Evgeny Prigozhin He’s officially dead now. He Investigative Committee of Russia announced this Sunday that the results of genetic tests have confirmed the identities of the 10 people who died when their plane crashed last Wednesday and that among them was the founder of the mercenary group WagnerEvgeny Prigozhin.
A private plane belonging to the Wagner mercenary group crashed on August 23 while flying to St. Petersburg from Moscow.
Prigozhin, who was a close ally of Putinled a brief mutiny on June 23–24 in which Wagner’s fighters seized the Russian city of Rostov del Don and they marched until they reached 200 kilometers from Moscow. A Russian military plane was shot down during the riot, killing a total of 13 military personnel. Russian Air Force.
Wagner’s private plane crashed just two months to the day Prigozhin led an unsuccessful mutiny against the top brass of the Russian army. President Vladimir Putin described that riot as a treacherous “stab in the back”, but then he met with Prigozhin in the Kremlin. On Thursday the Russian leader sent his condolences to the families of those the aviation agency said had died in the crash.
The head of the American CIA, William Burns, said last month that Putin would likely seek retaliation against Prigozhin. “Putin is the supreme apostle of revenge,” he said July 20 at the Aspen Security Forum.
On August 23, hours before the event, RIA Novosti and other Russian media reported that General Even Sergei Surovika senior Russian officer close to Prigozhin, had been relieved of his command of the Russian Aerospace Forces.