Jet Belonging to Yevgeny Prigozhin Reportedly Shot Down | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-06.23.25

Airborne-NextGen-06.24.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.25.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-06.26.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.27.25

Thu, Aug 24, 2023

Jet Belonging to Yevgeny Prigozhin Reportedly Shot Down

Wagner Group Boss Alleged Dead

Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin—Russian oligarch, mercenary leader, and former confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin—is presumed dead after an Embraer Legacy 600 upon which he was reportedly traveling went down north of Moscow.

Ten people—three crew and seven passengers—are alleged to have perished in the accident.

While Prigozhin’s name appeared on the downed aircraft’s passenger manifest, it has yet to be established that he was, in fact, on board. The presumption is lent plausibility, however, by the fact the lost Legacy jet was owned by Prigozhin.

The mishap follows two-months-to-the-day after Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt against Putin’s government. Speculation abounds that Putin—who’s notoriously and demonstratively intolerant of disloyalty and, in June, accused Prigozhin of “treason”—ordered his one-time adjutant’s aircraft shot down.

Shortly after the Legacy 600’s downing, a Telegram channel linked to the Wagner Group—a Russian state-funded private military company (PMC) founded and controlled by Prigozhin and the vehicle by which his coup attempt was orchestrated—reported Prigozhin’s aircraft had been shot down by air defenses in the Tver Oblast, an area of alternating lowlands and highlands some 143-nautical-miles northwest of Moscow.

The same Telegram channel set forth witnesses in the vicinity of the Embraer’s downing reported hearing two “bangs” and observed two vapor-trails before the aircraft came to ground.

Russian news outlets stated the Legacy 600 had been airborne less than half-an-hour prior to its destruction and eight bodies had been recovered from the wreckage.

Prigozhin founded the Wagner Group in 2014. Under his guidance, the organization grew to upwards of fifty-thousand trained warfighters organized in a manner similar to the structure and hierarchy of Russia’s state armed forces.

Evidence suggests the Wagner Group has been used as a proxy by Moscow, affording the Russian state plausible deniability vis-à-vis military operations abroad, thereby obfuscating the true casualties resultant of Russia's foreign interventions.

Coming to prominence shortly after the 2014 commencement of the Donbas War in Ukraine, the Wagner Group has taken part in numerous global conflicts, to include civil wars in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali, often fighting on the sides of forces aligned with the Russian government. Wagner operatives have been accused of murdering, torturing, raping, and robbing civilians—war crimes, all—as well as torturing and killing accused deserters.

The Wagner Group contributed significantly to Russia’s February 2022 mobilization against Ukraine, for which the Group recruited Russian prison inmates for frontline combat.

The 62-year-old Prigozhin headed a 23-24 June 2023 insurrection against Putin’s government, marching Wagner Group personnel from Ukraine, seizing the southern Russian city of Rostov on Don, and threatening to advance on Moscow. The attempted coup has been attributed, in part, to tensions born of Prigozhin’s differences of opinion with Russian military commanders over Putin’s conduct of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

In the end, the inchoate rebellion was quelled by dint of a deal allowing Wagner Group troops to either relocate to Belarus or join the Russian army.

Notwithstanding his culpability in the attempted coup and alleged agreement to relocate his person and household to Belarus, Prigozhin passed the last two months traveling freely throughout Russia. The openness and audacity with which he conducted his post-insurrection affairs compelled Russian political pundits to refer to Prigozhin as a “dead man walking.”

In the days following the Wagner Group coup attempt, Putin referred to Prigozhin’s actions as a “betrayal” and “a stab in the back.”

FMI: www.state.gov

Advertisement

More News

NTSB Final Report: Rutan Long-EZ

He Attempted To Restart The Engine Three Times. On The Third Restart Attempt, He Noticed That Flames Were Coming Out From The Right Wing Near The Fuel Cap Analysis: The pilot repor>[...]

ANN FAQ: Turn On Post Notifications

Make Sure You NEVER Miss A New Story From Aero-News Network Do you ever feel like you never see posts from a certain person or page on Facebook or Instagram? Here’s how you c>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: ICAS Perspectives - Advice for New Air Show Performers

From 2009 (YouTube Edition): Leading Air Show Performers Give Their Best Advice for Newcomers On December 6th through December 9th, the Paris Las Vegas Hotel hosted over 1,500 air >[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (06.28.25)

Aero Linx: NASA ASRS ASRS captures confidential reports, analyzes the resulting aviation safety data, and disseminates vital information to the aviation community. The ASRS is an i>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (06.28.25)

“For our inaugural Pylon Racing Seminar in Roswell, we were thrilled to certify 60 pilots across our six closed-course pylon race classes. Not only did this year’s PRS >[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC