"The murder/assassination of Prigozhin will have catastrophic consequences. The people who gave the order do not understand the mood in the army and morale at all. Let this be a lesson to all. You always have to go to the end," the Wagner channel statement reads.

The bodies of Prigozhin and his second-in-command Dmitry Utkin, have reportedly been identified, according to statements which have been quick to come out of Russian media. Russian news agency TASS has also made it official: "Evgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin were on board the crashed Embraer plane, the Federal Air Transport Agency reported."