, Wagner operatives have also fought in Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali and Mozambique, extending Russian influence in Africa.

Mr. Putin awarded Mr. Utkin military honors at a banquet in 2016. A year later, the United States imposed sanctions on him for his activities with Wagner — specifically, recruiting soldiers to join separatist forces in Ukraine. (Britain, the European Union and Canada also imposed sanctions on Mr. Utkin and Mr. Prigozhin.)

After Russia began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Wagner’s fighters took on a major role — most notably in the bloody, nearly yearlong battle for Bakhmut, where they ultimately claimed victory.

Even after the short-lived mutiny led by Mr. Prigozhin against Russia’s military leadership in June, Mr. Utkin stayed by the Wagner chief’s side.

Video emerged in July that appeared to feature Mr. Prigozhin delivering a speech to his fighters who had relocated to Belarus. After finishing, he turned the floor over to Mr. Utkin.

“This is not the end,” Mr. Utkin said.

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With few available facts about the crash, rumors surge.

The unclear circ*mstances surrounding the crash created exactly the type of confusion in which misinformation can easily spread, an irony given that Mr. Prigozhin was a pioneer in the field of establishing and sowing misinformation campaigns.

Although Russian officials said Mr. Prigozhin was listed on the plane’s manifest on Wednesday and that all 10 people on the flight were killed, officials have not said publicly that his remains had been identified.

More than a decade ago, Mr. Prigozhin created Russian troll farms, including the Internet Research Agency, to spread pro-Russian narratives. The troll farms were also part of a campaign to sow confusion in the United States and influence its elections — which he later boasted about — and in particular the 2016 presidential contest.

Those efforts led to a federal indictment of Mr. Prigozhin and others.

The fates of two men key to Putin’s war are now both in question.

On Wednesday, Russian state media reported that the general had been demoted, and that the mercenary was listed as a passenger on a plane that crashed, killing everyone on board.

Wednesday’s fast-moving developments in Russia suggested that the end had come, in different ways, for two men who had proved pivotal over the past year to Russia’s war effort. If Mr. Prigozhin is confirmed to have been killed and General Surovikin remains sidelined from the invasion, questions are sure to be raised over whether President Vladimir V. Putin can sustain his fight without two of his most effective — and most brutal — military leaders.

The war itself has been a grinding slog for both sides.

Nearly three months into their counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces are still struggling to recapture territory occupied by Russia. American officials blame, among other things, Kyiv’s continued focus on Bakhmut, the city into which Mr. Prigozhin poured thousands of fighters recruited from Russian prisons for one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Russian forces, too, have made little gains since taking Bakhmut. Analysts say that those troops are increasingly exhausted as they defend against Ukraine’s onslaught, and that Mr. Putin might well be forced to declare another draft of civilians to replenish the invading army’s ranks.

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Wagner reportedly took its name from the nom de guerre of Utkin, a retired Russian Special Forces commander. Utkin is said to have chosen Wagner to honor the composer, who was a favorite of Hitler’s.

U.S. intelligence officials say they cannot confirm reports of Prigozhin’s death.

In July, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, said that a “complicated dance” with Mr. Putin had developed. Mr. Prigozhin continued to travel between Russia and Belarus, where President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko had offered Mr. Prigozhin and his fighters refuge, and other locations. But Mr. Burns predicted that Mr. Putin would move against Mr. Prigozhin, who staged the most significant challenge to Mr. Putin’s authority in decades with his rebellion.

“Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold,” Mr. Burns said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado last month. “So he’s going to try to settle the situation to the extent he can. But, again, in my experience, Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback. So I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this.”

U.S. officials have said that Russia continues to depend on the Wagner mercenary group, particularly for its operations in Africa, a relationship that could have offered Mr. Prigozhin some insurance. But Russia was no longer dependent on the private forces in Ukraine, a reality that potentially gave Mr. Putin a broad hand, other officials noted previously.

On Wednesday, Russian media announced the ouster of Gen. Sergei Surovikin. U.S. officials said General Surovikin had at least known about Mr. Prigozhin’s planned mutiny and may have supported it. As a result, General Surovikin had lost his command, and was under some sort of movement restrictions, if not formal detention, U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday, shortly before the news of the crash became public.

