Wagner boss Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin is reportedly dead as his private jet crashes in flames soon after takeoff in Russia.
Prigozhin is a Russian oligarch, mercenary leader, and former close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin until he launched a rebellion in June 2023.
The reported crash comes just days after Prigozhin posted a new video on Telegram proclaiming that the Wagner Group are in Africa to make Russia greater and Africa freer.
Russian media, the TASS news agency, reported that the Wagner Group warlord was on plane that crashed, killing ten persons on board in Tver region.
The jet was traveling from the Russian capital to St. Petersburg went it went down in the Tver region.
Although it is not immediately clear whether Prigozhin is among the ten reported to have died in the crash, he was listed among the passengers, according to the Russian Air Transport Agency.
“An investigation into the crash of the Embraer aircraft has been launched,” the department noted.
Prigozhin had, in June, challenged President Putin’s 23-years regime, marching his 25,000-strong mercenary forces towards Moscow.
He, however, abruptly ended the operation and ordered his troops to return home before heading into exile in Belarus.
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