Nine other people were on the plane alongside Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin when it crashed, according to flight details released by the Russian authorities.

They include Dmitry Utkin, who is believed to have given the mercenary group its name.

Russia also says Valkeriy Chekalov, who is believed to have been crucial to the group’s finances, was on board.

Three crew members were on the flight alongside the Wagner members.

Here’s what we know about them.

The history of the Wagner Group is murky but follow the trail back far enough and Dmitry Utkin’s name will inevitably crop up.

The 63-year-old is believed to have been involved in the private army since its early days in 2014, though his exact role is disputed and it is unclear whether he was a principal actor in founding it or acted as a frontman.

In his last known remarks – made to Wagner troops in Belarus in June and reported by a pro-Wagner social media channel – he seemed to confirm that the Wagner Group was named after the call sign he used on the battlefield.

It is seemingly a reference to the composer Richard Wagner, who was Adolf Hitler’s favourite musician.

There are few photographs Utkin but one of those in circulation is a selfie which reveals neo-Nazi tattoos on his body.

According to Utkin’s online CV, which appears to be from around 2013 and was unearthed by the investigative website Bellingcat, he served in the GRU – Russia’s military intelligence division – from 1988 to 2008. It says his involvement in combat operations led to government awards, and lists weapons skills among his professional qualities.

Utkin became a gun for hire after leaving military intelligence and gained influence in Wagner when the group fought on the side of pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

He is also thought to have been involved in the group’s operations in Syria and Africa. A BBC investigation in 2021 linked him to documents which exposed Wagner’s involvement in the Libyan civil war.

A picture thought to be taken in 2016 shows Utkin alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a Kremlin reception, at a time when the Russian government was denying links to Wagner.

Mr Putin has since said the Russian government funded the group.

Chekalov is believed to be a close Prigozhin associate with business links to the Wagner leader stretching back to the 2000s.

The 47-year-old appears to have been involved in running Prigozhin’s non-military business interests, which Western governments say are used to finance the mercenary group.

Chekalov was linked with Evro Polis, a company associated with Prigozhin, which signed contracts for the production of gas and oil in Syria in 2017.

According to the US Treasury, the company was contracted by Bashar al-Assad’s government “to protect Syrian oil fields in exchange for a 25 percent share in oil and gas production from the fields”.

The finances raised from the deal were used to pay Wagner fighters and procure arms, the US Treasury said.

Chekalov had been targeted by US and Ukrainian sanctions over his links with Prigozhin, and Evro Polis has also been sanctioned by a number of governments, including the UK.

The other five men listed as passengers all appear to be Wagner fighters.

Unlike Utkin and Chekalov, they do not appear on international sanctions lists and so have not been deemed to be senior figures by Western governments.

Given that we know Prigozhin was surrounded by close protection – and even more so after his rift with Vladimir Putin deepened – they may have been travelling as bodyguards.

The names of three of the men appear in a database of alleged Wagner fighters which has been compiled by pro-Ukrainian activists: Yevgeny Makaryan, Sergey Propustin and Alexander Totmin.

Another man identified by the Russian authorities as Nikolay Matuseev does not appear in the database.

The remaining three people identified as being among the dead by Russian authorities are the pilot Alexei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and Kristina Raspopova, a flight attendant and the only woman on board.

Very little confirmed information is available on the trio and it is unclear if they were directly employed by Prigozhin, by a company he owned, or by another company entirely.

Prigozhin is known to have regularly travelled by private jet, and the aircraft involved in the crash, a Brazilian-made Embraer Legacy 600, is known to have been used by him previously.

The plane was put under US sanctions in 2019 – when it was listed under a different registration – because of its links to Prigozhin via a company, Reuters reported.

The BBC has not independently verified details about the flight crew but reports citing interviews with their relatives are circulating in Russian online media.

Raspopova, 39, is said to have spoken to her family and posted photographs on social media shortly before the flight took off.

Karimov, 29, had only worked for the company for three months, according to a Russian media interview with his father, and reportedly celebrated his fourth wedding anniversary earlier this month.

Levshin, 51, was married with two children and had worked in aviation his entire adult life, Russian outlets reported quoting his family.