We’re closing this live blog now, and will be kicking off our live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war and the reported death of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in a few hours’ time. In the meantime, you can read our main story on the crash here:
Summary
Here is what we know about the jet that was reportedly carrying Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, and crashed, killing all of its passengers:
The Russian Aviation Authority has confirmed that Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner chief commander Dmitry Utkin were on board an Embraer plane that crashed en route from Moscow to St Petersburg and was carrying seven passengers and three crew members. The crash comes two months after Prigozhin’s failed mutiny against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s authority.
All 10 people onboard the plane died, according to Russia’s ministry for emergency situation, Reuters reports.
The other five passengers have been identified as: Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Dmitriy Utkin, Nikolay Matuseev and Prigozhin.
The crew have been identified as: Commander Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova.
The plane went down almost 300km (186 miles) north of Moscow, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened up an investigation into the crash on charges of air safety rule violation.
US president Joe Biden has been informed of the crash and said that he was “not surprised” at the news of Prigozhin’s death.
A building housing Wagner’s offices in St Petersburg lit up its windows after dark in such a way as to display a giant cross in a mark of respect and mourning. Flowers were left and candles lit near the offices early on Thursday.
The jet showed no sign of problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data.
The Embraer executive jet model that crashed has only ever recorded one accident in over 20 years of service, and that was due to mistakes by the crew rather than mechanical failure, according to website International Aviation HQ. Russia’s TASS news agency said the plane was a Brazilian Embraer jet.
Embraer declined to comment on Wednesday, saying only that “Embraer has complied with international sanctions imposed on Russia.” Sanctions block western planemakers from providing parts or support for planes operated in Russia.
Wagner building lit up like a cross
Reuters reports that a building housing Wagner’s offices in St Petersburg lit up its windows after dark in such a way as to display a giant cross in a mark of respect and mourning.
Flowers were left and candles lit near the offices early on Thursday:
More on the plane’s last moments, via Reuters:
Online flight tracker Flightradar24 last recorded the position of the aircraft at 3:11 p.m. GMT, before the crash. Jamming or interference in the area probably slowed the collection of further location data.
Other data continued for nine minutes. Flightradar24 said the jet went thorough a series of ascents and descents of a few thousand feet each over 30 seconds before its final, disastrous plunge. Flightradar24 received its final data on the jet at 3.20pm.
Plane appeared fine on radar until last 30 seconds – Reuters
Helen Sullivan back with you now. Reuters reports that the jet believed to be carrying Prigozhin to his death on Wednesday showed no sign of problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data.
The plane was traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg when it crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver Region, Russia’s emergency situations ministry said.
At 3.19pm GMT, the aircraft made a “sudden downward vertical,” said Ian Petchenik of Flightradar24. Within about 30 seconds, the aircraft had plummeted more than 8,000 feet from its cruising altitude of 28,000 feet.
“Whatever happened, happened quickly,” Petchenik said.
“They may have been wrestling (with the aircraft) after whatever happened,” Petchenik said. But prior to its dramatic drop, there was “no indication that there was anything wrong with this aircraft.”
Video showed the plane descending rapidly with its nose pointing almost straight downward and a plume of smoke or vapour behind it.
Updated
More reaction, this time from Bill Browder, the American-born financier who famously took on Putin after corrupt Russian officials effectively hijacked his hedge fund to perpetrate a massive tax fraud.
Putin never forgives and never forgets. He looked like a humiliated weakling with Prighozin running around without a care in the world. This will cement his authority and is standard Putin operating procedure https://t.co/NiOlrpIr9T
— Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) August 23, 2023
More pictures have also come through from the scene of the crash:
The wires have sent a couple of pictures through from outside the former PMC Wagner Centre in St Petersburg, where people have been placing flowers and lighting candles.
And some from British lawmaker Alicia Kearns, chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee:
The speed at which the Russian Govt has confirmed Yevgeny Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg should tell us everything we need to know.
— Alicia Kearns MP (@aliciakearns) August 23, 2023
Reports Russian Air Defence shot down the plane suggests Putin is sending a very loud message.
For Putin there is one unforgivable sin: the betrayal of Putin and Russia.
— Alicia Kearns MP (@aliciakearns) August 23, 2023
He hunts down those he perceives to be traitors, incl on British shores, such as Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal.
Now Yevgeny Prigozhin has been added to that list, ending Putin’s humiliation.
Some reaction from Poland, where foreign minister Zbigniew Rau told state news channel TVP Info:
We would have great trouble naming anyone who would intuitively think this was a coincidence. It so happens that political opponents whom Vladimir Putin considers a threat to his power do not die naturally.”
Updated
As many have pointed out, Prigozhin would not be the first enemy of Vladimir Putin to meet an untimely death. Reuters has put together this rundown of mysterious deaths and apparent attacks on critics of the Russian president:
ALEXEI NAVALNY: Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, was flown to Germany in August 2020 for medical treatment after being poisoned in Siberia with what western experts concluded was the military nerve agent novichok. Russia has denied any involvement. Navalny earned admiration around the world for voluntarily returning to Russia in 2021. He was immediately arrested on arrival.
SERGEI SKRIPAL: A former Russian double agent who passed secrets to British intelligence, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in the English cathedral city of Salisbury in March 2018.
They were taken to hospital in critical condition, and British officials said they had been poisoned with novichok, a group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s. Both survived.
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA: A Russian opposition activist, Vladimir Kara-Murza said he believes attempts were made to poison him in 2015 and 2017. A German laboratory later found elevated levels of mercury, copper, manganese and zinc in him, according to medical reports seen by Reuters. Moscow denied involvement.
