A group of Russian militants who fight on the Ukrainian side called on the Wagner Group of mercenaries to switch sides and join their ranks to revenge the deaths of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and their commander Dmitry Utkin.
Russian air authorities have said Prigozhin, Utkin and eight other people were on a private plane that crashed with no survivors north of Moscow on Wednesday.
“You are facing a serious choice now – you can stand in a stall of Russia’s defence ministry and serve as watchdogs for executors of your commanders or take revenge,” commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) Denis Kapustin said in a video address published late on Thursday.
“To take revenge you need to switch to Ukraine’s side,” the commander said.
The crash came two months to the day after Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries staged a mutiny against Russian military commanders in which they took control of a southern city, Rostov, and advanced towards Moscow before turning around 200 kilometers far from the capital.
Russia has opened an investigation into the crash, but its outcome is unlikely to shake a widespread belief that Prigozhin was killed as an act of vengeance for staging the mutiny.