Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a jet that crashed in Russia killing all 10 people on board, Russia's civil aviation authority says.

"The plane that crashed in the Tver Region listed Yevgeny Prigozhin among its passengers, (Russia's aviation agency) Rosaviatsia said," TASS news agency reported. RIA Novosti and Interfax also reported the same.

Russia’s Federal Agency for Air Transport also launched a “specially created commission” to investigate the crash.

“An investigation of the Embraer plane crash that happened in the Tver Region this evening was initiated. According to the passenger list, the first and last name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was included in this list,” Russia’s Federal Agency for Air Transport said in a statement.

“The Embraer plane was flying out of Sheremetyevo to St. Petersburg. There were three crew and seven passengers on board. They all died,” an Emergencies Ministry official told TASS.

The crash happened near the village of Kuzhenkino in the northwestern Tver Region. Some Russian outlets have identified the plane as an Embraer Legacy 600, with the tail number RA-02795, which is believed to belong to Prigozhin. All 10 bodies have been recovered, Russia's state-run news agency Interfax said.

The crew have been identified as Commander Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova. The other five passengers have been identified as Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Dmitriy Utkin, Nikolay Matuseev, and Prigozhin.

Social media linked to the Wagner mercenary group say Russian air defenses shot down his private plane.

Prigozhin died "as a result of actions of traitors to Russia", the Grey Zone Telegram channel posted.

Yevgeny Prigozhin was the founder of the mercenary force Wagner Group. He soared in prominence after Russia launched a full-scale military attack on Ukraine, where his fighters led the Russian assault on the city of Bakhmut in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. 

However, in June, Prigozhin led a mutiny in which Wagner fighters took control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down a number of military helicopters, killing their pilots, as they advanced toward Moscow. Prigozhin, however, called off the march to Moscow to what he said evert the bloodshed.

An apparent deal was made between Prigozhin and Putin after the aborted coup, which was meant to see the Wagner Group leader and his forces relocate to Belarus, with Prigozhin himself pledging to leave Russia for good. It is unclear why the aircraft he was listed as being on was near Moscow.

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