Russian authorities have confirmed that they have recovered “black box” flight recorders from the crash site of a plane reportedly carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin. Elsewhere, another Ukrainian drone was downed on its approach to the Russian capital of Moscow, the mayor of the city has claimed.
Sunday 27 August 2023 00:05, UK
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Russia reported a new drone attack on Moscow, leading to the temporary closure of major airports, including Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Vnukovo.
The Mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, confirmed that air defence systems downed a drone over the Istra district, approximately 50km west of the Kremlin.
Flights were suspended for a few hours due to the incident. The defence ministry announced that around 9:45pm Moscow time, their air defences successfully brought down an unmanned aerial vehicle over the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine.
In the Belgorod region near Ukraine, air defences also intercepted a drone near Kupino without causing damage or casualties. However, four individuals were injured due to Ukrainian shelling in Urazovo village.
Despite these events, Ukraine has not issued an immediate response and typically refrains from publicly acknowledging responsibility for attacks within Russia.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko revealed during an interview on Friday that he had cautioned Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, about potential threats to his life prior to Prigozhin’s apparent demise in a plane crash on Wednesday.
Mr Lukashenko, a prominent ally of President Vladimir Putin, recounted that he had issued this warning twice.
The first instance occurred during negotiations in June, a period in which Prigozhin, once aligned with Putin, orchestrated a 24-hour rebellion against the Russian government by leading his Wagner forces into Moscow.
“I told him: ‘Yevgeny, do you understand that you will doom your people and will perish yourself?’ He had just come back from the front. On an impulse he said: ‘I will die then, damn it!'” Mr Lukashenko told reporters in remarks reported by Belarusian state news agency Belta on Friday, according to CNN.
Prigozhin openly criticised both Putin and the Russian defence ministry for several months before his rebellion against the Kremlin. He asserted that his forces were being deprived of adequate backing, essential weaponry, and necessary military provisions. His June insurrection was eventually defused with the intervention of Mr Lukashenko, who engaged in negotiations with the Wagner Group.
Was the private jet believed to be carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin brought down, and what exactly happened to it?
Several theories have been put forward as to what may have caused the plane to come hurtling to the ground as it travelled from Moscow to St Petersburg.
Using footage of the crash which has emerged online, military analyst and former pilot Sean Bell points to four key things it shows that may provide hints as to what likely happened to the aircraft.
1. A missile strike
One image shows a “swirl of cloud” which doesn’t sit comfortably against the rest, Bell says.
Drawing on his own experience of flying combat aircraft, he explains that if a surface-to-air missile hit the plane, “you would see that sort of vapour trail in the final stages of its approach”.
“Therefore, either that could be an explosion, or it could be a surface-to-air missile system,” he says.
2. ‘Smoke’ as plane plummets
Bell highlights what appears to be a trail of smoke coming from the wreckage of the plane, around halfway into its descent.
He says this is “almost certainly not smoke” and is probably “fuel venting”.
“It’s a large quantity, that is a massive damage to the aircraft that’s caused that,” he adds.
3 and 4. Missing wing or tailplane in the air – and debris on the ground
Footage of the plane closer to the ground appears to show it without its wing or its tailplane, which could explain why it came down “vertically, not unlike a falling leaf”.
The fourth point Bell notes is that other pictures from the crash site show the tailplane “some distance” from the main part of the aircraft.
“Now, you put all of that together… there’s lots of reasons why that might have occurred, but that is not a natural accident,” Bell explains.
“That is a catastrophe that’s happened in the air… there were rumours that a case of wine [containing a bomb] was put on the aircraft at the last minute.
“The trouble with that theory is that generally speaking, [an explosion] inside an aircraft blows it out… whereas a surface-to-air missile system or an air-to-air missile system generally tries to seek out the juiciest, meatiest part of an aircraft.
“That would explain why it potentially could rip a wing off. And as soon as it did that, the fate of the aircraft was sealed.”
Colourful fireworks were launched to pray for peace in Ukraine during the Omagari Fireworks Festival in Daisen City, Akita Prefecture, in Japan today.
The fireworks displayed the Ukrainian national flower, the sunflower in the summer night sky.
The air crash which is believed to have killed Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has raised questions about the future of the Russian mercenary outfit.
Vladimir Putin has asked Wagner troops to swear oaths of allegiance to the Russian state.
Military analyst Sean Bell goes into further detail about what could happen next for the Wagner group.
Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich has appealed a Moscow court’s decision to extend his pretrial detention in Russia until the end of November, according to documents on the court’s website.
The American journalist was taken into custody during a work-related trip to Yekaterinburg in March, a location nearly 1,200 miles to the east of Moscow. Notably, he is the first US journalist to face espionage charges in Russia since the Soviet era.
The authorisation that allowed Mr Gershkovich’s detention before the trial was initially scheduled to expire on 30 August. However, the Moscow City Court, in a move that sparked objections from both US government officials and the Journal, extended the custody order for an additional three months on Thursday.
As of Saturday, the court’s website displayed records indicating that Mr Gershkovich’s defence team had submitted an appeal.
It’s worth noting that a previous appeal made by Gershkovich against the ruling to detain him until the end of August was rejected by the court in June.
Some pictures coming out of Ukraine today show how the citizens of Kyiv are getting on with daily life as the conflict with Russia continues.
People were pictured making on their way to a daytime party in the Ukrainian capital this afternoon, while a man was spotted selling balloons next to piles of sandbags blocking windows of an old building.
Russia’s military cooperation with Iran remains steadfast against geopolitical pressures, according to Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov.
His comments follow reports that Washington has urged Tehran to halt drone sales to Moscow.
“There are no changes, and cooperation with Iran will continue,” Mr Ryabkov said, according to a report on Saturday from Russian state news agency RIA. “We are independent states and do not succumb to the dictates of the United States and its satellites.”
The US has been exerting pressure on Iran to discontinue the sale of armed drones, which are being utilised by Russia in the conflict in Ukraine, as per the report by the Financial Times earlier this month. This information was sourced from an Iranian official and another individual familiar with the discussions.
Although Iran has acknowledged its drone shipments to Russia, it has previously claimed that these deliveries occurred prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow has refuted claims of employing Iranian drones during the Ukrainian conflict.
Tributes are continuing to pour in from across Russia for Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, after it was reported that he had been killed in a plane crash earlier this week.
The latest of these appears to be in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, which shows the Wagner insignia alongside a memorial plaque and a Russian flag.
Our Moscow correspondent Diana Magnay said yesterday that Prigozhin’s death had been hard-felt by many Russians, particularly in his hometown of St Petersburg, where hundreds of tributes were left for the Wagner boss.
Three Ukrainian pilots have died after two training aircraft collided, the air force has confirmed.
The deaths occurred yesterday during a mission.
“During a combat mission, the crews of two L-39 combat training aircraft collided in the sky,” an air force statement read on Telegram.
“All three pilots, unfortunately, died.”
It also noted that a well-known pilot, nicknamed “Juice”, was amongst the dead.
The crash occurred over the Zhytomyr region – west Kyiv.
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