Inspiring the rebellion of the tycoon and commander of the Wagner paramilitary force, General Surovikin, in Russia
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.
Mr. Prigozhin, a catering entrepreneur turned outspoken tycoon who built the private Wagner paramilitary force that has fought on Russia’s behalf in Ukraine and across Africa, instigated the rebellion with his Wagner forces after railing for months in audio and video clips against Russia’s military leaders.
There was a lack of public appearances by the general since he was involved in the rebellion. In July, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the defense committee of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, said that General Surovikin was “taking a rest” in response to questions from a reporter.
General Afzalov had previously served as the interim commander of Russia’s air force while General Surovikin led Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine. In July, there was a lot of speculation as to what had replaced General Secoykin, when he was shown in an official video delivering an air force report to Valery V. Gerasimov, Russia’s top military officer.
It has been the subject of intense speculation since June when Prigozhin mounted a brief revolt against Russia’s military leadership. 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 is also believed to have spearheaded the construction of Russia’s daunting network of defensive lines in the territory it occupies in Ukraine, which have challenged Kyiv’s counteroffensive.
But as is so often the case with atrocities in Mr. Putin’s Russia, the plane crash was probably exactly what it appeared to be: the assassination of a nettlesome rival by the ruthless ruler. That may never be proved, but Mr. Putin can choose to posthumously honor the man as a hero or blame the West for his death. Most observers believe that the evidence and means point to Mr. Putin.
After the plane left Moscow, the Flightradar 24 receivers began picking up signals from the Legacy. For the next 34 minutes, Prigozhin’s plane was sending out data about its altitude, speed, and autopilot settings that allowed its movements to be tracked.
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 number on the plane’s engine matches the number on the jet examined by The AP.
The Russian military operation in Ukraine: a case study of a plane crash with a Russian mercenary: the case of Yevgeny Prigozhin
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the heroes of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine as the news about the crash broke.
The circumstances and causes of the accident will be looked into by a commission created by Russia’s aviation authority.
Rescue crews recovered the remains of all the people on the plane. 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. There are investigations into the cause of the crash.
The Legacy 600 private jet took to the skies in Moscow on August 23. Launching from an airport near the Russian capital, the 13-seater plane, which has a white body and blue tail, has been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the brutal Russian mercenary outfit Wagner Group.
The bodies are not identified by authorities. Neither Prigozhin nor any of the others on the flight manifest have been heard from since the crash.
Russians believe that the official news is doctored by the Kremlin and have a penchant for rumor and conspiracy. So it is not surprising that within hours of the first reports of a plane crashing with somebody as notorious as Yevgeny Prigozhin listed as a passenger, speculation spread like a Siberian wildfire. Perhaps he was not on the plane and had staged his death to disappear. Or maybe President Vladimir Putin now had Mr. Prigozhin in a secret dungeon. Or the Ukrainians on whom he unleashed his mercenaries blew the plane up.
The Munich tragedy of Vladimir Putin’s last rebellious attempt to revolt: A message from Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock
Mourners have been leaving flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the Wagner headquarters in St. Petersburg and in other Russian cities where Wagner recruitment was active.
The crash was thought of as not being an accident by many of the country’s allies. “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.”
The world immediately looks at the Kremlin when a disgraced former aide to Putin falls from the sky two months after he tried to revolt, said Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister.
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A Maui house where Okano and his extended family live in: Trump to surrender in Fulton County, Georgia, after a wildfire
Donald Trump is expected to surrender at the Fulton County jail in Georgia. He is charged with 13 felonies in Georgia related to trying to change the result of the 2020 presidential election. A number of his 18 co-defendants, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have already surrendered.
Friends and family are helping Lahaina residents who lost their homes to the wildfire. One woman’s stepfather welcomed her and her husband’s entire extended family to his property – as many as 87 people. Her husband says that this is life in Hawaii. “We grew up sleeping in our cousin’s house. 20 of us were sleeping in a small room. A lot of comfort for me comes from the fact that our kids and we are together. See photos of the Maui house where Okano and his family are coming together as they plan their next steps.
The Russian government has responded to the tragedy of the Holocaust: “I don’t think there is any God,” Zoltan and Martin told Interfax
All of the authors 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 that we take care of each other on this planet. Zoltan and Martin discussed how her spiritual outlook leads her practice as a chaplain in an interview.
The Legacy 600 business jet that crashed on Wednesday was manufactured by Embraer, and it has stopped providing any support due to sanctions. Typically that support is largely maintenance related. It’s unknown if data monitoring was included with this jet.
Russia’s Emergency Services say the remains of all 10 people on board the plane that crashed north of Moscow had been recovered, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
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 recent days, drones have reached Moscow and disrupted air traffic around the capital.
The Embraer Legacy: The Unusual Story of a Great High-Energy Flight in Russia, and its Impact on Open Source Intelligence
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 headed northwest, away from Moscow and in the direction of Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg.
Thanks to Russia’s heavy censorship and propaganda machines, the verifiable truth of what happened to the Embraer Legacy may never be known, experts say.
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 continues to show how much information can be found on the internet, from photos to flight data and even open source data. Open source intelligence, known as OSINT, is already being inspected by researchers.