Wagner Mercenary's tragic end: Storm claims life on Russian lake
The body of Andrei Tkachenko was found in Lake Segozero in Karelia, Russia. He was a mercenary with the Wagner Group and once worked closely with its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
4:07 PM EST, November 4, 2024
According to a statement issued by the regional department of emergency situations in Russia, 37-year-old Tkachenko, a permanent resident of Leningrad Oblast, came to Karelia with his eight-year-old son to fish and stayed with his friend Dmitry.
On October 28, Tkachenko, his friend, and his son set out on Lake Segozero in a rented boat when a storm reportedly broke out suddenly. The official information indicates that the wind capsized the boat about 440 yards from the shore. Tkachenko's son managed to save himself by swimming to a nearby island, while the two men reportedly drowned.
Tkachenko's body was found six days later
Two days later, rescuers found the body of Tkachenko's friend, Dmitry. Four days after that, the body of the former mercenary from the Wagner Group was discovered.
According to local press, Tkachenko joined military operations against Ukraine at the end of 2022 and returned from the front in early June 2024. Before the war broke out, he had been associated with the Wagner Group for about four years, operating in Syria, among other places.
As reported by the Moscow Times, the Russian newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" previously stated that Tkachenko, while working for Prigozhin, spied on Alexander Vinokurov, the son-in-law of Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister. For this work, he was reportedly paid 270,000 rubles.
