There is still no definitive evidence that the head of the Russian mercenary company Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the plane that crashed killing all on board earlier this week, but is “very likely” to be deadthe British Ministry of Defense announced today.

Russian authorities announced that Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the list of passengers on the plane that crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday night, two months after he led the failed Wagner mutiny against the Russian military command.

THE Russia launched an investigation into the cause of the crash, but has not officially confirmed the identities of the 10 bodies recovered from the wreckage of the plane.

“There is still no definitive proof that Prigozhin was among the passengers and it is known that he was taking extreme security measures. However, it is very likely that he is indeed dead,” it says British Ministry of Defence in the update from his intelligence services posted on the social media X (formerly Twitter).

“The death of Prigozhin will almost certainly have a profoundly destabilizing impact on the Wagner Group. His personal characteristics of hyperactivity, extraordinary boldness, drive for results and extreme brutality permeated Wagner and are unlikely to be matched by any successor,” he notes.

“The leadership vacuum at Wagner expected to worsen further due to information that founder and field commander Dmitry Utkin and head of logistics Valery Sekalov are also dead,” the British Ministry of Defense concludes.