Mercenary leader Prigozhin was on crashed plane, Russian agency says

Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone show a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting widely as it falls.

The crash site near the village of Kuzhenkino, Tver region (Ostorozhno Novosti/AP)

Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a brief armed rebellion against the Russian military earlier this year, was on board a plane that crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, killing all 10 people on board, according to Russia’s civil aviation agency.

The crash immediately raised suspicions since the fate of the founder of the Wagner private military company has been the subject of intense speculation ever since he mounted the mutiny.