Updated: 7pm
A business jet en route from Moscow to St Petersburg crashed on Wednesday, killing all 10 people on board, Russian emergency officials said.
Mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list, officials said, but it was not clear if he was on board.
Unconfirmed media reports said the jet belonged to Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company.
Russia’s civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, said Prigozhin was on the passenger list.
However, it was not clear if he had boarded the flight.
Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted emergency officials as saying that the plane carried three pilots and seven passengers.
The authorities said they were investigating the crash, which happened in the Tver region more than 60 miles north of Moscow.
Prigozhin, whose private military force Wagner fought alongside Russia’s regular army in Ukraine, mounted a short-lived armed mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in late June.
The Kremlin said he would be exiled to Belarus, and his fighters would either retire, follow him there, or join the Russian military.
Shortly after that, Wagner fighters set up camp in Belarus, but Prigozhin’s plane, according to media reports, was flying back and forth between Belarus and Russia.
This week Prigozhin posted his first recruitment video since the mutiny, saying that Wagner is conducting reconnaissance and search activities, and “making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free”.
