The BBC’s James Waterhouse in Kyiv says people in Ukraine have little sympathy for Prigozhin and are hoping for an “implosion” within Russia.
“This is the leader of a mercenary group that has undertaken some of the most brutal fighting in Ukraine,” he says.
“Until anyone hears confirmation or sees Prigozhin himself put out a video then I don’t think people will believe it fully – but there is a lot of willing here in Ukraine.”
Many Ukrainians have been hoping that Vladimir Putin would be “somehow toppled”, and Prigozhin’s mutiny, although it failed, was seen as the start of that.
This development “feeds those subconscious hopes that Putin’s regime could fall,” Waterhouse says.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak wrote on social media that the plane crash was “a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections. ‘Beware! Disloyalty equals death’.”
