DEAD ON ARRIVAL
Chilling footage shows inside Prigozhin’s jet HOURS before crash as ‘mystery buyers’ were shown round in security breach
CHILLING footage has emerged showing the inside of slain Prigozhin's jet just hours before it catastrophically crashed as "mystery buyers" were shown around in an extraordinary security breach.
The Russian warlord - and head of the Wagner private army - was killed along with nine others following a suspected explosion on board the plane.
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The footage shows the Embraer Legacy 600 plane being shown to the “potential buyers” on Wednesday - just hours before it was destroyed amid fears a bomb was planted on board.
This involved a security breach at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, according to VChK-OGPU Telegram channel which has links to law enforcement.
“To take them to a secure area, and then on board, the [potential] buyers were declared as passengers of the flight,” said the channel.
Although they were not passengers, they had access to the plane for around one hour from 9:30am to 10:30am on the day it crashed.
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Among the dead with Prigozhin were Wagner military commander Dmitry Utkin, 53, and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova, 39, who had revealed to her relatives both a delay in the flight and that the plane had undergone repairs before its doomed final journey.
Now new details have also emerged about the repairs and how a turbo-refrigerator “of unknown origin” was fitted into the plane at the last minute.
The West believes that Vladimir Putin ordered the assassination of Prigozhin, his former associate, who he believed had betrayed him by staging a June coup against his regime.
But on Friday, the Kremlin denied any involvement in the plane crash.
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Speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a hit on Prigozhin is “an absolute lie,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, Russian state media reported.
On Wednesday, the potential buyers in a £4.29million deal “arrived at Sheremetyevo in a Mercedes and went through the metal detectors inside," said the channel.
“The technician had only a phone with him, and the woman had a handbag.
“Having examined the outside and inside the plane (from about 9.30am to 10.30am), they calmly left the air harbour.
“Soon Prigozhin, Utkin, and others entered the plane - there was an explosion in the air.”
The channel named the “mysterious” as senator representatives of a Russian VIP business jet company, Rusjet.
They were named as Alexandra Yulina, chairman of the company's board of directors, and Sergey Klokotov, the Rusjet technical director.
Yet on the video - filmed around 10am - the voices of two women are heard.
“They were registered as passengers in order to be let through by special services and airport security,” reported VChK-OGPU.
The “buyers” had been informed of the likely date of Prigozhin’s use of the plane several days earlier.
“Knowing this, the buyers got inside the plane the same day as Yevgeny Prigozhin took off, bypassing all precautions.”
The channel said currently “the main version of the investigation is that a bomb could have been planted in a turbo-cooler, which was replaced on Prigozhin's plane on the eve of departure”.
The channel also said a source had revealed the Prigozhin plane was undergoing maintenance in mid-summer.
“After that, almost immediately, the aircraft suffered two serious breakdowns, which were fixed over the weekend.
“The brake of one of the chassis was replaced.
“The spare part was purchased from one of the airlines in the Russian Federation.”
Replaced, too, “was a turbo-refrigerator, which was ordered in the United States and delivered to Moscow bypassing sanctions.”
But there was an accident with the newly bought part as it was reportedly dropped and damaged in a warehouse at Moscow Airport Sheremetyevo.
This was replaced by a turbo-refrigerator “of unknown origin”.
“Where the new turbo-cooler came from, who installed it, is still being clarified.”
The channel said: “Experts do not rule out that it could have been a bomb.”
In the video the voice of one woman is heard saying of the plane: “It’s year 2007.”
A voice says: “We’d need to refresh the leather, of course.”
The other woman replied: “Yes, yes.”
Then there is an unfinished phrase saying: “Other than that, there is nothing.”
Early reports were that the plane had been downed by a missile strike but now it is seen as more likely an explosion on board the Embraer Legacy 600 caused the crash.
However, suggests that there was likely at least one catastrophic midair event several minutes before Prigozhin's plane crashed.
The data shows that the aircraft experienced an unexpected drop in altitude at around 6:19pm local time but remained in the air for several more minutes as it travelled a further 30 miles.
The Embraer Legacy 600 then plummeted down from the sky according to the flight data and horror footage capturing the catastrophic crash and debris fields.
Following the incident, the UK Government said it is "highly likely" that the leader of the Wagner mercenary group who challenged the Kremlin in a failed mutiny is dead.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) cautioned that there is "not yet definitive proof" that Yevgeny Prigozhin was onboard a plane that crashed between Moscow and St. Petersburg on Wednesday, but concluded his presumed demise is credible.
In its daily intelligence update on Friday, the MoD said: "On 23 August 2023, exactly two months after the Wagner Group's mutiny, a Wagner-associated Embraer business jet crashed near Tver, between Moscow and St Petersburg.
"The Russian authorities claim 10 people on board died, including Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin.
"There is not yet definitive proof that Prigozhin was onboard and he is known to exercise exceptional security measures.
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"However, it is highly likely that he is indeed dead."
His death "would almost certainly have a deeply destabilising effect" on his private military, with the reported deaths of Wagner's second-in-command and logistics chief compounding a "leadership vacuum", the MoD said on Twitter, now known as X.
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