Ukraine-Russia conflict reside: Wagner boss ‘confirmed dead by genetic tests’ as Putin orders mercenaries’ allegiance

The committee stated in an announcement Sunday that after forensic testing, all 10 our bodies recovered on the web site of the crash have been recognized, and their identities “conform to the manifest.”

Russia’s civil aviation authority earlier this week stated Prigozhin, together with a few of his prime lieutenants, have been on the record of these on board the aircraft that crashed Wednesday.

An “under pressure” Vladimir Putin “remains in a difficult position” despite Yevgeny Prigozhin’s obvious demise, an professional has recommended.

Describing it as a “surprise” that the Russian president appeared to spare the Wagner mercenary final June after his shortlived mutiny in opposition to Russia’s navy management, Dr Nigel Gould-Davies of the International Institute for Strategic Studies stated it now seems that Mr Putin “merely postponed Prigozhin’s death”.

Dr Gould-Davies, a former ambassador to Belarus, recommended that this was “probably to lull him and others into a false sense of security while the security services conducted their investigation into the extent of sympathy for, complicity in and foreknowledge of the Wagner revolt in military and other circles”.

“It is likely that they have now concluded this investigation,” he stated. “General Sergei Surovikin, detained after the revolt and not seen since, was fired as head of the Russian Aerospace Forces immediately before Prigozhin’s death. This timing is unlikely to be a coincidence.

Describing Prigozhin’s June revolt as “the biggest threat so far to Putin’s presidency”, he added: “Although Prigozhin is dead, Putin remains in a difficult position and is under pressure from hardline siloviki to escalate the war by mobilising far more of Russia’s human and material resources.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to ask parliament this week to extend penalties for these discovered responsible of corruption throughout wartime.

“I have set a task for the legislation and the Ukrainian legislators will be offered my proposals to equate corruption with high treason in wartime,” he stated, including: “I think the parliament will get it in the next week and then the ball is in the parliament’s court.”

Earlier this month, Mr Zelensky dismissed regional navy recruitment chiefs in any respect conscription centres throughout Ukraine following a nationwide audit, as he seeks to tighten Ukraine’s conflict effort and reassure Western allies that he’s critical about cracking down on corruption.

Ukraine ranks 116th out of 180 international locations on marketing campaign group Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index.

In the clip shared to Telegram on Sunday, Mr Zelensky stated these discovered responsible should face justice. “But this is not a firing squad. This is not Stalinism,” he added. “If there is evidence, the person must be behind bars.”

The obvious deaths of Yevgeny Prigozhin and different Wagner bosses means the Wagner mercenary group will wrestle to reverse the trajectory of decline which has befallen it in recent months, an analyst on the Institute for the Study of War has recommended.

“We’re not going to see Wagner in the same capacity that we have seen before,” Kateryna Stepanenko, one of many think-tank’s Russia analysts instructed Axios.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s demise “doesn’t change anything” and the Kremlin’s hand in affairs in Africa may now “be more strengthened”, a Nigerian intelligence official has warned.

The official is cited in a Wall Street Journal report which tracks the Wagner chief’s remaining actions within the weeks earlier than his obvious demise in a aircraft crash close to Moscow.

Prigozhin’s demise “doesn’t change anything,” the official instructed the paper, as Nigeria appears to be like on with concern on the potential growth of Russian-backed navy governments in west and central Africa.

“Russia is still there. When the Wagner leader is gone, they are still active in Africa … Maybe now the Kremlin’s hands will be more strengthened.”

Ukraine is mourning the lack of three fighter pilots killed as two coaching plane collided within the skies some 90 miles west of Kyiv, with Captain Andriy Pilshchykov, a pilot who glided by the navy callsign “Juice”, having been notably singled out for reward.

The late pilot, who was 30 years outdated when the crash occured over the western Zhytomyr area on Friday, had develop into identified not only for his defence of Ukraine, but additionally for his passionate advocacy for the United States to offer Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets.

The Mig-29 pilot first received fame in Ukraine as he took half in “dogfights” with Moscow’s fighter jets within the skies above Kyiv through the preliminary months of Russia’s invasion, in line with Ukrainian information shops.

You can learn extra about his navy document and the way he selected his callsign right here:

In Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aircraft crash, all indicators pointed to Vladimir Putin’s revenge, each within the method of the execution and the way of the unique slight, writes John Kampfner.

What Prigozhin did, in his more and more voluble movies attacking the Russian navy institution after which in his weird not-quite-march-on-Moscow in June, was to carry Putin as much as ridicule. Punishment was comparatively swift, because it often is when politicians, journalists or former spooks uncover inconvenient truths.

The strategies are many and diversified: poisoning, taking pictures, aircraft crashes and, the best of all of them, the mysterious falling out of a window. Sometimes they’re carried out discreetly, however extra usually within the open, to ship a sign concerning the risks of defiance.

To be truthful, focused killings started earlier than Putin got here to energy in 2000. In the Nineteen Nineties, incidents similar to these usually had the imprimatur of the Chechen management. Or else it was prison gangs (and their political masters) settling scores. What Putin did was to rework state assassinations onto an industrial scale.

Here is the complete lengthy learn on “Putin’s hit list”:

Brandon Flowers has stated he was confronted with “an impossible situation” after inadvertently inviting a Russian fan onto the stage throughout The Killers’ present in Georgia.

The frontman of the Las Vegas-formed rock band precipitated controversy with remarks he made on the Black Sea Arena in Batumi, the place the band have been performing as a part of their Imploding the Mirage tour.

As is custom, the band invited a fan onto the stage to play the drums on their 2006 track, “For Reasons Unknown”, when Flowers, 42, addressed the group.

“We don’t know the etiquette of this land but this guy’s a Russian. You OK with a Russian coming up here?” he requested. While there have been some cheers within the crowd, many booed and shouted: “No.”

Our tradition and way of life information editor Roisin O’Connor has the story right here:

Ukraine’s deputy PM has stated {that a} vessel carrying metal merchandise to Africa has left Ukraine’s Odesa port by means of a short lived Black Sea hall – making it the second ship to embark on the journey since Russia withdrew from the UN-brokered deal final month.

Oleksandr Kubrakov stated the Liberian-flagged ship Primus had begun crusing by means of a short lived hall arrange for civilian vessels, confirming a report on Saturday by a Ukrainian politician with robust hyperlinks to Odesa.

“The 2nd vessel blocked due to the war has left the port of Odesa and is now sailing through a temporary corridor,” Mr Kubrakov posted Twitter/X, including that the ship had been caught on the port since previous to Russia’s invasion final February.

A Russian Su-30 fighter jet has escorted a US reconnaissance Reaper drone over the Black Sea, Russian state information has reported, citing Moscow’s defence ministry.

Tass reported that the unmanned aerial car had not breached Russia’s state border.

In March, Washington officers accused a pair of Russian Su-27 fighter jets of forcing a US drone out of the sky over worldwide waters within the Black Sea by dumping gas and damaging the drone’s propellor, in what they claimed was a “reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional” set of manoeuvres.