ALEXANDER LITVINENKO: Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent and outspoken critic of Putin, died in 2006 aged 43 after drinking green tea laced with polonium-210, a rare and potent radioactive isotope, at London’s Millennium Hotel, British officials have said. Putin probably approved the killing, a British inquiry concluded in 2016. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
ALEXANDER PEREPILICHNY: The 44-year-old Russian was found dead near his luxury home on an exclusive gated estate outside London after he had been out jogging in November 2012. Alexander Perepilichny sought refuge in Britain in 2009 after helping a Swiss investigation into a Russian money-laundering scheme. His sudden death raised suggestions he might have been murdered. Russia denied involvement.
VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO: Viktor Yushchenko, then a Ukrainian opposition leader, was poisoned during the campaign for the 2004 presidential election in which he ran on a pro-western ticket against the pro-Moscow prime minister Viktor Yanukovich.
He said he was poisoned while having dinner outside Kyiv with officials from the Ukrainian security services. Russia denied any involvement. His body was found to contain 1,000 times more dioxin than is normally present. His face and body were disfigured by the poisoning, and he had dozens of operations in the aftermath.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: A journalist who reported on human rights abuses, she was shot dead outside her flat in Moscow on 7 October 2006, after returning home from the supermarket.
Updated
An interesting observation on how the plane crash is being reported in Russia:
Russia's main TV channel devoted 40 seconds to Prigozhin's death. It was the 14th out of 17 items in a 53-minutes news programme.
— Marc Bennetts (@marcbennetts1) August 23, 2023
This is Helen Livingstone, standing in for Helen Sullivan.
Putin has not commented on the crash
Russia’s federal transport agency, Rosaviatsia, has set up a special commission to investigate the crash of the aircraft belonging to MNT-Aero, AFP reports.
As we reported earlier, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, said it opened an investigation into the crash.
The bodies of eight people have been found so far at the site of the crash, RIA Novosti said citing the emergency services.
Putin was meanwhile giving a speech for the 80th anniversary of the Kursk battle in the second world war.
He did not mention the crash and hailed “all our soldiers who are fighting bravely and resolutely” in the special military operation in Ukraine.
Keir Giles, a Russia analyst at the London-based Chatham House, has told the Washington Post: “Until we know for certain it’s the right Prigozhin, let’s not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa.”
Russia’s civil aviation authority has said that Prigozhin was on board the plane that crashed, and that there were no survivors. But that is as much confirmation as we have.
As speculations swirl on the role of Putin in the crash, the warlord’s death will surely raise tensions within the Russian army. While his uprising was largely condemned by the armed forces, he remained a popular figure among some elements of the troops who sympathised with his critiques of the Russian military establishment and the faltering war.
“If he is really dead, [I will] grab my stuff, we don’t need this fucking war,” wrote Egor Guzenko, a Russian soldier who runs a blog under the callsign “Thirteenth” shortly after the news of Prigozhin’s death emerged.
“We should be killing our enemies, not our own,” wrote Sergei Markov, a popular blogger and former adviser to the Kremlin. “All our enemies are celebrating … The death of Priogzhin is Ukraine’s biggest achievement this year.”
What is the Embraer jet's safety record?
Here is more on the jet that crashed, via Reuters:
The Embraer executive jet model that crashed in Russia, apparently with Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin onboard, has only ever recorded one accident in over 20 years of service, and that was due to mistakes by the crew rather than mechanical failure, according to website International Aviation HQ.
Russia’s TASS news agency said the plane was a Brazilian Embraer jet.
Embraer on Wednesday declined to comment, saying only that “Embraer has complied with international sanctions imposed on Russia.” Sanctions block western planemakers from providing parts or support for planes operated in Russia.
Flightradar24 online tracker showed that the Embraer Legacy 600 (plane number RA-02795) said to be carrying Prigozhin had dropped off the radar at 6.11 pm local time (15.11 GMT). An unverified video on social media showed a plane resembling a private jet falling out of the sky toward the earth.
The Legacy 600 entered service in 2002, according to International Aviation HQ, with almost 300 produced until production ceased in 2020.
There is only one recorded accident involving a Legacy 600, which occurred in 2006 when it crashed mid-air into a Gol 737-800 on its way from the Embraer factory in Brazil to the United States, International Aviation HQ said. Despite damages to the aircraft, the pilot landed the plane and there were no deaths or injuries.
A subsequent inquiry attributed blame to the crew rather than any mechanical failure, the website said.
What next for the Wagner group?
In the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “march on Moscow” two months ago, CIA chief William Burns predicted that Russian president Vladimir Putin would take his time exacting his revenge.
“What we are seeing is a very complicated dance,” Burns suggested at the Aspen Security Forum in July. “Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback.”
And while details of exactly what occurred remain murky in the immediate aftermath of the mercenary boss’s reported death in a plane crash, what is clear is that Wagner – the mercenary organisation that Prigozhin built – has essentially been first quartered and then dramatically decapitated.
It was not only Prigozhin who perished in the incident. With him on the flight was Dmitry Utkin, one of his closest allies another key figure in Wagner. A former GRU officer and a mercenary who had been active in Syria guarding oilfields, he had been implicated in organising the Wagner convoy that tried to drive to Moscow.
Reports from Russian social media channels associated with Wagner suggest other members of Wagner’s leadership may also have been on the flight.
What is clear is that Wagner, as it was once constituted, is no more:
Here is the video of US President Joe Biden being asked about his reaction to the news of Prigozhin’s death:
Wagner leader’s longstanding feud with the military and the armed uprising he led in June would give the Russian state ample motive for revenge.
Prigozhin’s brazen conduct left many in the elite wondering whether Putin still held control over the country, according to western officials.
“For a lot of Russians watching this, used to this image of Putin as the arbiter of order, the question was, ‘Does the emperor have no clothes?’ Or at least, ‘Why is it taking so long for him to get dressed?’” CIA director William Burns said earlier this month.
Prigozhin was last seen earlier this week when he released a video in which he claimed to be in Africa, where his mercenaries have relocated since the abortive uprising. But it was unclear when it was taken and whether he had returned to Russia since it was shot.
