The founder of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been listed among the passengers on board a plane that crashed north of Moscow, according to Russian state media.
There were earlier reports that speculated that the Wagner chief, who is presumed dead, was a backer of the junta in Niger.
The Russian state aviation authority Rosaviation says that a specially created commission “has begun investigating the circumstances and causes of the accident with the Embraer-135 aircraft, which occurred on August 23 in the Tver region.”
The authority’s statement said the plane belonged to MNT-Aero LLC, which specialises in business transportation, the BBC reports.
“According to preliminary data, there were seven passengers and three crew members on board the aircraft, which flew on the Moscow-St. Petersburg route,” the authority said.
“The Commission of the Federal Air Transport Agency is starting initial actions at the scene of the accident and has also begun collecting factual materials on the training of the crew, the technical condition of the aircraft, the meteorological situation on the flight route, the work of dispatch services, and ground radio equipment,” the statement added.
“At this stage of the investigation, specialists will also have to search for on-board means of objective control for their subsequent decoding and analysis of the records of the “black box,” the authority said.
