The body of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has been positively identified in a Russian morgue by a commander of the mercenary group, according to a new report.
He was identified by a missing part of his finger on his left hand, an injury suffered while he served time in a penal colony decades ago, according to the well-connected VChK-OGPU Telegram channel. Dmitry Utkin, the neo-Nazi co-founder after whom the Wagner Group is named, was also identified by his tattoos, according to VChK-OGPU. (Utkin famously has several Nazi tattoos.)
Police have cordoned off the morgue in the Tver region where both bodies were brought after a fiery plane crash on Wednesday killed all 10 on board and left only charred remains. While both Prigozhin and Utkin were listed as passengers on the doomed plane, rumors have swirled of Prigozhin potentially dodging death by using a body double, or registering for a flight he wasn’t going to be on to throw off any would-be assassins.
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But by Thursday, myriad reports surfaced of evidence the mercenary boss was in fact on board. Citing a source within Wagner, Al Jazeera reported that Prigozhin’s phone was found near one of the bodies at the scene.
Authorities are reportedly relying on DNA for official confirmation of who exactly is lying in the morgue, however. The bodies were severely burned in the crash and “many body parts were torn off” from the impact, according to the Baza Telegram channel, which cited sources who said DNA had already been sent off for testing.
Ivan Sibula, an investigator who has worked on several earlier high-profile plane crashes, has been tasked with getting to the bottom of what sent the Embraer jet plummeting to the ground, according to RBC. So far, investigators have reportedly begun scrutinizing a pilot who was sanctioned by the U.S. for his ties with Prigozhin. Artyom Stepanov is being sought by police because he had access to the plane and skipped town shortly before the crash, according to several Russian media reports.
The family members of several Wagner fighters, meanwhile, refuse to believe that the group’s top bosses are dead—suggesting their deaths may have been staged to avoid having to pay all the men under their command or the family members of those killed.
“It’s not a fact that [Prigozhin] is dead. This is just an excuse not to take responsibility before the relatives of the dead. He will continue living under a different name,” one relative wrote in a private chat, according to MSK1.ru.
“I also think they deliberately started this rumor so they could worm out,” another family member was quoted saying. “If there’s no ringleader, that means there’s no one to ask.”