Ever since the abortive coup, speculation had been that Yevgeny Prigozhin could be living on borrowed time.
When the head of the notorious Wagner group launched his historic uprising, inflicting the biggest crisis of Vladimir Putin’s 23-year reign, many were left wondering how the Russian leader would respond.
During the mutiny, Prigozhin’s band of mercenaries shot down at least two helicopters and killed about 15 Russian service personnel, many of them airmen. More significantly for Putin, Prigozhin’s rebellion, which reached the outskirts of Moscow, exposed the fragility of a regime many deemed to be stable:
Updated
Hello, this is Helen Sullivan taking over our live coverage of the plane crash that Russia’s aviation authority says has killed Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Police officers have blocked off a road near the crash site, according to the following image released by Reuters:
Police officers block a road near the site of crash of a private jet linked to Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the Tver region, Russia, August 23, 2023. REUTERS/Alexander Paramoshin Photograph: Reuters
The Guardian’s Russia correspondent Pjotr Sauer tweeted that following the crash, there has still been no word from top Russian officials including:
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, chairman of state Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, and deputy chair of Russia’s security council Dmitry Medvedev.
Still no word from Zakharova, Peskov, Volodin, Medvedev and other top Russian officials
— Pjotr Sauer (@PjotrSauer) August 23, 2023
Brazilian planemaker Embraer said on Wednesday it was compliant with all international sanctions imposed on Russia, following reports that emerged of one of its planes carrying Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed.
“Embraer has complied with international sanctions imposed on Russia,” a company spokesman said, Reuters reports.
Embraer plane crash: What we know so far
Here is what we know so far about the plane crash that Russian aviation authorities say killed Prigozhin and nine others:
The plane was en route from Moscow to St Petersburg and was carrying seven passengers and three crew members.
The Russian Aviation Authority has confirmed that Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner chief commander Dmitry Utkin were on board the crashed Embraer plane.
All 10 people onboard the plane died, according to Russia’s ministry for emergency situation, Reuters reports.
The other five passengers have been identified as: Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Dmitriy Utkin, Nikolay Matuseev and Prigozhin.
The crew have been identified as: Commander Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova.
The plane went down almost 300km (186 miles) north of Moscow, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened up an investigation into the crash on charges of air safety rule violation.
The crash comes two months after Prigozhin’s failed mutiny against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s authority.
US president Joe Biden has been informed of the crash and said that he was “not surprised” at the news of Prigozhin’s death.
Updated
Here are some images coming through the newswires of the crash site:
Updated
Following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s reported death in the plane crash that killed several others, here is the Guardian’s Pete Beaumont’s analysis of what happens next to the Wagner mercenary group:
What is clear is that Wagner, as it was once constituted, is no more.
According to recent reports, hundreds of Wagner fighters who had been exiled to bases in Belarus had begun to leave that country, some dissatisfied with the lower levels of pay in that country, others relocating to work in west Africa. The force there reduced in numbers from over 5,000 by around a quarter.
In Russia itself, Wagner’s operations had been on something of a hiatus during the past two months as it appeared Prigozhin and his allies looked for a new role in the shadow of Putin’s displeasure.
And with Wagner out of Ukraine after deploying its fighters as cannon fodder in the battle for Bakhmut, perhaps the biggest question is whether it can continue in any viable form in the African states where it has been active.
Although names had been mentioned speculatively as possible replacements for Prigozhin who would meet with Kremlin approval, whether any of them will be capable of filling his shoes is far from certain.
For the full story, click here:
The Wall Street Journal has reported that president Joe Biden’s national security adivser Jake Sullivan spoke to a top aide of Russian president Vladimir Putin in June about Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny.
The Journal reports that Sullivan spoke with Yuri Ushakov, a former Russian Ambassador to Washington, according to officials.
“The purpose was to convey that the US had no involvement in the events and viewed them as a domestic matter. The aim, they said, was to distance the US from the affair and avoid any further escalation, officials said,” the Journal reports.
Updated
Russian aviation authority confirms Prigozhin was on crashed plane
Rosaviatsia, the Russian Aviation Authority has confirmed that Russian mercenary chief Evgeny Prigozhin and Wagner chief commander Dmitry Utkin were on board the crashed Embraer plane, Reuters reports.
Guardian correspondent Pjotr Saur also tweeted the latest news:
Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation authority confirms that Evgeny Prigozhin and Wagner chief commander Dmitry Utkin were on board the crashed Embraer plane,
— Pjotr Sauer (@PjotrSauer) August 23, 2023
The Wagner Group also wrote on its Telegram channel that Prigozhin “died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia.”
“But even in Hell he will be the best! Glory to Russia!” it added.
Updated
Telegram channel affiliated with Wagner group claims that Prigozhin has died
A Telegram channel associated with the Wagner group said Wednesday that Prigozhin has died, Reuters reported.
From Reuters:
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is dead, a Telegram channel affiliated with his Wagner mercenary group reported on Wednesday.
“The head of the Wagner Group, a Hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia,” a post in the Grey Zone channel said.
“But even in Hell, he will be the best! Glory to Russia!”
Updated
Prigozhin was named on a passenger list of the plane that crashed, AFP reported, citing Russian news agencies.
The head of the Wagner group was listed as one of 10 passengers aboard a plane that reportedly crashed on Wednesday.
“The plane that crashed in the Tver Region listed Yevgeny Prigozhin among its passengers, (Russia’s aviation agency) Rosaviatsia said,” TASS news agency reported, AFP reports.
Joe Biden says he's 'not surprised' by Prigozhin reports
Joe Biden has commented on the plane crash involving Prigozhin, saying that he is “not surprised” by reports.
Biden spoke to reporters about the reported plane crash while leaving an exercise class in Lake Tahoe, where he is currently vacationing with family, Bloomberg News reported.
“I don’t know for fact what happened, but I am not surprised,” Biden said, Bloomberg News reported.
