Aircraft Allegedly Transporting Wagner Boss Prigozhin Tracked Flying to Moscow From Belarus
By Chris King • 28 June 2023
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. Credit: Telegram Yevgeny Prigozhin
An aircraft believed to have the Wagner PMC boss Yevgeny Prigozhin on board has been tracked flying from Belarus to Moscow.
The Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft with tail number RA-02795, was monitored taking off from an airfield in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. It subsequently headed towards Moscow, according to RBC, referencing the FlightRadar24 platform.
As of 11:30 pm local Moscow time, more than 4,000 users were reportedly watching the flight of this aircraft on the site. By this time, the plane was already passing near the border of the Smolensk and Moscow regionsOn the afternoon of June 27, Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin had arrived in the country that same day. According to Flightradar24, the Embraer Legacy 600 landed at the Machulishchi military airfield near Minsk.
A second aircraft associated with Prigozhin also took off from Minsk
To confuse matters, a second plane, a Hawker Siddeley HS-125, with tail number RA-02878, which is also associated with Prigozhin flew from Minsk towards St. Petersburg.
According to Flightradar24, by 23:30 local time, it was in the sky over the Leningrad region with another 2,000 users monitoring its route.
An alleged ‘armed rebellion’ began on the evening of June 23
A bizarre series of events were set in motion on the evening of June 23. Prigozhin took to his official Telegram channel to accuse the Russian Defence Ministry of allegedly attacking the rear camps of his private military company.
As a result, a huge convoy of Wagner mercenaries set off in the direction of Moscow on what was later called a ‘march of justice’.
Prigozhin’s men crossed the border from Ukraine into Russia without meeting any opposition. In the meantime, the Ministry of Defence denied his statements and the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a case against the mercenary chief for organising an armed rebellion.
On the morning of June 24, Wagner forces rolled into the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, again unopposed. His men circled the main administrative building and blocked all the main roads in and out of the city.
After some time, the main convoy continued on its way, moving towards Moscow. Putin meanwhile made an appeal, in which he called the actions of the head of the PMC ‘a stab in the back and warned him of the consequences.
The situation was reported to have been ‘resolved’
Later that same evening, the press service of the President of Belarus reported that negotiations had taken place between Alexander Lukashenko and Prigozhin.
As a result of which the parties had agreed on ‘an acceptable option for resolving the situation with a guarantee of security for the company’s fighters’.
The Wagner PMC boss then announced the decision to deploy his columns and send them back to the field camps. Putin subsequently cancelled the arrest warrant that had been issued for Prigozhin.
What happens next, remains to be seen. Putin allegedly granted Prigozhin the chance of going into ‘exile’ in Belarus. His fighters were given three options: to continue serving in Russia and sign a contract with law enforcement agencies, to leave the service and go home to their relatives, or ‘to go to Belarus’.