Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin listed in Russian plane crash with no survivors

Russia’s most powerful mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin was on board a plane which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors, the Russian authorities said, two months to the day after he led an abortive mutiny against the army top brass.

There was no official comment from the Kremlin or the Defence Ministry on the fate of Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group and a self-declared enemy of the army’s leadership over what he argued was its incompetent prosecution of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Amid fevered speculation and an absence of verifiable facts, some of his supporters have pointed the finger of blame at the Russian state, others at Ukraine which was due to mark its Independence Day on Thursday.

Whoever or whatever was behind the crash, his death would rid Putin of someone who had mounted the most serious challenge to the Russian leader’s authority since he came to power in 1999.

Read more: Reuters