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The tragic death of the leader of the Russian mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, still leaves stories, one of which is the theory of the use of body doubles. Photo/Illustration
MOSCOW – The tragic death of the leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is still a story. One of them said that the body that died in the plane crash in the Tver region was not the leader of the Wagner Group.
Prigozhin was buried in a secret ceremony in his hometown of Sait Petersburg, Russia, on Tuesday (29/8/2023). Russian authorities confirmed Prigozhin died along with nine other people in a private plane crash two months after launching a brief uprising in Russia.
However, one TikTok user shared what they saw as evidence of an attempt to cover up his death.
CLAIM:
Reporting from Newsweek, Saturday (2/9/2023), a TikTok user with the account name BeautyMrk showed that it was the body of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s twin who died in a plane crash. The post was uploaded on August 31, 2023 and has been viewed 121,800 times.
In the video, which has since been deleted, BeautyMrk quoted comments from a news article that said Prigozhin’s body double was killed in a plane crash last week.
“Oh no, they didn’t,” BeautyMrk replied, before cutting to a passport image said to be of Prigozhin’s body double, adding “Yes, it is and this is actually his body double.”
FACT:
Although rumors about Prigozhin’s death continue to attract attention, posts from the BeautyMrk TikTok account provide no evidence that there is a body of Prigozhin who died in a plane crash last month.
Most of the TikTok takes comments from a Daily Mail article that quotes commentator Valery Solovey. Solovey, who is often described as a “political analyst” and “conspiracy theorist”, is thought to have said that Prigozhin was in hiding and that a colleague died in the crash.
Newsweek could not independently verify the source or content of the comments.
The article featured a photo of what appeared to be a fake passport, said to belong to one of Prigozhin’s body doubles. The man in the photo is reportedly Leonid Krasavin, who has reportedly been linked to Prigozhin since 2020.
