91热爆

The Russian state agency for air transport has reported that the boss of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was on the passenger list of a plane that's crashed en route from Moscow to St Petersburg. All ten people on board are reported to have died. The private jet, reportedly owned by Mr Prigozhin, came down in the Tver region, north west of Moscow. Mr Prigozhin led a brief mutiny of Wagner troops in June. He's rarely been seen in public since then, last appearing in a video earlier this week which was said to have been filmed in an unspecified location in Africa. Russia security expert Natia Seskuria, who is director of the think tank RUSI told Newsday that Russian reports on social media channels said there was another plane soon after the crash happened and Prigozhin might have been on the second plane but Russian state media said he was definitely among the ten people who was killed in the crash. She said the mutiny was "the single most pressing challenge that Putin had gone through and it was unlikely he would have forgiven Prigozhin so it's logical in a way things would have ended up this way for him." She said "Putin still needs manpower in Ukraine and given Wagner fighters have performed much better than even the regular forces in Ukraine it would be logical to integrate some parts of Wagner into the defence forces and the Russian defence ministry."

(Photo shows view of site after a private jet, reportedly carrying Wagner head, Yevgeny Prigozhin and other passengers crashed in Russia's northwestern Tver region, Russia on August 23 2023)

subbed by Rosie Bartlett