Wagner chief Prigozhin confirmed on board of crashed Russian jet

A private jet belonging to the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed in Tver region in Russia on Wednesday evening with 10 people dead, apparently including Prigozhin himself. 

Emergency services said they had finished the search after retrieving all bodies at the scene of the crash. According to Russia's Federal Agency for Air Transport (Rosaviatsiya), three crew members and seven passengers were on board of Embraer Legacy 600, which crashed near the town of Kuzhenkino.

The agency published a list of the passengers which includes Prigozhin, 62, and his allies from Wagner group. The channels affiliated with the group confirmed their chief's death. 

According to reports, earlier on Wednesday, Prigozhin flew on another plane from Mali to Moscow with a refueling stop in Syria's Damascus. Upon reaching the Russian capital he switched to his private jet. 

U.S. President Joe Biden has been briefed on the crash, according to the White House, and said he was "not surprised" by the news of Prigozhin's possible death. A senior aide to the Ukrainian presidency Mykhaylo Podolyak said that the crash was a signal from the Kremlin.

"The demonstrative elimination of Prigozhin and the Wagner command two months after the coup attempt is a signal from Putin to Russia's elites ahead of the 2024 elections. 'Beware! Disloyalty equals death,'" Podolyak wrote on social media.

Several Telegram channels reported that the jet was shot down by air defense system. Another version is a terror attack on board.

Among the passenger was also Prigozhin's "right hand," Dmitry Utkin, after whose call name the group received its "musical" name. 

The news come just a day after the Russian state news agency RIA reported that Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed "General Armageddon," had been relieved of his post as the head of Russia's aerospace forces. Surovikin hasn't appeared in public since the Wagner group short-lived mutiny, which started exactly two months ago, on June 23. There were unofficial reports that he was detained over allegedly supporting Prigozhin.