oct 18, 2023 - The Daily Mail: Flight attendant's Facebook post about "repairs" before fatal flight

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Riddle of 'urgent repairs' to the jet; PUTIN'S BRUTAL REVENGE Intriguing post on Facebook by stewardess who was among dead
The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday (London)
Aug 25, 2023 06:23
Copyright 2023 Associated Newspapers Ltd. All Rights Reserved

Author: Mark Nicol

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"Having maintained a low profile for several weeks, Prigozhin reappeared in a Wagner promotional video on Tuesday, filmed in northern Africa.

Posing in his military fatigues, including a rather ludicrous camouflage sunhat, and clutching an assault rifle, he boasted how his PMC was improving security on the continent and making life a nightmare for IS and Al Qaeda.

While he was under investigation for alleged corruption, that did not seem to matter as he brandished such a high-powered weapon, while wearing body armour and carrying spare magazines bursting with 7.62mm calibre rounds. Prigozhin appeared every inch the globetrotting warlord, the man who had dared to thumb his nose to the Kremlin and, remarkably, had got away with it.

Seemingly he was too influential even for his ruthless old adversary Vladimir Putin to dispose of.PRIGOZHIN and other senior members of Wagner, including the PMC's co-founder, his right-hand man Dmitry Utkin, 53, flew back to Russia that evening.

They were accompanied by Valery Chekalov, 47, a veteran of the campaign in Ukraine; Sergei Propustin, 44, who fought alongside Prigozhin during the battle of Bakhmut; and two other mercenaries, Alexander Totmin, 30, and Yevgeniy Makaryan, who took part in Wagner's brutal clampdown on opposition to president Bashar al- Assad in Syria. Their bodyguards were also in tow.

On Wednesday their final flight, from Moscow to Prigozhin's home city of St Petersburg was delayed, apparently due to mechanical issues with their Embraer Legacy private jet.

With time to spare, stewardess Kristina Raspopova, 39, swiped her smartphone and opened her Facebook page.

She posted a photograph of her airport meal, white bread, pate and butter, and told relatives the aircraft was being 'repaired'.

A relative said: 'She said that she was in Moscow. The aircraft was under maintenance or some urgent repairs. It seemed like she had been there for a while. That is at least a couple of days.

'They were waiting for the order to take off.'

Seemingly the issues which delayed their departure were rectified and, on Wednesday afternoon, the luxury aircraft climbed for 12 minutes after take-off, eventually reaching an altitude of 28,000ft.

Suddenly it disappeared off the radar. What happened next remains unconfirmed.

Either the aircraft was destroyed by an explosive device hidden on board, or it was targeted by a surface-to-air missile - smoke trails observed by eyewitnesses suggest the latter but US intelligence officials yesterday cast doubt on that theory.

Whatever the cause, just after 6pm local time it was seen circling over the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region, north of the Russian capital city.

Its engines were ablaze and one of its wings was severely damaged.

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