High-Profile Passenger List Uncovered in Prigozihn Plane Crash
New Reports Reveal the Passenger List
Overt Operator
August 24, 2023
At the time of publishing, it appears the inner circle of Prigozihn’s empire, including Wagner PMC leadership was killed in the plane crash.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a 62-year-old Russian oligarch, transformed his life from a convict serving 12 years for robbery and fraud charges to a business magnate.
Post his prison release, he spearheaded the establishment of Konkord Catering and Konkord Management and Consulting; a holding company for other ventures. Notably, the Russian military was among the elite clientele of his ventures.
He also founded Wagner Group, a conglomerate of military contractors instrumental in Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Their imprints also exist in the Ukraine conflict and operations in Syria and Africa.
Russian Telegram channels announce the death of Prigozhin and his “right hand” calling on others to respect the dead.
Furthermore, Prigozhin made waves with the Internet Research Agency (IRA), an infamous online troll farm implicated in the 2016 US Presidential Election and the 2018 Mid-term elections.
The other passengers on the flight that killed Prigozhin included the following:
Dmitry Utkin - the reputed operational leader of the Wagner Group, Utkin, a former GRU lieutenant colonel, has been integral to the group's strategic maneuvers since its 2014 inception.
Valeriy Yevgenyevich Chekalov - the businness man with deep connections to Prigozihns holding companies and arms shipments. Often considered one of the potential successors to Prigozihn.
Yevgeny Makaryan, with a call sign "Makar"
Sergey Propustin, a veteran of the Second Chechen War
Nikolai Matuseev, a Wagner loyalist
Alexander Totmin, known by the call sign "Tot."
The aircraft's crew was also killed. Commander Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov, and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova are also included on the flight manifest.
The demise of Prigozhin and his inner circle hints at potential chaos in the corridors of Russian power, signaling an imminent power vacuum and potential shifts in the alignment of oligarchs, Wagner operations, and Kremlin decision making.