“I don’t know for fact what happened, but I am not surprised,” @POTUS tells reporters when asked about the plane crash as he departed an exercise class in Lake Tahoe, where he is vacationing with his family https://t.co/mAqkq3rlR7
— Jordan Fabian (@Jordanfabian) August 23, 2023
Biden added: “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer. I’ve been working out for the last hour and a half.”
Updated
Officials from Russia’s emergencies ministry have said that eight bodies were found at the scene of the reported plane that crashed.
From journalist Leonid Ragozin:
Russian emergencies ministry said there were 10 people on board Prigozhin’s plane including the crew. RIA’s latest report says eight bodies have been found at the scene.
— Leonid ХВ Ragozin (@leonidragozin) August 23, 2023
Details on the crash are still emerging.
US national security spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed that US officials have seen the reports, telling Reuters:
“We have seen the reports. If confirmed, no one should be surprised.”
Meanwhile, Reuters reports Kaja Kallas, prime minister of Estonia, telling CNN:
“If true, it shows [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will eliminate opponents and that scares anyone who is thinking of expressing opinion different than his.”
Updated
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the office of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted following reports of the crash, saying, “Regarding Prigozhin: we have to wait for the fog of war to clear.”
“However, it is clear that Putin does not forgive anyone for his own beastly fear - the very one that nullified him in June 2023 - and was waiting for the moment. It is also obvious that Prigozhin signed a special death sentence for himself the moment he believed in the strange “guarantees of Lukashenko” and in the no less absurd “honest word” of Putin,” Podolyak wrote, referring to Belarusian president Alexandder Lukashenko.
“The show-stopping removal of Prigozhin and the Wagner command two months after the coup attempt is a signal from Putin to Russian elites ahead of the 2024 elections: “Fight! Disloyalty equals death,” he added.
US president Joe Biden briefed about plane crash
US president Joe Biden has been briefed about the plane crash, Reuters reports the White House saying.
Updated
The BBC has released footage of what appears to be the crash site.
The video shows what appears to be a plane falling from the sky and flames engulfing the plane in a field.
Видео с места крушения самолета, на борту которого, как сообщает Росавиация, был и Евгений Пригожин. pic.twitter.com/73f5efwYL4
— bbcrussian (@bbcrussian) August 23, 2023
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed north of Moscow and killed 10 people onboard.
Updated
Summary
The Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed north of Moscow and killed ten people on board.
Russia has relieved Gen Sergei Surovikin of his command of the Russian aerospace forces, in the highest-level sacking yet of a military commander after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny in June.
A Russian military helicopter has landed in Ukraine, reportedly after the pilot was convinced to defect in a six-month intelligence operation.
Vladimir Putin has defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sought to rally leaders of the Brics nations meeting in South Africa to the Kremlin’s side.
Four educational workers were killed and four other people were hurt in a Russian attack on a school in the city of Romny in north-eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said.
The US has approved the possible $500m sale to Taiwan of infrared search and track systems for F-16 fighter jets, as well as other equipment, Reuters reports, citing the Pentagon.
Ukraine has said on Wednesday it destroyed a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system on the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, Reuters reports.
A Moscow court will decide on Thursday whether to extend the pre-trial detention of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a court spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday.
Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin? This profile by Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer has some answers.
At the height of Russia’s first, covert invasion of eastern Ukraine, in summer 2014, a group of senior Russian officials gathered at the defence ministry’s headquarters, an imposing Stalin-era building on the banks of the Moskva River.
They were there to meet Yevgeny Prigozhin, a middle-aged man with a shaven head and a coarse tone whom many in the room knew only as the person responsible for army catering contracts.
Now, Prigozhin had a different kind of demand. He wanted land from the defence ministry that he could use for the training of “volunteers” who would have no official links to the Russian army but could still be used to fight Russia’s wars.
Many in the ministry did not like Prigozhin’s manner, but he made it clear that this was no ordinary request. “The orders come from Papa,” he told the defence officials, using a nickname for Vladimir Putin designed to emphasise his closeness to the president.
Updated
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner paramilitary chief who launched an armed mutiny in June, was on a private jet that crashed in the Tver region near Moscow, killing all 10 onboard, Russian officials have said.
Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation authority, said Prigozhin was one of the passengers listed in the manifest as being onboard the Embraer business jet that crashed on Wednesday evening.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with the military and the armed uprising he led in June would give ample motive to the Russian state for revenge. Media channels linked to Wagner quickly suggested that a Russian air defence missile had shot down the plane.
The Embraer jet crashed in the Tver region while flying between Moscow and St Petersburg. Video posted to the internet apparently showed the small jet trailing a plume of smoke before slamming into the ground and erupting in flames.
The jet reportedly had the tail number RA-02795. The plane has been under US sanctions since 2019 because of its connection to Prigozhin. The Wagner chief has been reported to use the plane, including shortly after his failed mutiny, when the plane departed from St Petersburg to Belarus on the morning of 27 June.
Associated Press’ full report has confirmed that a private jet crash has killed all 10 people on board, Russian emergency officials have said.
The mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list, officials said, but it wasn’t immediately clear if he was on board.
Associated Press reports:
Unconfirmed media reports said the jet belonged to Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company.
Russia’s civilian aviation regulator, Rosaviatsia, said Prigozhin was on the passenger list. However, it was not immediately clear if he had boarded the flight.
Russia’s state news agency Tass cited emergency officials as saying that the plane carried three pilots and seven passengers. The authorities said they were investigating the crash, which occurred in the Tver region more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Moscow.
Prigozhin, whose private military force Wagner fought alongside Russia’s regular army in Ukraine, mounted a short-lived armed mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in late June. The Kremlin said he would be exiled to Belarus, and his fighters would either retire, follow him there, or join the Russian military.
