‘Genetic tests’ confirm that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was among 10 people killed in plane crash, Russian investigators say

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has been pronounced dead after genetic analysis of bodies found in Wednesday’s plane crash, Russian officials said.

The Russian Commission of Inquiry said the identities of all ten victims had been established and matched those on the flight’s passenger list.

“As part of the investigation into the plane crash in the Tver region, molecular genetic studies have been completed,” the committee said in a statement via Telegram.

“According to their results, the identities of all ten dead have been established. They correspond to the list stated in the flight sheet.’

Further details about the tests have not been shared.

Prigozhin’s private jet crashed northwest of Moscow on August 25, killing all on board.

A Telegram channel affiliated with Wagner said on Wednesday that its leader was killed in a plane crash by unidentified “traitors to Russia.”

Reports indicated that a private Embraer Legacy building crashed while en route from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, killing all seven passengers and three crew members on board.

The passengers, made up of top Wagner group members, including Prigozhin’s right-hand man Dmitry Utkin, reportedly attended a meeting with officials from the Russian Defense Ministry.

The Kremlin has denied speculation it was responsible for the crash, which occurred just two months after Prigozhin led a column of his Wagner soldiers into Moscow in an attempted mutiny against Vladimir Putin.

Wagner managed to capture the city of Rostov-on-Don during the shock coup and threatened to take over Moscow itself.

Prigozhin and his mercenary group were sent to Belarus after a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko allowed him to walk away without any charges against his name.

Prigozhin kept a low profile after that, but was spotted in several locations around the world.

Investigators from All Eyes on Wagner, which monitors the mercenary group, said a video shared via Telegram on Aug. 21, just two days before Prigozhin died, revealed he was in Mali.

He was seen wearing military equipment and wielding an assault rifle, claiming he was in the region to recruit “heroic fighters” who would make Russia “even greater.”

Despite the deal struck, Putin openly called the mutiny a “stab in the back,” and experts around the world have accused the autocrat of bringing about the crash.

On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such allegations were an “absolute lie.”

Putin spoke of his former ally in the past tense just one day after he died and before Russian officials investigated his death, saying, “This was a person with a complicated fate. He has made some serious mistakes in his life, but he has also achieved the necessary results.’

More to follow.