THE Dmitry Utkin, the “right hand” of Yegeny Prigozhin and bearing as co-founder of Wagner, is also on his passenger list Embraer aircraft that crashed.

Utkin was an ardent Russian nationalist, and was fascinated with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich having had an SS tattoo.

Unlike Prigozhin, the hard-line Utkin, Wagner’s operational commander, shunned the limelight and acted behind the scenes, but he is reported to have been a lieutenant colonel in the Russian “Spetsnaz” special forces, and to have received Medals of Valor for his actions on the battlefield and served in the military until 2013.

He was then in Syria as part of the Russian intervention hitting rebel groups and supporting it the presidency of Bashar al-Assad through a Russian-operated, Hong Kong-based private military company known as Slavonic Body.

Utkin was as ruthless as the Es – Es he so adored: in Homs, Syria, in June 2017, he is said to have ordered a deserter beaten to death, recording the heinous act on video.

The Wagner group is said to have been named after Utkin, as the his military nickname was “Wagner”. Utkin is said to have been involved in Wagner operations in Ukraine in 2014 in Crimea and Donbass. He has been accused of human rights abuses and has been sanctioned by the UK and New Zealand over the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Council of the European Union imposed restrictive measures against him and others associated with the Wagner Group in 2021.

It is noted that among the dead in the accident was also identified Valery Chekalov, another deputy to Prigozhin. He was in charge of Wagner’s security service.