Updated
Yevgeny Prigozhin listed as passenger on plane which crashed with no survivors, Russian aviation authority says
Reuters has reported that the Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, the TASS news agency reported, citing Rosaviatsia, Russia’s aviation authority.
“An investigation has been launched into the Embraer plane crash that occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the passenger list, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” Rosaviatsia said.
Earlier TASS had reported that ten people had died after a private jet crashed in Russia’s Tver region north of Moscow. The jet, en route from Moscow to St Petersburg, was carrying seven passengers and three crew.
Updated
Ukrainian forces have raised the national flag in the settlement of Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Kyiv’s military said on Wednesday, though it was not clear whether the entire community had been liberated from Russian forces.
Reuters reports:
‘A historic day! Soldiers of the 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade set up the flag of Ukraine in the village of Robotyne, in one of the hottest destinations, Melitopol,’ the brigade said in a post on its Telegram channel.
In a video published by Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, the Ukrainian flag was seen on a roof of a badly damaged building surrounded by burned trees.
“A blue and yellow flag signed by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine was raised on the school destroyed by the Russian invaders on the national flag day!” the 47th brigade said.
Reuters was not able to geolocate or verify the date of the video.
Kyiv seeks to recapture the strategic southern city of Melitopol as part of its counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion.
Updated
Associated Press in Moscow have claimed that the business jet crash in Russia has killed 10 people, including Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was on the passenger list according to authorities.
Updated
Russia has relieved Gen Sergei Surovikin of his command of the Russian aerospace forces, in the highest-level sacking yet of a military commander after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny in June.
The extended absence and now removal of Surovikin, a prominent commander, indicates the shock waves sent through the military establishment after Prigozhin’s armed uprising. He sent thousands of troops to seize a military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don and tried to march on Moscow to protest against the dismantling of his Wagner private military company.
Prigozhin’s public support for Surovikin, who was seen as an ally of the Wagner militia in the Russian defence ministry, had raised questions of whether he or other senior commanders had aided the mutiny, or at least had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans.
You can read Andrew Roth and Ptojr Sauer’s full report below.
Updated
Yevgeny Prigozhin reportedly in plane crash
According to the Tass news agency, reported by Reuters, the Russian Civil Aviation Authority have said that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, was on the list of passengers on the plane.
More details soon …
Updated
Unconfirmed reports suggest private jet linked to Wagner leader crashes in Tver region
Unconfirmed reports suggest that a private jet linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin has crashed in the Tver region. It is unclear whether he was on board.
Baza and Sobchak are reporting that a private jet linked to Prigozhin has crashed in the Tver region https://t.co/hU5xhpgxoB
— Pjotr Sauer (@PjotrSauer) August 23, 2023
Updated
Emma Graham-Harrison in Kyiv and Pjotr Sauer report that a Russian military helicopter has landed in Ukraine, reportedly after the pilot was convinced to defect in a six-month intelligence operation.
A Russian military blogger said a helicopter had crossed the border with three people on board “a couple of weeks ago”, but claimed the aircraft had lost its way.
The twin-engine Mi-8 AMTSh was on a flight between two air bases, transporting parts for Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets, Ukrainska Pravda newspaper reported, citing defence intelligence sources.
The pilot’s family had already been moved to Ukraine as part of the defection operation and he would join them, it said. Both crew members were killed, the Russian blogger and Ukrainian reports said.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence appeared to confirm the aircraft had landed in Ukraine, but in line with government reticence about intelligence operations, did not give any details.
“There will be official information. We need to wait a little bit – we are working on it, including with the crew,” said Andriy Yusov told state television.
You can read the full report below.
Updated
Updated
Vladimir Putin has defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sought to rally leaders of the Brics nations meeting in South Africa to the Kremlin’s side.
In a prerecorded video message aired on Tuesday to the leaders of Brazil, India, China and South Africa, Putin repeated his earlier unfounded claims that the west was responsible for the war in Ukraine.
“Our actions in Ukraine are dictated by only one thing – to end the war that was unleashed by the west and its satellites against the people who live in the Donbas,” Putin said, referring to the eastern part of Ukraine where Russian proxies have been fighting the Ukrainian army since 2014.
“I want to note that it was the desire to maintain their hegemony in the world, the desire of some countries to maintain this hegemony that led to the severe crisis in Ukraine,” he added.
You can read the rest of the report below:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, has posted the following update regarding the Third Crimea Platform Summit.
Delays have a price. Fear has a price. Appeasement of aggressor by ignoring annexations has a price. A catastrophic price.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 23, 2023
It is time to pay this bill. All of Ukraine will be free.
I thank every participant of today’s Third Crimea Platform Summit for standing with Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/890BvO1SFN
Updated
The US has approved the possible $500m sale to Taiwan of infrared search and track systems for F-16 fighter jets, as well as other equipment, Reuters reports, citing the Pentagon.
“The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region,” it said in a statement.
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Ukraine says it destroyed a Russian anti-aircraft system on Crimean peninsula
Ukraine said on Wednesday it destroyed a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system on the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, Reuters reports.
“At about 10am (0700 GMT) an explosion occurred ... destroying a Russian long- and medium-range S-400 Triumph air defence system,” the Ukrainian defence ministry said on social media.
The ministry published a video of a massive explosion with a huge column of smoke billowing into the sky.
It said the explosion took place near the village of Olenivka on the Tarkhankut peninsula and destroyed “the system, its missiles and personnel”. These claims are yet to be independently verified.
Updated
A Moscow court will decide on Thursday whether to extend the pre-trial detention of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a court spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday.
Gershkovich was detained in March during a reporting trip to the Urals and accused of spying – charges that he, his employer and the US government vehemently deny.
The detention is likely to be extended as Russia rarely releases prisoners before their trials.
His case marks the first time a western journalist has been arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Soviet era.
Updated
A Russian fighter jet intercepted a Norwegian military plane over the Barents Sea on Wednesday, the Russian defence ministry said, according to Reuters.
