The crash cannot be understood without the rebellion that preceded it. On 23 June 2023, Prigozhin had led thousands of Wagner fighters in a one-day armed revolt against the Russian Defense Ministry, seizing Rostov-on-Don and advancing toward Moscow before negotiations, brokered by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, halted the column. The deal allowed Prigozhin to walk free, but analysts regarded his immunity as temporary. In the two months between the rebellion and the crash, Prigozhin traveled to Africa, where Wagner maintained extensive operations. He had reportedly just returned from one such trip when he boarded the Embraer Legacy 600 at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport for what would be his final flight.

The Legacy 600, registration RA-02795, had a complicated provenance. Produced by the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer in 2007, it passed through registrations in Slovenia, the Seychelles, and the Isle of Man before landing on the Russian aircraft register around 2020. Embraer had not serviced the jet since 2019 due to sanctions compliance. Tracking data showed the aircraft climbing and descending erratically before data transmission ceased at 15:20:14. Video footage captured a puff of white smoke and the jet tumbling in free fall. The debris field was enormous, with the fuselage, empennage, and left wing found at three widely separated sites, a pattern that aviation experts said pointed to catastrophic structural failure incompatible with any ordinary mechanical problem.

Competing theories emerged almost immediately. A Telegram channel linked to Wagner, called Grey Zone, claimed Russian air defenses had shot the plane down, noting the crash site's proximity to Vladimir Putin's residence in Valdai, an area bristling with S-300 and Pantsir missile systems. However, U.S. intelligence assessed that an intentional explosion caused the crash, not a surface-to-air missile. The Wall Street Journal, citing Western and Russian intelligence sources, reported in December 2023 that Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia's Security Council, had orchestrated the operation by having a bomb placed under the wing during pre-departure safety checks. Putin himself offered a different account: at the Valdai Discussion Club in October, he suggested the passengers may have been using drugs and accidentally detonated their own hand grenades. The Institute for the Study of War called this narrative "bizarre" and described it as an attempt to blame the victims.

All ten people aboard died: seven passengers and three crew members. DNA analysis confirmed the identities on 27 August. Prigozhin was buried privately beside his father at Porokhovskoye Cemetery in Saint Petersburg on 29 August. Putin did not attend. Russian security services reportedly interfered with funeral arrangements to prevent mass gatherings, and after memorabilia were stolen from the grave, the site was placed under 24-hour guard. Utkin was buried at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery in Moscow Oblast. On state television, the crash received barely thirty seconds of coverage. But across Russia, makeshift memorials appeared in Moscow, Novosibirsk, and Rostov-on-Don, decorated with flowers and candles, quiet acknowledgments of what many Russians believed had happened.

The crash effectively ended the Wagner Group as an independent force. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that the targeted killings would eliminate Wagner as a substantial threat to the Kremlin. Redut, a rival private military company aligned with the Defense Ministry, had already begun recruiting for African operations even before the crash, posting messages that "Wagner is in the past." A poll by Alexei Venediktov found that 60 percent of Russian respondents believed the plane was either shot down or blown up intentionally, while only one percent considered the crash accidental. In April 2024, a monument to Prigozhin and Utkin was unveiled near the Wagner chapel in Goryachy Klyuch, Krasnodar Krai, home to the largest cemetery for Wagner mercenaries. The crash site itself, in the flat agricultural land of Tver Oblast, bears no official marker. Russia declined Brazil's offer to assist with the investigation.