# Prigozhin Plane Crash On **August 23, 2023** — two months to the day after the [[Wagner Group Mutiny]] — an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet (registration RA-02795) flying from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport to St. Petersburg came down near the village of Kuzhenkino in Tver Oblast. All ten people aboard died, among them [[Yevgeny Prigozhin]], Wagner co-founder [[Dmitry Utkin]] and Wagner logistics chief Valery Chekalov, along with three crew. The crash removed the [[Wagner Group]]'s founding leadership in one stroke. ## What is established - **Identification** — Russia's Investigative Committee announced on August 27, 2023 that molecular-genetic testing had identified all ten bodies, matching the flight manifest. Prigozhin was buried privately at Porokhovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg on August 29; the Kremlin said Putin would not attend. - **Western assessment** — US and Western officials told AP on August 24 that a preliminary intelligence assessment found an intentional explosion and that Prigozhin was "very likely" the target. The Pentagon said reports of a surface-to-air missile were inaccurate. - **Kremlin line** — Peskov first called assassination claims an "absolute lie," then on August 30 said investigators were considering "different versions," including "deliberate wrongdoing." Russia declined Brazil's offer, as the aircraft's manufacturing state, to assist. - **Putin's version** — on October 5, 2023 Putin said hand-grenade fragments had been found in the victims' bodies and that there had been no "external impact" on the plane, a remark widely read as suggesting the Wagner men blew themselves up. > [!warning] Not established > The Wall Street Journal reported in December 2023, citing Western and Russian intelligence sources, that the operation was organized by [[Nikolai Patrushev]], then secretary of the Security Council, with a bomb placed under the wing. That account rests on anonymous sourcing and has not been confirmed. The Russian criminal case — opened under air-safety rules, not murder — has published no conclusion. ## See Also - [[Wagner Group Mutiny]] · [[Yevgeny Prigozhin]] · [[Dmitry Utkin]] · [[Wagner Group]] · [[Africa Corps]] · [[Vladimir Putin]]