Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet that crashed north of Moscow, killing all ten people on board, the Russian authorities have said. It, however, remains to be confirmed if the Wagner chief had actually boarded the flight, as per Al Jazeera. Prigozhin was seen as the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin`s authority since he came to power.

US President Joe Biden has said he is `not surprised` at news that Prigozhin may have died in a plane crash in Russia. Biden said: "I don`t know for a fact what happened, but I`m not surprised. There`s not much that happens in Russia that Putin`s not behind. But I don`t know enough to know the answer."