MOSCOW: Russia has officially confirmed the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group mercenary force. According to Russian Investigation Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko, Prigozhin’s death was confirmed by the agency after conducting a slew of forensic and genetic testing.

It was on Wednesday that a private jet carrying 10 people including Prigozhin crashed near Russian outskirts. Albeit Russia confirmed the death of all, mystery loomed after the Kremlin distanced away from officially confirming the death of Prigozhin.

Although Prigozhin’s name was on the passenger list, it remained ambiguous whether he had boarded the plane or not. In addition to Prigozhin, the bodies of Wagner Group co-founder Dmitry Utkin were also identified. Pilot Alexei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov, flight attendant Kristina Raspopova, and senior members of the Wagner Group Valery Chekalov, Sergey Propustin, Yevgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, and Nikolai Yutuseyev were among the others killed.

The Investigative Committee is still working on ways to solve the mystery behind the shocking crash. The Investigative Committee stated that the cause of the plane crash is being investigated. The Embraer Legacy jet exploded over the village of Kashenkino in the Tver region while flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

The U.S. concluded that a bomb explosion inside the plane may have led to the crash. Russia meanwhile discarded the notion that Prigozhin’s death was a sly operation performed at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin also labeled the news as West spread lies.