Vladimir Putin has called Yevgeny Prigozhin a “talented businessman” with “a difficult fate”. In a meeting at the Kremlin, the Russian president addressed the crash of the Wagner chief’s business jet for the first time, offering condolences to the families of the 10 people onboard. He said that Prigozhin had returned to Russia from Africa on Wednesday and had met “some officials”, without specifying whom. “He was a man with a difficult fate. He made some serious mistakes in his life,” Putin said.
An explosion onboard probably brought down the plane presumed to be carrying the Wagner leader, a preliminary US intelligence assessment concluded. US and western officials said it determined that Prigozhin was “very likely” targeted and that the explosion falls in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics”. Several of Prigozhin’s lieutenants were also presumed dead. Pentagon spokesperson Brig Gen Pat Ryder said he had no indication the plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Kyiv had nothing to do with the explosion. The presumed death follows a pattern of “unclarified” fatalities in Russia, Germany’s foreign minister said on Thursday.
Moscow’s Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports suspended flights early on Friday, Russia’s Tass news agency reported. Residents of the Russian regions of Tula and Kaluga earlier posted on social media about explosions they heard in the night, Russian online media outlet Baza reported. Flights were also briefly disrupted on Tuesday and Wednesday during Ukrainian drone attacks.
Ukrainian forces marked the country’s independence day with a naval raid into occupied Crimea, and Zelenskiy praised Ukrainians for the defiance and courage that has won them global support in the fight with Russia. The national holiday celebrates Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, but this year it also marks 18 months since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion plunged the country into a war for survival.
The US will begin F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots in October. “Following English language training for pilots in September, F-16 flying training is expected to begin in October at Morris air national guard base in Tucson, Arizona, facilitated by the air national guard’s 162nd wing,” Ryder said.
Zelenskiy said early on Friday he spoke with US President Joe Biden. Zelenskiy said he thanked Biden for his Ukraine Independence Day greetings and support in the conflict with Russia. “Together, we prove that freedom and independence are worth fighting for,” he said in a statement.
Russia will return to the Black Sea grain deal only if the west fulfils its “obligations to Moscow”, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN secretary general António Guterres.
Russia has extended the detention of the Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich by three months. He was the first journalist arrested by Russian authorities on allegations of spying since the cold war.
An early morning missile strike injured seven people in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lisak, said on Thursday.
Norway has decided to donate combat aircraft to Ukraine, the Norwegian broadcaster TV2 reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.
