candles to the wagner center. do you my prigozhin might be seen as a martyr here? maybe an unlikely inspiration to dissenters? maybe not popular dissenters but among the elite, perhaps? i m not sure among the elite because they are scared of change. they would need a lot of convincing that some postwagner figure would be the right person to replace putin. i think among the public, putin s popularity is broad and very shallow. it was striking during the coup, the failed coup, how very quickly wagner was able to take over the important southern russian city. he was greeted in the streets as a hero. and i think russians will cheer for putin. as soon as anyone else comes along, they will cheer for them, instead. they are basically fed up with the stagnant economy, with the war and the other problems of the putin regime and with putin
this is cnn newsroom. recap of our top story. evgeni prigozhin, the founder of the wagner group, was presumed dead in a plane crash. the war lord was traveling from moscow to st. petersburg on a private jet. russian aviation officials say the aircraft plunged from the sky, killing all aboard. people left flowers and candles at tribute. nick paton walsh walks through the rise from personal chef to rebel, and his rapid fall from grace. reporter: he always lived in the shadows until the war in ukraine made him the most public russian critic of how the kremlin s war was fought. the possibility of evgeni prigozhin is dead is a shock wave to an already shaken system. putin s critics rarely survive as long as he did. and the talk in russia and ukraine, that putin might still have wanted to kill him, a sign
operations in the united states, trying to meddle in key elections. all damaging to putin s enemies. his wagner group expanded from 2014. cnn has tracked the mercenaries operating in the central african republic, sudan, libya, mozambique and more. with an army of tens of thousands and in ukraine, always savage, fighting hard. recruiting convicts from russian prisons to be used as cannon fodder on the front lines. executing alleged traitors apparently with a sledgehammer. it may not be known who died in this wreckage. transparent investigators would struggle to find the right dna. we ll have russia s investigators and media s word, the people whose boss prigozhin enraged. for more on prigozhin s legacy in africa, i want to turn
question, with prigozhin presumed dead in that fiery crash. how much influence did he have on the day-to-day oermgs operat wagner? you can believe it was substantial. and there may have been other key wagner officials on that plane that crashed. if the operations headquarters and in terms of manpower, has been taken out, as it were, or died, could have a significant impact. the places to watch are central african republic and in mali in particular. the governments there and the junta have been dependent on wagner providing security. and wagner has been department on the countries for getting monetary assistance and directly mining precious minerals to help
ahead on cnn newsroom. evgeni prigozhin is presumed dead outside of moscow. and questions are swirling whether the crash was an accident. in the coming hours, donald trump is expected to be booked and released from fulton county jail. we ll break down this unprecedented arrest. and treated waste water from the fukushima nuclear plant is being released into the pacific ocean. we ll have the latest on this controversial move. it s 10:00 a.m. in moscow, where russian authorities say they ve opened a criminal investigation into the plane crash that may have killed evgeni prigozhin. the controversial leader of the wagner group is said to be onboard a private jet that went down wednesday evening. no one survived the fiery crash.