It said the Norwegian aircraft, a US-made P-8 poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane, was nearing the Russian border but turned back after being approached by the Russian MiG-29 fighter.
Updated
Four educational workers killed and four others injured in attack on school, says Ukraine
Four educational workers were killed and four other people were hurt in a Russian attack on a school in the city of Romny in north-eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said.
Klymenko said the bodies of the school director, deputy director, secretary and a librarian had been pulled from the rubble by rescue workers, Reuters reports.
He said four local people were injured as they had been passing the school in Romny, which is part of the Sumy region.
Photos shared by Klymenko on the Telegram messaging app showed emergency workers carrying away a body on a stretcher. A photo released by police showed rescue workers standing in front of a devastated building and rubble. The regional military administration said a drone fired by Russia had hit the school at 10.05am. (0705 BST).
“The school building was destroyed, and this is just before the school year, which unfortunately will never start for some,” Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Updated
Zelenskiy vows to end Russia’s occupation of the Crimean peninsula
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has promised to end Russia’s occupation of the Crimean peninsula and says all of Ukraine will be “de-occupied” in the process.
“Crimea will be de-occupied like all other parts of Ukraine that are unfortunately still under the occupier,” he told an international conference about Crimea, which Russia seized and annexed in 2014 in a move not recognised by most other countries.
Ukraine began a counteroffensive in early June to try to regain the territory occupied by Russia. Zelenskiy said his country’s forces were continuing to “move ahead”.
Updated
Ukraine said on Wednesday that Russian strikes on its sea and river ports had destroyed 270,000 tonnes of grain in the space of a month (see earlier post at 12.10).
AFP reports:
Since July’s collapse of the UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal, which aimed to ensure safe grain shipments from Ukraine, Moscow has bombarded Ukrainian ports on the sea and Danube river.
“Russia is systematically hitting grain tanks and warehouses to stop agricultural exports,” infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a post on social media.
“In total, 270,000 tonnes of grain have been destroyed in a month of attacks on ports,” he added.
Last night alone, an attack had reduced the port of Izmail’s export capacity by 15% and the port of Reni lost 35,000 tonnes of grain, he said.
“This is the eighth attack on port infrastructure since Russia withdrew from the (grain deal),” Kubrakov added.
Summary of the day so far...
At least two education workers were killed and three other people injured in a Russian attack on a school in Romny, north-eastern Ukraine, on Wednesday, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said.
Brics leaders will debate admitting new members to their five-nation bloc as it pursues a bigger role in shaping world affairs it sees as dominated by western powers, AFP reports. China’s president, Xi Jinping, and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, said on Wednesday that they supported the group’s expansion. During a virtual address on the second day of the summit, being held in Johannesburg, Vladimir Putin again blamed the west for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Russian general Sergei Surovikin, not seen in public since a mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in late June, has been replaced as head of the airforce, according to state news agency RIA.
UK government support for Ukraine’s nuclear fuel supply will help to end the country’s reliance on Russian supplies, the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, said after a trip to a Ukrainian power station.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Tuesday that three civilians had been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a sanatorium in the village of Lavy, close to the border between the two countries.
Ukrainian air defences shot down 11 of 20 Russian drones launched in overnight attacks, the airforce said on Wednesday. The Ukrainian military and local officials said Russia had carried out attacks in the southern region of Odesa and in the Danube River area, which is important for grain exports, reportedly causing fires in grain facilities.
A drone hit a building under construction in central Moscow early on Wednesday, the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said. The Russian military downed two more drones over the western part of the Moscow region, the mayor said on Telegram.
Updated
A Russian drone attack on the Danube River port of Izmail in southern Ukraine destroyed 13,000 tonnes of grain, Reuters cites the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, as saying (see earlier post at 07.22).
Kubrakov said on Telegram that the port’s export capacity had been reduced by 15% by the overnight strike, adding: “Russia is systematically hitting grain silos and warehouses to stop agricultural exports.”
Updated
Two killed in Russian attack on Ukrainian school, says interior minister
At least two educational workers were killed and three other people injured in a Russian attack on a school in Romny, north-eastern Ukraine, on Wednesday, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said.
He said two other school workers were still under the rubble in Romny, a city in the Sumy region, Reuters reports.
Photos shared by Klymenko on Telegram showed emergency workers carrying away a body on a stretcher.
The regional military administration said a drone fired by Russia had hit the school at 10.05 am (07.05 BST). These claims are yet to be independently verified.
Updated
Xi Jinping, China’s president, has started his statement by saying the world is undergoing “major shifts” and has entered a new period of “turbulence and transformation”.
He went on to say the bloc should further expand artificial intelligence cooperation and help work to improve global governance.
Like Modi, he also called for the acceleration of the expansion of the Brics group, saying: “We should let more countries join the Brics family and pool wisdom to make global governance more fair and reasonable”.
Updated
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, said he supports the expansion of Brics, which at present comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Updated
Vladimir Putin addresses Brics summit in South Africa
Vladimir Putin said Brics “stands for a multipolar world order that is equitable and built on international law and the principles of the UN charter” - and the rights of people to their own development paths.
On the war in Ukraine, he said.
Some countries promote their hegemony, exceptionality and their policy of the ongoing colonialism and neocolonialism.
I would like to note that the aspiration to preserve their hegemony in the world led to a dire crisis in Ukraine…
Our actions in Ukraine are guided by only one thing: to put an end to the war that was unleashed by the west against people in Donbas.
We thank our colleagues within Brics that take an active part in the attempts to put an end to this situation and to ensure just settlement by peaceful means.
Putin also said Moscow would use its chairmanship of Brics next year to strengthen the group’s role in the world, and would host a summit in the city of Kazan in October 2024.
Updated
Vladimir Putin is now addressing the summit, beginning his remarks by thanking South Africa for its chairmanship of this year’s gathering.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is speaking now. He said the Ukraine war shows the limitations of the UN security council, adding that the bloc is a forum to discuss world security.
