Live Russia-Ukraine War: Moscow slams ‘unacceptable’ Wagner chief Biden Prigozhin’s criticism of Putin

Russian investigators said the pilot of the plane that crashed in Tver, reportedly killing Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been confirmed dead.

According to reports, investigators have “documented evidence” that Alexei Levchin was on board the plane when it crashed.

His family will take a DNA test today to confirm

Many experts have speculated about whether the incident was in fact a state-sanctioned blow caused by Mr. Prigozhin’s defiance of Vladimir Putin’s authority in his failed coup in June.

German prosecutors are investigating the attempted murder of Berlin-based Russian journalist Elena Kostyuchenko, one of three exiled Russian journalists who suffered symptoms consistent with poisoning.

Kostyuchenko, foreign correspondent with Medusa and ex Novaya Gazeta – who exposed alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine – experienced severe confusion, abdominal pain and swollen limbs on a train ride from Munich to Berlin last October.

“When I walked out at the train station, I realized I couldn’t figure out how to get home,” she wrote two weeks ago in the literary magazine. n+1. “I knew I needed to get on the subway, but I just couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

two weeks ago, Insider She reported that the doctors they consulted said her symptoms were consistent with poisoning, while two other Russian journalists—Natalya Arno, head of the Free Russia Foundation, and broadcast journalist Irina Pabloyan—suffered from poisoning in Prague and Tbilisi, respectively.

“We can confirm that the investigation into the attempted murder of Elena Kostyuchenko is still pending,” a spokesman for the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Berlin said on Friday.

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it had destroyed 73 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours.

This comes after reports that Ukraine launched dozens of drones over the southern Crimea peninsula in the early hours of this morning.

In this independent voices piece, our international editor Chris Stevenson He notes that “it is not surprising that the Russian authorities announced the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin.” he is writing:

“Considering the attempted rebellion he led with the Wagner Mercenaries against Moscow, the assumption was that he might not stay long in this world. When it comes to President Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on his nation – if you come for the king, as the saying goes, you better not miss it.

But with speculation mounting about Prigozhin’s end and Putin’s embarrassment too much to bear, it might be easy to overlook the terrible things that Brogozhin’s mercenaries are believed to have done. Let’s be clear, Prigozhin deserved the end that all signs point to.

You can read his full analysis here:

A senior UK politician said, after the suspected death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, that Vladimir Putin’s back is “to the wall” and his days are “very numbered”.

Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House of Commons defense select committee, told Sky News the lengths to which Putin appeared to have gone to eliminate dissenting voices showed that “trust in the Kremlin’s inner circle has disappeared”.

Mr Ellwood said Putin was “now leading through fear rather than loyalty”, having suffered “severe humiliation on a number of fronts”. Prigozhin may be dead, but the damage was done because he lifted the lid on how bad it was. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was already going.

“When a Russian leader loses popularity among elites, Russian history shows that weakness is quickly and ruthlessly exploited,” said the conservative MP. “I suspect he will be replaced, maybe not in the short term, but the ball is certainly on the move now.

“I think Putin’s days are very numbered.”

Russia’s internet censorship agencies have increased their spending by more than 60 percent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, an analysis by one monitoring firm showed — and it rose by as much as 865 percent in regions bordering Ukraine.

The research, published this week by Top10VPN, analyzed nearly 4,000 documents, including those on the state procurement website zakupki.gov.ru, and details more than £45m of spending by state telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor and its affiliates since the start of the war. .

The research found that Roskomnadzor’s spending in the southern Russian federal district and the North Caucasus federal district, both of which border Ukraine, increased by 865 percent and 338 percent, respectively.

The research indicates that demand for virtual private networks (VPNs) in Russia has also skyrocketed after Moscow restricted access to Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram platforms.

Since then, Roskomnadzor has blocked access to thousands of online resources, especially independent Russian-language news.

Moscow is considering a US request for a consular visit to the prisoners Wall Street Journal Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that journalist Ivan Gershkovich had not made a decision yet.

The 31-year-old US citizen was arrested in March on charges of espionage, which he and the US government have accused. Wall Street Journal He denies it, and Russia has not provided any evidence for it. Washington declared that he was unjustly detained.

my colleague Bevan Hurley He has more on his case here:

The Kremlin said the Wagner Group had no formal legal existence.

In contact with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wagner exists as a group that made a “significant contribution” to Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, and praised the “heroism” of its fighters.

He claimed that suggestions that the Kremlin had ordered the killing of Wagner’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin were “a complete lie”.

And in June, Wagner’s mercenaries briefly attempted to march on Moscow in an insurrection aimed at ousting Prigozhin’s rivals in the defense establishment, which President Vladimir Putin publicly condemned as a treacherous “stab in the back.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there is an “understanding” that the presidents of Turkey and Russia will meet soon.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invited his counterpart Vladimir Putin to visit Turkey this month, but the date has not yet been confirmed. Peskov, who was speaking to reporters, did not say where the leaders were expected to meet.

Turkey is trying to persuade Russia to return to the agreement that Ankara and the United Nations helped broker last summer, allowing grain to be shipped from Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, from which Mousso exited last month.

While Putin is subject to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for suspected war crimes, Turkey does not recognize the court’s authority and therefore would not be obligated to detain the Russian president.