A Russian investigation initiated last week confirmed Sunday that Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, perished in a plane crash alongside ten other passengers.
The DNA of the victims matched the identities of people who were supposed to be on the flight, Russian officials said in a statement. Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary group that June attempted a coup against Russia’s military leadership, was among the listed individuals.
Russia had not formally stated that the Wagner boss was aboard until Sunday. The deaths of some Prigozhin associates, including his longtime lieutenant and co-founder of the Wagner group Dmitry Utkin and his chief of security Valery Chekalov, were confirmed by the statement as well.
In comments Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said Prigozhin faced a “difficult fate” after making “serious mistakes in his life.” He recognized the mercenary leader for his former work to help Russia in its onslaught against Ukraine.
On Thursday, U.S. officials updated that Prigozhin was likely targeted in an assassination plot, but that the plane carrying him was not brought down by a surface-to-air missile as initially thought. A preliminary investigation of the incident indicated that either a bomb detonated on the plane during the flight or it went down for another reason, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new report came after U.S. officials told Reuters that the plane may have been downed by a surface-to-air missile launched from Russian soil.
After the incident, the Russian government started an investigation for violation of air safety rules.
Many commentators online quickly concluded that Putin exacted his revenge against Prigozhin for the mutiny he led, noting the leader’s history of cracking down on opponents to the regime. Putin said at the time that the incursion could have driven the country to civil war.
Putin and Prigozhin reached an agreement, brokered by Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko, after the coup was abandoned to avert further armed conflict. The agreement, according to Lukashenko, reportedly prevented “a bloodbath on the territory of Russia” and was “absolutely advantageous and acceptable” for Prigozhin. However, the original statement did not include specific details.