Russian Mercenary Chief Prigozhin Listed as Passenger on Plane Which Crashed with No Survivors

24 June 2023, Russia, Rostov-on-Don: A screen grab from a video released by Prigozhin Press Service, shows Wagner paramilitary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, delivering a video speech in Rostov-on-Don. (Prigozhin Press Service/dpa)
24 June 2023, Russia, Rostov-on-Don: A screen grab from a video released by Prigozhin Press Service, shows Wagner paramilitary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, delivering a video speech in Rostov-on-Don. (Prigozhin Press Service/dpa)
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Russian Mercenary Chief Prigozhin Listed as Passenger on Plane Which Crashed with No Survivors

24 June 2023, Russia, Rostov-on-Don: A screen grab from a video released by Prigozhin Press Service, shows Wagner paramilitary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, delivering a video speech in Rostov-on-Don. (Prigozhin Press Service/dpa)
24 June 2023, Russia, Rostov-on-Don: A screen grab from a video released by Prigozhin Press Service, shows Wagner paramilitary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, delivering a video speech in Rostov-on-Don. (Prigozhin Press Service/dpa)

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed on Wednesday evening north of Moscow with no survivors, the Russian authorities said.

There was no confirmation that Prigozhin was physically on board and Reuters could not immediately confirm that he was on the aircraft, which crashed north of Moscow.

"An investigation has been launched into an Embraer plane crash that occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the passenger list, the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin is among them," Rosaviatsia, Russia's aviation agency, was cited as saying by the state TASS news agency.

Russia's emergency situations ministry said in a statement that a private Embraer Legacy aircraft travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg had crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver Region.

It said that 10 people had been on board, including three crew members. According to preliminary information, everyone on board had been killed, it said.

Prigozhin, 62, spearheaded a mutiny against Russia's top army brass on June 23-24 which President Vladimir Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war.

The mutiny was ended by negotiations and an apparent Kremlin deal which saw Prigozhin agree to relocate to neighboring Belarus. But he had appeared to move freely inside Russia after the deal nonetheless.

Prigozhin, who had sought to topple Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, on Monday posted a video address which he suggested was shot in Africa.



Russian Court Sentences US Citizen Gilman to Over 7 Years in Prison on Assault Charges

The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)
The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)
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Russian Court Sentences US Citizen Gilman to Over 7 Years in Prison on Assault Charges

The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)
The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)

A Russian court on Monday sentenced US citizen and ex-Marine Robert Gilman to seven years and one month in prison for assaulting a prison official and a state investigator, the local prosecutor's office said.
Gilman, 30, is already serving a 3-1/2-year sentence for attacking a police officer while drunk, a charge he was convicted of in October 2022.
Prosecutors in Voronezh, a city about 300 miles (500 km) south of Moscow where Gilman is incarcerated, said he had attacked a prison employee and a state investigator on separate occasions in the autumn of 2023.
Reuters was not immediately able to contact a lawyer for Gilman. The US Embassy in Moscow did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Russian state news agency RIA said Gilman, whose lawyers have previously told the TASS state news agency that he had come to Russia to study and obtain citizenship, had pleaded guilty to all the charges.
RIA cited Gilman as telling the court last week that he had been forced to use violence after the prison inspector had caused pain to his genitalia and after the investigator had insulted his father.
Gilman is one of at least 10 US nationals behind bars in Russia over two months after a prisoner swap between Moscow and the West on Aug. 1 freed 24 people, including three Americans.