The final photo taken by the only woman who was killed in the plane crash involving Wagner Group Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aircraft has been revealed. Kristina Raspopova, a flight attendant, shared a photo of her final meal on Twitter just before boarding the ill-fated flight. Raspopova and ten others were killed when the private jet crashed on Wednesday.
Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s name appeared on the passenger roster of the Embraer-135 (EBM-135BJ) flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg. According to reports, the stewardess had informed her family members that the flight was delayed due to a technical examination and unspecified repairs.
Ill-Fated Flight
The chilling final photo Raspopova posted on Facebook shows her waiting at an airport cafe to board the jet. One of Kristina’s relatives said: “She said that she was in Moscow, she was going to fly out, today or tomorrow.
“The aircraft was under maintenance or some urgent repairs.
“They were waiting for the flight. Some kind of maintenance, well nothing special. They flew in and were about to take off. There was nothing wrong.
“It seemed like she had been there for a while. That is at least a couple of days.”
Seven passengers and three crew were on board the Embraer aircraft were killed, Russian authorities said. Raspopova was one of them and the only female on board the ill-fated flight.
The crash occurred on Wednesday in the Tver region, located to the northwest of Moscow, the same day Russian General Sergei Surovikin was reportedly dismissed from his role as the chief of the air force.
Prigozhin spearheaded a failed mutiny against Russia’s armed forces in June.
As reported by Russia’s state-run news agency Interfax, all ten bodies were successfully recovered.
Wild Theories Surface
US officials have alleged that the plane crash, which is said to have claimed the lives of Prigozhin and Wagner Group co-founder Dmitry Utkin, was probably triggered by a surface-to-air missile.
The officials spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the situation and emphasized that this information is still provisional and being evaluated.
This assessment contradicts the viewpoints from several independent Russian sources that suggest the explosion might have been caused by a bomb placed on board.
A Russian outlet named Baza, while publishing plane schematics, indicated that a service compartment near the bathroom in the tail section of the aircraft, positioned behind the wings, could serve as an ideal location to conceal a bomb.
Several theories have been floating on social media since Prigozhin’s death. A UK intelligence source told The Sun that Putin had ordered his FSB secret service to carry out the assassination of his former associate.
According to VChK-OGPU, there are claims that a valuable gift in the form of an expensive wine crate was loaded onto the aircraft at the very last moment, and there are ongoing investigations into the possibility that this crate could have contained a bomb.
The plane had undergone thorough inspection with sniffer dogs before the wine crate was loaded, as mentioned by the Telegram channel.
On Thursday, Prigozhin’s body was identified by a missing portion of his left-hand finger, an injury he had sustained several years ago during his incarceration in a penal colony. Also, Dmitry Utkin, the co-founder of the Wagner Group for which the neo-Nazi group is named, was identified by his tattoos, as stated by VChK-OGPU. (Utkin is known for having several tattoos associated with Nazi symbolism.)
Following a fatal crash on Wednesday that claimed the lives of all 10 aboard and left behind charred remains, police cordoned off the mortuary in the Tver area where both bodies were taken.
Although Prigozhin and Utkin were both recorded as passengers on the fateful aircraft, speculations have circulated that Prigozhin may have evaded assassins by using a body double or by registering for a flight he wasn’t planning to take.
