Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner paramilitary chief who launched an armed mutiny in June, has been reported dead. Russia said he was onboard a private jet that crashed in the Tver region near Moscow, killing all 10 onboard.

Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation authority, said Prigozhin and senior Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin were among 10 people travelling on the Embraer business jet that crashed on Wednesday evening.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with the military and the armed uprising he led in June would give the Russian state ample motive for revenge. Media channels linked to Wagner quickly suggested that a Russian air defence missile had shot down the plane. Grey Zone, a popular Telegram channel with more than 500,000 subscribers linked to Wagner, pronounced him dead, and hailed him a hero and a patriot who it said had died at the hands of unidentified people it called “traitors to Russia”.

The Embraer jet crashed in the Tver region while flying between Moscow and St Petersburg, Prigozhin’s home city. Video posted online apparently showed the small jet trailing a plume of smoke before slamming into the ground and erupting in flames.