‘Contract was put out on Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in Russia’, ex spy claims

Yevgeny Prigozhin: “Certainly it looks as though it may well be a revenge attack by somebody in the elite,” the former spy said.

A former British intelligence officer said that he received information previously regarding a contract that had been put out on Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. "We had heard some weeks ago from a source that a contract had been put out on Prigozhin in Russia by senior members of the business community," Christopher Steele told Sky News.

Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin is shown.(AP)

It would be a "mistake", though, to assume any assassination attempt was authorised by Russian president Vladimir Putin himself, he said.

“But certainly it looks as though it may well be a revenge attack by somebody in the elite, possibly somebody very senior,” he added. There has been no confirmation yet on whether Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in today's plane crash, or what caused it but he was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed north of Moscow.

The private jet crashed in Russia’s Tver region, Interfax reported, citing the nation’s aviation authority. All three pilots and seven passengers aboard the plane that was traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg are dead, state-run Tass news service reported. The crash occurred just two months after Prigozhin led a mutiny that posed the greatest threat to Vladimir Putin’s rule.

The Russian president had then denounced the June rebellion as “treason” but Prigozhin escaped any retaliation by the Kremlin under a deal brokered to end the revolt. This happened after his fighters came within 200 kilometers of Moscow.

Russian authorities are investigating the circumstances of the jet crash, Reuters reported.