After the announcement of General Surovikin’s removal, American officials noted that they were surprised by how Mr. Prigozhin continued to appear relatively free, recently traveling to Africa and posting a video on social media. In contrast, General Surovikin had lost his freedom of movement, a U.S. official said.

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Prigozhin’s business empire stretches around the world.

Through a vast network of shell companies and intermediaries, Mr. Prigozhin’s activities have included catering, producing action movies, making beer and vodka, cutting timber, mining diamonds and hiring people to sow disinformation in elections abroad, including the 2016 U.S. election.

The exact size of his business has been shrouded in mystery and the fate of his sprawling empire is uncertain.

After Mr. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny in June, The New York Times took a look at his business interests around the world.

Timeline: What led to the June standoff between Russia’s leadership and Prigozhin?

October 2022

Mr. Prigozhin was one of two powerful supporters of Mr. Putin to publicly turn on Russia’s military leadership after it ordered a retreat from Lyman, a key city in eastern Ukraine, emphasizing that the retreat was a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

November 2022

Just a day before the U.S. midterms, Mr. Prigozhin sardonically boasted that Russia was interfering in the election.

February 2023

Mr. Prigozhin accused two Russian military leaders of treason in a series of hostile audio messages. He claimed that the Russian defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and its most senior general, Valery V. Gerasimov, were withholding ammunition and supplies from his fighters to try to destroy Wagner.

May 2023

Mr. Prigozhin issued a series of inflammatory statements. He once again accused Russia’s military bureaucracy of starving Wagner forces of necessary ammunition and threatened to withdraw them from Bakhmut. Days later, he appeared to backtrack on that threat after saying he had been promised more arms.

June 2023

Mr. Putin mobilized Russian troops to defend Moscow from what he called an armed rebellion by Mr. Prigozhin, whose forces had claimed control of Rostov-on-Don and were seen moving north along a highway toward the Russian capital. Then, in a surprise turn of events, the Belarusian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, said he had secured Mr. Prigozhin’s agreement to halt his forces’ advance. Mr. Prigozhin turned his forces around.

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that Mr. Prigozhin would flee to Belarus, and that Russia’s military operations in Ukraine would continue unchanged.

July 2023

Mr. Lukashenko told reporters that Mr. Prigozhin was a “free man” currently in St. Petersburg, adding that he “maybe” went to Moscow and was not in Belarus. A Pentagon official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation later confirmed that Mr. Prigozhin had been in Russia, between Moscow and St. Petersburg, during most of the period since the mutiny.

Unverified photographs circulated on social media suggested that Mr. Prigozhin was meeting with African officials in St. Petersburg, where some of the continent’s top leaders had converged for a summit with Mr. Putin.

August 2023

Mr. Prigozhin emerged in an unverified video message posted on Telegram channels affiliated with his Wagner forces, appearing to recruit for the group’s operations in Africa. On Wednesday, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, was demoted from his post as chief of the air force, according to Russian state media. The country’s former top commander in Ukraine, he is the only senior official with ties to Mr. Prigozhin that has been demoted or punished following the rebellion’s aftermath.

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This was the path of the plane.

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The State Department has issued the same public statement on the events as the National Security Council. It is unclear if U.S. government agencies have any concrete facts or intelligence on what happened. But the statements appear to be efforts to pin the blame on the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, and his “disastrous war,” as the American officials put it.

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Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said that the plane crashed in the Tver region, north of Moscow.

“An investigation has been launched into the crash of the Embraer aircraft, which occurred tonight in the Tver region,” Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said, Tass reported. “According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin.”

The Embraer jet was traveling from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport to St. Petersburg, Russia, and crashed less than 30 minutes after takeoff, Tass said.

Mr. Prigozhin, an outspoken tycoon, built the private paramilitary force that has fought on Russia’s behalf in Ukraine and across Africa. Frustrated over the country’s military leadership, he instigated a short rebellion two months ago, a mutiny that posed a grave threat to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin.