In November 2022, the "Nika-Fruit" company, which belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, bought from the Chinese Beijing Yunze Technology Co. Ltd." two reconnaissance satellites — JL-1 GF03D 12 and JL-1 GF03D 13, which are in orbit at an altitude of 535 kilometers above the Earth. With their help, the PMC "Wagner" was probably preparing for the June mutiny.
AFP writes about it.
Journalists verified the signature of "Nika-Fruit" CEO Ivan Mechetin, who signed a contract with "Beijing Yunze Technology". According to a source in the European security service, the contract provides for the provision of images from other satellites of the company upon request. The buyer received satellite images of Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali, where the PMC "Wagner" operates.
As an intelligence source told AFP, at the end of May, the PMC "Wagner" ordered pictures of Russian territories from the border with Ukraine to Moscow. Among the objects photographed by satellites was the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don and the city of Grozny. The satellites surveyed the area through which the "Wagnerians" were going to Moscow.
An aerospace researcher at Cornell University in the USA Gregory Falko believes that the use of Chinese satellites by the "Wagnerians" shows Russiaʼs limitations in this sector — the Russian satellite program is in a bad state, so they decided to rely on the Chinese.
- During the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin, on June 23-24, 2023, the mercenaries of the PMC "Wagner" captured the headquarters of the Southern Military District, and another group of fighters marched to Moscow through the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions. When Prigozhin informed about the end of the rebellion on June 24, the "Wagnerians" were about 200 kilometers from the capital of the Russian Federation.
- In the evening of August 23, it became known that a business-class plane, owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, crashed in the Bologovsky district of the Tver region. The head of the PMC "Wagner" was on the list of passengers. Authorities said seven passengers and three crew members of the plane were killed. On August 27, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation officially confirmed the death of Prigozhin and one of the main commanders of the "Wagnerians" Dmytro Utkin, who was also on board.