Radek Pietruszka/PAP

Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, has said that following the death of the leader of the Wagner group the mercenaries are now supervised directly by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Russia’s civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, said on Wednesday that a private jet had crashed in western Russia, killing all 10 people aboard.

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin as well as his advisor Dmitry Utkin were on the passenger list.

Prigozhin led a brief revolt against Russia’s top army brass in late June and his troops moved to Belarus under a deal with the Kremlin brokered by Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko “to avoid bloodshed.”

On Thursday, Morawiecki was asked at a press conference in Warsaw what Prigozhin’s death means for Polish security.

“Supervision of the Wagner group is now transferred directly to President Putin… it is under the direct tutelage of Putin and his people, and will be used even more than before, or at least to the same extent as it was before: as an instrument of provocation, blackmail and various kinds of harassment in order to disrupt security policy and destabilise countries bordering Russia and Belarus,” Morawiecki said.