We don’t know much about the crash that could have killed Prigozhin
The fate of Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company and commander of the Aerospace force of Russia, as revealed by RIA Novosti
Some Wagner fighters have relocated to Belarus, where officials have said the mercenaries are training Belarusian troops; others remain active in the Central African Republic, Mali and elsewhere in Africa, where they have helped prop up authoritarian leaders loyal to Moscow.
He and Prigozhin later brokered a deal that ended the rebellion in exchange for the rebels’ amnesty and exile in neighboring Belarus. The future for Prigozhin and his Wagner forces has been a source of intense speculation ever since. There were unconfirmed reports of Prigozhin in both Africa and Russia.
According to analysts, the leader of Russia’s military, called General Armageddon, is one of the most effective commanders in the Russian military due to his ability to use ruthless tactics. His links to Mr. Prigozhin, whose mercenary group took over a city in Russia and proceeded to march on Moscow, made him fall from grace.
The ex-commander in charge of theAerospace forces of Russia has been relieved of his post, reported RIA Novosti. According to the report, the acting commander was a Col. Gen. ViktorAfzalov of the air force’s general staff.
Prigozhin’s fate has been the subject of intense speculation ever since he mounted a short-lived mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in late June. The Kremlin said the founder of the Wagner private military company, which fought alongside Russia’s regular army in Ukraine, would be exiled to Belarus.
He was believed to have led the construction of Russia’s daunting network of defensive lines in the territory it occupies in Ukrainian, which has challenged their counteroffensive.
A private jet with the mercenary group leading Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed onto a private jet near the city of Kuzenkhiino
MOSCOW — Russian aviation authorities say Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday that left no survivors. The cause of the crash isn’t confirmed by officials but Prigozhin’s death is.
The transponder signal on the private jet that was used to take off from Moscow on Wednesday night vanished minutes later, according to data reviewed by The Associated Press.
In an image posted by a pro-Wagner social media account showing burning wreckage, a partial tail number matching a private jet belonging to the company could be seen. The color and placement of the number on the engine of the crashed plane matches prior photos of the Wagner jet examined by The AP.
In the hours following the crash, Putin did not mention the incident at an event to honor troops who fought in Ukraine. The leader of the Kremlin expressed their sympathies Thursday to the families of those killed in the crash. He also noted Wagner members were reportedly on board and spoke warmly of his relationship with Prigozhin in the past tense.
The business jet was in the air for a bit before it suddenly dropped altitude a little over 30 minutes into its journey. Witness video appears to show the plane hurtling toward a field, with possibly one of its wings severed. The plane caught fire in some of the videos. While not independently confirmed by NPR, the videos appear to match the location of the crash and plane.
Rescue crews say they later recovered the remains of all the people on board. The crash scene, located near the village of Kuzenkhiino in Russia’s Tver region some 185 miles northwest of Moscow, has been sealed off by police and the victims’ remains reportedly removed to a local morgue. Russia’s Investigative Committee — a Kremlin loyalist body with powers akin to the FBI — has opened a criminal investigation. Aviation authorities are investigating the cause of the crash.
Russian aviation authorities said that there were 10 people on the plane, seven passengers and three crew. Authorities confirm Prigozhin’s name was listed among the passengers. The mercenary group’s name was changed fromWagner to Uktin, his nom de querre, in the flight manifest. Prigozhin flew on the plane in the last few months.
The bodies have not been positively identified. The rest of the passengers on the flight manifest have not been heard from since the crash.
The crash comes exactly two months after Prigozhin led a failed mutiny against Russia’s military leadership over its perceived failures in the war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin initially took to the airwaves to insist the Wagner rebels would be punished as traitors.
The St. Pete memorial and the Decay of a Russian Poincar’e to a Muhindal Black Hole
The memorial where mourners are leaving flowers is outside of the St. Pete headquarters and has been there for some time.
The crash of a plane was thought to be not an accident by many allies of the Ukranians. “I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” he said. “There’s not much that happened in Russia that Putin’s not behind, but I don’t know enough to answer.”
“It is no accident that the world immediately looks at the Kremlin when a disgraced former confidant of Putin suddenly, literally falls from the sky two months after he attempted a mutiny,” said Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister.
Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. To get the news you need to start your day, subscribe for it and listen to the Up First show.
Maui – a place of friendship for a woman’s extended family: A picture of Trump’s fight with a Russian plane crash mystery
Donald Trump will turn himself in to the Fulton County jail this afternoon. He is jailed in Georgia on 13 counts of trying to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election result. Rudy Giuliani was one of the 18 co-conspirators who have surrendered.
Lahaina residents who lost their homes to the wildfire are relying on the kindness of friends and family to help tide them over. 87 people, including a woman’s husband’s extended family, were welcomed by a woman’s stepfather to his property. “This is life in Hawaii,” says her husband, Travis Cabanilla Okano. We used to stay at our cousin’s house. We slept in a small room with 20 of us. It’s nice to see our kids and us together. There are photographs of Okano and his family in Maui, as they plan their next steps.
Faith and understanding: Zoltan, Martin, and Embraer, the U.S. military drone operator in Ukraine’s inner circle
All four of Zoltan’s grandparents survived the Holocaust. Because of their horrors they had experienced, she grew up seeing her family observe Jewish customs without really believing in the existence of God. It impacted her own approach to spirituality:. “I think that the absence of God can be really beautiful. It means we have a responsibility to care for each other. Zoltan and Martin talk about her spiritual outlook and how it is a guide in her practice as a chaplain.
Embraer, the Brazilian maker of the Legacy 600 business jet that crashed on Wednesday, said that it had stopped providing any support for the aircraft in 2019 because of sanctions. Typically that support is largely maintenance related. It is not known if data monitoring was included with this jet.
Interfax reported that the remains of the 10 people who were on the plane had been recovered.
Russia said Ukraine launched more drones into its territory overnight, all three of which it said it shot down. Two were intercepted over the Bryansk region, which shares a border with Ukraine, and one over the Kaluga region, which is closer to Moscow, Russia’s defense ministry said. Russia’s statement has not been independently verified. In the past week, drones have reached Moscow and disrupted air traffic.
What happened to the Embraer Legacy? The plethora of official information and the impact of Russia’s propaganda on its internet and online services
The Legacy appeared to be fine during this time. It reached a cruising altitude of 28,000 feet before briefly climbing to 30,000 feet, and it was traveling at around a ground speed of around 513 knots. Its flight path was to the northwest away from Moscow and headed to the second- largest city in Russia.
Experts say that the true truth of what happened to the Embraer Legacy may never be known because of Russia’s heavy censorship and propaganda machines.
Amid the dramatic and unfolding incident, there has been a void of official information and a swirl of unconfirmed theories. However, the event highlights how powerful Russia’s grip on its information space is: The country controls its media, has banned independent outlets, and tightly censors the internet and online services available in the country. The episode also continues to show how useful even small amounts of open source information—such as photos or videos posted to social media and open source data, such as flight information—can be in establishing what may have happened. Open source intelligence, known as OSINT, is already being inspected by researchers.