He said:
Brazil has a historical position in the defence of the sovereignty and integrity of the territory and of all the principles that are followed by the UN.
We believe that it is positive that a growing number of countries amongst the Brics countries also are engaged in direct contact with Moscow and with Kyiv…
We are ready to join efforts that we can effectively contribute to immediate ceasefire and a fair and everlasting peace.
The Brazilian president also said that a common currency used by Brics countries in commercial transactions would reduce their vulnerabilities.
Updated
Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, has started to address the Brics summit in Johannesburg.
The South African president said he welcomes the engagement of Brics countries with Africa in the spirit of co-operation, but expressed concern about conflicts around the world.
He said:
Peace and stability are pre-conditions for a better, more equitable world. We are deeply concerned about conflicts across the world that continue to cause a great deal of suffering and hardship.
As South Africa, our position remains that diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation and adherence to the principles of the UN charter are necessary to the peaceful and just resolution of conflicts.
Ramaphosa also said the bloc will continue discussions on practical use of local currencies to facilitate trade and investment flows.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that it had destroyed a drone over Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine and regularly comes under fire from Kyiv’s forces.
Earlier today (see post at 07.40), Belgorod’s regional governor said three people had been killed there in a separate drone strike.
Updated
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is due to start virtually addressing the Brics summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, shortly.
In recorded remarks to the meeting on Tuesday, Putin blamed the volatility in global markets for food and other commodities on western sanctions, and said that Brics would be a force for fairness in international relations.
He also told a summit of the Brics group of countries - comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – that it should become a trading bloc representing the “global majority”.
Putin did not attend in person and spoke instead by video, because he faces an arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the international criminal court.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, are all due to make statements this morning, on the second day of the summit.
We will have a live stream of the statements at the top of the blog and in this post when the leaders start to speak.
Updated
According to Russian media reports monitored by BBC Verify, there have been more than 150 suspected aerial drone attacks this year in Russia and in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.
Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside Russia have increased in recent months, with Moscow a regular target.
Regions bordering Ukraine have seen regular drone strikes and shelling since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February last year.
Updated
The UK is due to proscribe the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist group within weeks, the Financial Times has been told.
The home secretary, Suella Braverman, is poised to make the announcement, with officials having finalised the legal case for proscription, the outlet’s whitehall editor Lucy Fisher tweeted.
The UK imposed sanctions on the head of the group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in 2020 and on the group itself in March 2022, immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which Wagner has played a large part.
Prigozhin led a mutiny in June which he said aimed to settle scores with Russia’s military leaders rather than topple Vladimir Putin. Belarus then brokered an end to the mutiny.
Updated
Russia names new airforce chief to replace Sergei Surovikin - reports
Russia has appointed a new acting head of its aerospace forces to replace Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon”, the RIA state news agency reported on Wednesday.
In June, US intelligence claimed that Surovikin, who previously led the invasion force in Ukraine, had prior knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising, in which Wagner group mercenaries captured the city of Rostov and moved on Moscow before cutting an amnesty deal.
Since the mutiny, some Russian and foreign news outlets have said that Surovikin was being investigated for possible complicity in it and being held under house arrest.
His reported removal suggests the authorities found fault with his behaviour, but the details of his alleged wrongdoing remain unknown.
Russian news outlet RBC and Rybar, a Telegram channel close to the ministry of defence, on Tuesday reported that Surovikin had been removed from his position as the head of Russia’s airforce, Reuters reports.
On Wednesday, RIA cited an unnamed source as saying:
Ex-chief of the Russian Air and Space Forces Sergei Surovikin has now been relieved of his post, while colonel-general Viktor Afzalov, head of the main staff of the airforce, is temporarily acting as commander-in-chief of the airforce”.
The report has not yet been independently verified. Surovikin was nicknamed “General Armageddon” for his hardline and unorthodox approach to waging war.
You can read more about Surovikin in this profile piece:
Updated
In its latest intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that, as of mid-August, Russian forces were continuing to employ pontoon bridges at Chonhar and Henichesk crossing points, on the border between southern Ukraine and occupied Crimea.
Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion of the country.
The MoD wrote on X:
Both permanent bridges sustained damage from Ukrainian precision strikes in early August 2023.
The pontoon bridges are unlikely to be able to fully sustain the flow of heavy vehicles carrying ammunition and weaponry to the front.
The resulting bottlenecks mean Russian forces are partially reliant on a long diversion via Armiansk, northern Crimea. This is adding further friction to Russia’s logistics network in the south.
UK support for Ukraine's nuclear fuel supply will help end its reliance on Russia, says Shapps
UK government support for Ukraine’s nuclear fuel supply will help end the country’s reliance on Russian supplies, the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, said after a trip to a Ukrainian power station.
The government has announced its intention to provide a £192m loan guarantee through UK Export Finance – the UK’s export credit agency – enabling UK-headquartered Urenco to supply Ukraine’s national nuclear company, Energoatom, with uranium enrichment services, which are vital for nuclear fuel.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said that, once provided, the support will bring the UK’s non-military financial assistance to Ukraine close to £5bn, PA media reports.
Ukraine has four nuclear power plants, with its largest plant, at Zaporizhzhia, currently held by Russia.
Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year, Ukraine had been receiving most of its nuclear services and fuel from Russia.
In Kyiv on the eve of Ukraine’s Independence Day.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) August 23, 2023
From Energy Security to Defence the UK will always stand with Ukraine.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/oJ8edOYfGx
Updated
Three dead in Belgorod drone strikes, says governor
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Tuesday that three civilians were killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a sanatorium in the village of Lavy, close to the Ukrainian border.
The governor said two people had died on the spot and doctors had been unable to save the life of the third. These claims have not yet been independently verified.
