Conspiracy theories are swirling around the possible death of Wagner's infamous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin after a plane crashed over Russian territory on Wednesday.
Russia's Civil Aviation Authority said a private plane listing former Kremlin ally Prigozhin as a passenger had crashed north of Moscow, killing all 10 people on board.
Passengers included Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian officer with the codename "Wagner," who is thought to have been a co-founder of the mercenary group.
The clash came two months to the day after Prigozhin led a short-lived armed rebellion against the Kremlin, with his forces seizing the southern city of Rostov-on-Don before marching on the Russian capital.
The rebellion was quashed in a deal reportedly brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The passenger list published by Russian authorities showed seven passengers and three crew members on board the plane at the time, the Telegraph reports.
An investigation has been launched into the incident, Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency said.
US officials believe the plane crash that killed Prigozhin was 'deliberately caused by an explosion'
The plane crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino, in the Tver region, and footage of the plane plummeting toward the ground quickly emerged, along with photos of the wreckage.
The bodies found at the crash site have not yet been identified, an account believed to be run by a former Russian Defense Ministry employee said on Thursday.
Another Russian media outlet claimed that Prigozhin's body had been transferred to a morgue and was being examined in Tver.
However, the circumstances surrounding the crash have inspired a wave of theories about who, or what, was responsible for the plane's downing and whether the Wagner leader was indeed among the victims, the Telegraph reports.
Some conspiracy theories
There is no clarity on the details and it is a possibility for many that Prigozhin - and perhaps Utkin - were not on that ill-fated flight and survived, according to Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, United Kingdom.
If that's the case, "they'll probably remain in the shadows forever and we'll only know the official story," she told Newsweek.
Another scenario could be that it was an "internal matter" of Prigozhin and Utkin.
"Thus, both survived as part of a larger plan to disappear or reappear with changed names and appearances to serve Putin," she said.
Meanwhile, a Telegram channel claimed that Prigozhin and Utkin had died "as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia," without further specifying.
The channel also claimed that the plane was shot down by air defenses during its journey from Moscow to St Petersburg.
There is also Putin's reaction after the plane crash in which Yevgeny Prigozhin is said to have died
Vladimir Rogov, an official from the Russian-backed authorities in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, said he had received confirmation that Prigozhin and Utkin were dead, calling it a "murder".
No evidence has been provided to support any of the claims and theories.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden, along with several analysts, seemed to point the finger at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Although he did not know the details of the crash, "I'm not surprised," Biden said after the news made headlines.
"There's not a lot that happens in Russia that Putin isn't behind," Biden said. "But I don't know enough to know the answer."
Was the incident staged?
The Russian Telegram channel Baza, linked to Russian security services, said on Wednesday that "Prigozhin has already 'died' before," adding that the Wagner financier was thought to have died in a plane crash in the fall of 2019.
Russian media reported in October 2019 that Prigozhin may have been killed when an An-72 military transport plane crashed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It later emerged that he was not on the plane.
Reports that Prigozhin was killed are "false claims," former racing driver Igor Sushko said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "This smells like a Putin plot to eliminate him," he said.
However, Sushko later said that exiled Russian human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin was "99,999% sure that Prigozhin was indeed killed by Putin," claiming to cite Russian security sources.
"If I were Prigozhin, this is exactly how I would plot my own fake death," another social media user wrote. "Everyone would be happy; I could retire in peace."
Prigozhin fled after the collision
Citing flight tracking data, some speculate that a second plane owned by Prigozhin also left Moscow for St. Petersburg at the same time, with some suggesting that Wagner's boss was on this second plane.
Christo Grozev, of the investigative newspaper Bellingcat, added that "everyone is holding their breath" to see if Prigozhin would emerge alive from the second plane.
"There is very little known information, but in fact, we know that one of his two private planes crashed. The other landed safely," Miron said.
A "double" Prigozhin?
There has also been speculation in recent months whether Prigozhin has been using a "body double", as the Wagner leader previously lost part of a finger.
After Wagner's rebellion in late June, photographs also emerged showing Prigozhin wearing a variety of disguises, including a series of wigs.
"He is a fraudster," a source told the independent Russian news outlet Meduza. "He has informants in various structures, so we have to wait." /Telegraph/
