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Russian authorities confirmed on Sunday that the 10 people killed in the crash of a private plane north of Moscow on Aug. 23 were those that had been listed on the jet’s manifest.
The most prominent was Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, 62, the businessman and leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, who two months earlier had led a brief mutiny against Russia’s military leadership. He was buried in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Tuesday.
Another was Dmitri Utkin, 53, a longtime Prigozhin lieutenant. The Wagner mercenary group took its name from his call sign,which he had chosen to honor the composer Richard Wagner, a favorite of Adolf Hitler’s. Mr. Utkin was buried outside of Moscow on Thursday, according to Russian media reports.
Others on board were Wagner associates, and three were the flight’s crew: two pilots and a flight attendant. Here’s what The Times has learned about them.
Valeriy Chekalov
Wagner’s logistics chief, Mr. Chekalov, 47, oversaw many of Mr. Prigozhin’s projects abroad, including in Syria and Africa, according to the Dossier Center, a London-based Russian opposition news outlet.
Last month, the State Department imposed sanctions on Mr. Chekalov for acting on behalf of Mr. Prigozhin and facilitating shipments of munitions to Russia.
He was buried on Tuesday in Northern Cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Yevgeny Makaryan
Mr. Makaryan joined Wagner in March 2016 and fought for Wagner assault troops in Syria in 2018, according to the Dossier Center.
He was wounded that year, according to the center, when U.S. aircraft responded to an assault. A New York Times reconstruction of the battle said that pro-Syrian fighters, including Wagner mercenaries, had attacked U.S., Kurdish and Arab forces in western Syria in one of the bloodiest battles involving American troops fighting the Islamic state.
Sergei Propustin
Mr. Propustin, 44, was one of Mr. Prigozhin’s personal bodyguards.
He was from Novocherkassk in the Rostov region of Russia, a local news outlet reported.
He had fought in the second Chechen war, which ended in 2009, according to the Dossier Center. Russian media reported he was wounded.
The media reports said he joined Wagner in March 2015, and had moved to St. Petersburg soon after meeting Mr. Prigozhin, though it was unclear when that was.
Nikolay Matyuseyev
The Dossier Center said it could not find a person with that name on lists of Wagner personnel but did find a Nikolai Matusevich, who had served with Wagner since January 2017 and had fought in Syria.
Alexander Totmin
According to his social media accounts, Mr. Totmin, 28, also was one of Mr. Prigozhin’s personal bodyguards. Biographical information and posts on the accounts say that he was a native of the Altai Territory in western Siberia.
Alexey Levshin
Mr. Levshin was the plane’s pilot. He was from the Tambov region of Russia, which lies south of Moscow and a few hundred miles east of the Ukrainian border, and had always wanted to be a pilot, according to interviews with his family members by Russian media.
The reports said he had attended the Sasovsky Civil Aviation Flight School in the Ryazan region, which lies between Tambov and Moscow, as well as the St. Petersburg Academy of Civil Aviation.
His wife, Svetlana, told Russian media that he had worked in the aviation industry for seven years, and had been home briefly before leaving for the flight that crashed.
His daughter, Anastasia, told a Russian TV station, RBK, that he worked with Mr. Prigozhin for several years. “Dad was a very good person,” she said. “He was open, with a kind heart, helped everyone, loved life, was a diligent, wonderful father and husband. Loved us very much, we always felt it, caring, generous, a real family man.”
Rustam Karimov
Mr. Karimov, 29, was the plane’s co-pilot. According to Russian media, he was born in Perm, an industrial center near the Ural Mountains, and lived in St. Petersburg.
His father, Shukur Karimov, told Russian media that Mr. Karimov had served in the military before working for S7 Airlines, one of Russia’s largest passenger carriers. He moved to St. Petersburg for a new job two months ago.
Before his last flight, Mr. Karimov had called his mother to inform her he would be flying.
It is unclear whether Mr. Karimov was known to have worked with Mr. Prigozhin in the past. His father said that his son could not have known that Mr. Prigozhin would be on board, adding that he was “just a pilot.”
Kristina Raspopova
Ms. Raspopova, 39, was the plane’s flight attendant and the only woman on board.
Born in Kazakhstan, she had attended Moscow Finance and Law University, and was divorced, according to her Facebook page. According to her social media profiles, Ms. Raspopova was a “V.I.P. stewardess” who lived in Moscow, her hometown.
Her last Facebook post, a picture of her suitcase and a meal, came a day before the plane crashed.
Source – NY Times
