Breaking: Yevgeny Prigozhin reported dead. Updated to include video of crashing plane.

UPDATE: Wednesday, Aug 23, 2023 · 6:34:07 PM +00:00 · Lib Dem FoP

Video of the plane going down after being hit. The plane falls slowly with fire clearly visible on one wing. There are directional changes and puffs of smoke from the other engines that suggest attempts were being made to recover and therefore those on board were aware of their predicament.

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UPDATE: Wednesday, Aug 23, 2023 · 5:49:26 PM +00:00 · Lib Dem FoP

In the comments there is information that his plane was shot down near Tver. This is a slight surprise as he had just published a video purporting to be recorded in Africa.

Tver is just NW of Moscow, almost on a line drawn between there and St Petersburg. Over the past week there have been almost daily drone attacks on Moscow and the Russians reported downing one on its way to St Petersburg. There are also Russian airbases dotted around Moscow.

[My thoughts]

Prigozhin has often had the transponder on his private plane turned off for operational security reasons. So the cause could be accidental targeting by Moscow air defense when they detected the plane on radar but no “identify friend or foe” information.

Of course the downing of Prigozhin’s plane and the apparently bad health of Igor Girkin may have more than temporal coincidence.

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Boss of the Wagner paramilitary company is reported (BBC News alert) to have been killed in a plane crash.

More details to follow.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin killed in plane crash in Russia, with nine other people on board also dead