It was what many felt was an accident waiting to happen. Almost three months after he seized a military base and led an abortive march on Moscow, killing 13 Russian Air Force members en route, Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin met his own fate in an air crash on Wednesday.

The Grey Zone Telegram channel, which is linked to the mercenary group, reported that "a hero of Russia and true patriot . . . died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia".

Julia Ioffe, a Russian-born American journalist who has closely followed his chequered career, says that when CIA Director Bill Burns was recently asked why Prigozhin was still alive, he said the mercenary leader was not out of the woods yet because, "Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback".

On Wednesday, nine people reportedly died alongside him in the crash including the Wagner founder, Dimitry Utkin, who had named the organisation after his call sign, Wagner, who was also Adolf Hitler's favourite composer, and other members of the high command.

Even in the very slim chance that it was poor piloting skills or a technical fault that caused the crash, the Wagner leadership has been effectively decapitated.

The company's operations in Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine are likely to be absorbed into other agencies of the Russian state or closed down.

At the same time, there has been an apparent purge of Prigozhin's allies in the military.

Prigozhin's ally General Sergei Surovikin, the...