Updated
Ukraine says air defences shot down 11 of 20 drones launched by Russia overnight
Ukrainian air defences shot down 11 out of 20 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks, the airforce said on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian military and local officials said Russia carried out attacks in the southern region of Odesa and in the Danube River area, which is important for grain exports, reportedly causing fires in grain facilities (see post at 06.23).
The military published photographs – which have not yet been independently verified -showing piles of grain under the burnt shell of a storage facility, Reuters reports.
Odesa’s governor, Oleh Kiper, said the attack on the region lasted for three hours.
“Unfortunately, there were hits to the production and transhipment complexes where a fire broke out... The damage includes grain storage facilities,” Kiper said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s Danube ports accounted for around a quarter of grain exports before Russia pulled out of a UN-backed deal to provide safe passage for the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea in July.
The ports have since become the main route out, with grain also sent on barges to Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta for shipment onwards.
Updated
Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until 3pm (UK time). Please do feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
Reuters: the Netherlands will send Ukraine a thousand chargers for remote demining, Dutch defence minister Kajsa Ollongren said on a visit to Kyiv.
The announcement coincides with heavily mined Russian defence lines slowing down a Ukrainian counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by Russia since its forces invaded in February 2022.
“There is a decision to provide about a thousand portable chargers for remote demining that can make passageways in engineered barriers,” Ollongren was quoted as saying on the Ukrainian defence ministry website at a meeting with Ukrainian minister Oleksiy Reznikov on Tuesday.
“Now, as I know, you are facing the problem of extremely dense mining of territories,” she said.
Updated
Russia attacks grain facilities in Ukraine's Danube region
Russia attacked grain facilities in Odesa and the Danube River region overnight, causing fires in grain facilities, Ukrainian military and local authorities said on Wednesday.
“The enemy hit grain storage facilities and a production and transshipment complex in Danube region. A fire broke out in the warehouses and was quickly contained. Firefighters continue to work,” military said on the Telegram messaging app.
Updated
Three drones downed in Moscow region, says mayor
A drone hit a building under construction in central Moscow early on Wednesday, the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, has said, in what AFP reported was the sixth straight night of aerial attacks on Russia’s capital region.
The Russian military downed two more drones over the western part of the Moscow region, the mayor said on his Telegram channel.
A loud explosion was heard in the capital’s central district on Wednesday morning, a short while after flights were suspended at the city’s airports, Russia’s RIA news agency reported. The central district is 5km from the Kremlin.
The Russian defence ministry said that the drone had been “suppressed by electronic warfare” before losing control and colliding with the building.
“At night, air defence forces thwarted another attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by three aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles on the city of Moscow,” the ministry said. There were no casualties, it said.
In addition to the Moscow city attack, two drones were “destroyed by air defence systems” in Moscow’s Mozhaisk and Khimki districts, it said.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top story this morning: A drone hit a building under construction in central Moscow early on Wednesday, the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, has said, in what AFP reported was the sixth straight night of aerial attacks on Russia’s capital region.
More on this shortly. In the meantime:
Ukraine said its troops had entered the strategically important south-eastern village of Robotyne, a potentially significant advance in its counteroffensive against Russia. Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, said Ukrainian soldiers were organising the evacuation of civilians, but were still coming under fire from Russian forces.
A prominent Russian journalist said on Tuesday that Gen Sergei Surovikin, former commander of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, had been dismissed as head of Russia’s aerospace forces. There was no official confirmation of the report by Alexei Venediktov, the well-connected former head of the now defunct Ekho Moskvy radio station, but it was cited by some other Russian news outlets on social media, Reuters reported.
Three people were killed and two were injured as a result of Russian shelling of several villages in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the prosecutor general’s office said. According to the prosecutors, all three people, two women and a man, were killed in the village of Torske on Tuesday evening. The prosecutors provided no further detail of the attack.
Russia said on Tuesday that it destroyed two Ukrainian military boats in the Black Sea. Moscow’s defence ministry said one of its Sukhoi Su-30sm jets destroyed a Ukrainian “reconnaissance boat” near Russian gas production facilities. It later said it also destroyed a US-made speedboat carrying Ukrainian troops east of Snake Island, without providing further detail. The claims were not verified.
A group of Ukrainian “saboteurs” tried to breach Russia’s border in the Bryansk region, the regional governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The claim was not verified.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Russia would remain a “responsible supplier” of food and grain to African countries and could take Ukraine’s place as an international supplier of grain, in recorded remarks to a summit of the Brics countries in South Africa. He also said said the use of US dollars in trade between Brics nations was decreasing, as the countries moved towards national currencies and away from dollars in an “irreversible process of de-dollarisation”.
The international court of justice will hear Russia’s objections to its jurisdiction in a genocide case brought by Ukraine in hearings starting in September, the body said on Tuesday. Ukraine filed a case with the ICJ shortly after Russia’s invasion began on 24 February 2022, which accused Moscow of falsely applying genocide law to justify the attack, Reuters reported.
Denmark has begun training eight Ukrainian pilots in flying F-16 fighter jets as part of its commitment to donate aircraft, the Danish armed forces said on Tuesday. Denmark and the Netherlands pledged on Sunday to donate F-16s to Ukraine.
The leaders of 11 Balkan and eastern European countries signed a joint declaration backing Ukraine’s territorial integrity at a summit in Athens on Monday. In the presence of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, they expressed their “unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders” in the face of Russia’s aggression.
Poland’s president has said Russia is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus. Andrzej Duda said the move would shift the security architecture of the region and the entire Nato military alliance, Associated Press reported.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the commitment made by some European countries to donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will help to minimise Ukrainian losses and de-escalate the conflict.
A drone appears to have destroyed a supersonic Russian bomber on an airfield hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine, British military intelligence has said, the latest in a string of successful assaults on prestige infrastructure and military hardware. These attacks, far beyond the frontlines, are powerful propaganda for Ukraine, though Kyiv rarely claims them directly.
