Eyewitnesses report hearing two explosions at time of crash
BBC’s Monitoring’s Russia Editor, Vitaly Shevchenko, says speculation is spreading about the plane crash that Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin was believed to be a passenger on.
“I’ve seen a number of video clips filmed by eyewitnesses who said that they had heard two explosions and they drew the conclusion that the aircraft had been shot out of the sky,” he says.
“But this is unconfirmed, this is speculative.”
In pictures: Wreckage surveyed after plane crash
We’re getting new pictures from Russia’s Tver region, where emergency specialists and police are surveying the wreckage of a private jet linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The Kremlin is yet to confirm whether the Wagner chief died in the plane crash yesterday, but aviation officials said he was one of six passengers on board.
Who were the other passengers on the plane?
Besides Yegeny Prigozhin and his right-hand man Dimitry Utkin, there were five other passengers on the plane, according to Russia’s aviation authority. This is what we know about them:
- Valeriy Chekalov
One of Prigozhin’s closest friends, Chekalov had been with the Wagner leader since the 2000s, according to Russia observer Giorgi Revishvili.
Not only was he in charge of Wagner’s logistics, he also oversaw Prigozhin’s contracts supplying food to the military, as well as overseas projects involving geological exploration, oil production, or agriculture.
He was linked to Evropolis, a company which struck a lucrative oil deal with Syria and was paying Wagner fighters and procuring arms, according to investigative group All Eyes on Wagner.Chekalov had been targeted by US sanctions
for acting on behalf of Prigozhin and supplying arms to Russia.
- Yevgeny Makaryan
A former district police officer, Makaryan joined Wagner in March 2016, according to investigative site Dossier Center.
He had fought for the mercenary group in Syria, and his callsign was “Makar”.
- Sergey Propustin
A Wagner fighter since 2015, Propustin used the callsign “Kedr” and had fought in the second Chechen war, according to Revishvili.
Dossier Center said he came from a unit which supplied Prigozhin with many of his personal bodyguards.
- Alexander Totmin
Known by his callsign “Tot”, Totmin often posted pictures on Instagram of his flashy lifestyle, according to journalist Michael D Weiss
.
- Nikolay Matuseev
While Dossier Center was unable to find a person with that name on Russian lists, they found a ‘Nikolai Matusevich’ who has fought with Wagner since 2017.
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