KIEV/MOSKAU (dpa-AFX) – After a mysterious plane crash and news of the presumed death of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, it has been official since Sunday: the Russian authorities confirmed that the head of the Wagner Group died on Wednesday. This was reported by the Russian state news agency Tass, citing the State Investigative Committee. Questions about the cause of the crash, the background and possible perpetrators and pullers of the strings remain unanswered. Moscow and Kiev reported airstrikes again at the weekend.
Russian authorities confirm Prigozhin’s death
After the crash of a private jet between Moscow and St. Petersburg, it was said on Wednesday that Prigozhin was on the passenger list. “As part of the clarification of the plane crash in the Tver region, molecular-genetic expertise was carried out,” the investigative committee said, according to the TASS report. “According to their results, the identity of all ten dead has been established. It corresponds to the published passenger list.”
The military leader of the mercenary group, ex-secret service officer Dmitri Utkin, and other leaders of the Wagner group, which was considered brutal, also died.
Moscow denies involvement in crash
The cause of the crash is not officially clear. However, large sections of the Russian public and Western governments assume that the private jet was deliberately brought down. In June, Priogoshin led an uprising against the Russian military and state leadership. President Vladimir Putin called him a traitor at the time.
After the first news about Prigozhin’s death, Putin spoke on Thursday of a talented man who had made serious mistakes. An involvement of the Kremlin in the crash has been repeatedly denied.
Ukraine and Moscow report attacks
Several regions in Ukraine reportedly came under fire from Russian cruise missiles on Sunday morning. Among other things, air defenses were activated in the outskirts of Kiev, as the military administration of the Ukrainian capital announced on Telegram. In the area around Kiev, ten houses, two cars and a hall with agricultural machinery were damaged by falling rocket parts. Two people were slightly injured.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the cruise missiles were launched by Russian fighter jets near the town of Engels on the Volga. Eight missiles were observed, but no impacts were reported.
There have been reports from Moscow of Ukrainian drone strikes over the Bryansk and Kursk regions. The ministry announced on its Telegram channel that the unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed over the border regions in the south-west of the country.
However, the administration of the Kursk region announced that a drone had hit a high-rise building in the city. Nobody was injured. The details of the attacks could not be checked independently.
Ambassador Makeiev: Russia had time to barricade itself
Although experts have recently seen progress, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is making slow progress. The Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, cites hesitant military support from Western partners as one reason for the difficulties. “Russia had time to barricade itself in,” Makeiev said in Deutschlandfunk’s “Interview of the Week.”
“It took a long time to prepare and equip the Ukrainian brigades, brigades of attack.” These brigades are now full of Western weapons and ammunition. Ukraine has no air sovereignty over its territory, Makeiev said. That is why the delivery of the F-16 fighter jets is so important – Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway have all promised F-16s.
Russian paramilitaries threaten to disobey orders
Meanwhile, a force of right-wing Russian paramilitaries reportedly threatened to disobey in the 18-month war in Ukraine because one of their leaders is being held in Finland. The Russian government should enforce his departure to Russia, the Rusich militia is demanding. “If a country doesn’t protect its citizens, why should citizens protect the country?” it said on a Rusich channel on Telegram.
The Russian is suspected of committing atrocities against Ukrainian soldiers during fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. Ukraine is therefore demanding his extradition. The district court of Vantaa near Helsinki extended the man’s detention on Friday, according to Finnish radio Yle.
Great Britain: clashes over platforms in the Black Sea
Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defense reported on fighting over strategically important oil and gas platforms in the Black Sea. A Russian fighter jet shot at a small Ukrainian naval boat that was sailing near a platform in the north-west of the sea last week, the British wrote on the short message service X (formerly Twitter).
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in 2022, Ukraine has attacked several Russian-controlled platforms. “Both Russia and Ukraine temporarily stationed troops there.”/vrb/DP/he