Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner group commander Dmitry Utkin were among 10 people on board a plane involved in a fatal crash north of Moscow on Wednesday (local time), Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia said.
Rosaviatsia published the names of seven passengers, including Prigozhin and Utkin, and three crew members it said had been on board.
"An investigation has been launched into an Embraer plane crash that occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the passenger list, the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin is among them," Rosaviatsia was cited as saying by the state TASS news agency.
Russia's emergency situations ministry said in a statement that the aircraft travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg had crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver Region.
It said that 10 people had been on board, including three crew members. According to preliminary information, everyone on board had been killed, it said.
Footage taken before the crash, posted on social media in Russia, showed what looked like the plane descending nearly 200km north of Moscow.
Another unverified clip showed the still burning wreckage of the plane on the ground. At least one body was visible.
Prigozhin, 62, spearheaded a mutiny against Russia's top army brass on June 23-24 which President Vladimir Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war.
The mutiny was ended by negotiations and an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighbouring Belarus. But he had appeared to move freely inside Russia after the deal nonetheless.
Prigozhin, who had sought to topple Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, on Monday posted a video address which he suggested was taken in Africa.
Soon after the plane dropped out of the sky, a second private jet linked to Prigozhin which also appeared to be heading to St Petersburg, Prigozhin's home base, turned back to Moscow, flight tracking data showed and later landed.
The flight radar 24 online tracker showed that the Embraer Legacy 600 (plane number RA-02795) had dropped off the radar at 6:11pm (local time).
Reuters / Newshub.
