An Embraer Legacy 600 with registration RA-02795 belonging to a private operator crashed this afternoon at 15:11 UTC near Kuzhenkino, in the Tver region, north of Moscow, while heading to St. Petersburg.
What could have been another tragic air accident took a different turn when it was known that members of the Wagner Group were onboard.
The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) reported that Yevgeni Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner, was on the passenger list.
The agency added that a total of ten people were onboard the plane, all of whom perished, including three crew members.
Already there is speculation about what caused the crash, while in some Telegram groups related to the Wagner Group, it is claimed that it was shot down by Russian military forces, which has not been confirmed so far.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1694397614924439910
The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency published a list of passengers of the business jet that crashed in the Tver region:
- Propustin Sergey
- Makaryan Evgeniy
- Totmin Alexander
- Chekalov Valery
- Utkin Dmitry
- Matuseev Nikolai
- Prigozhin Yevgeny
Crew members:
- Levshin Aleksei, commander
- Karimov Rustam, co-pilot
- Raspopova Kristina, flight attendant
If the identity of the deceased is confirmed, it would imply that the Wagner Group received a devastating blow, as along with Prigozhin, there was almost the entire senior officers of the mercenary group.
Video of the crash, per Mash, a Telegram channel close to Russian security services. They say eyewitnesses heard two loud bangs shortly beforehand. https://t.co/Q9ERTVIkMV pic.twitter.com/9gBnVeZ1GM
— max seddon (@maxseddon) August 23, 2023
The Embraer Legacy 600 is a business jet developed from the ERJ-135 regional jet. It has a length of 26.33 meters and a wingspan of 21.7 meters. Depending on the configuration, it can carry up to 14 passengers a distance of 6,300 kilometers.
It was introduced in 2000 and delivered to its first customer in 2022. Along with its modernized variant, the Legacy 650, nearly 300 units have been built.
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