Yevgeny Prigozhin gives Vladimir Putin a tour of his school lunch factory in 2010 (Alexey Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP/Getty)

Wednesday’s Coverage: Zelenskiy’s Success at Balkans Summit

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1945 GMT:

The US will begin training Ukrainian pilots and technicians for F-16 fighter jets in October.

Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said:

Following English language training for pilots in September, F-16 flying training is expected to begin in October at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, facilitated by the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing.

Although we do not have specific numbers to share at this time in regards to how many Ukrainians will participate in this training, we do anticipate it will include several pilots and dozens of maintainers.

UPDATE 1848 GMT:

A preliminary US intelligence report has assessed that the jet crash killing Yevgeny Prigozhin and other senior members of the mercenary Wagner Group was caused intentionally by an explosion, according to US and Western officials.

Officials said the assassination is in line with Vladimir Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics”.

Others said, “The explosion could have been caused by a bomb or other device planted on the aircraft, though other theories, like adulterated fuel, are also being explored.”

The Pentagon’s Press Secretary, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, added in a briefing that the US does not believe the jet was downed by surface-to-air missiles: “We assess that information to be inaccurate.”

UPDATE 1800 GMT:

Vladimir Putin has offered condolences to families over the death — and possible assassination of — Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine other people in a jet crash on Wednesday evening.

Putin said about the “talented businessman”:

He was a man with a difficult fate, he made some serious mistakes in his life. He achieved the needed results both for himself and for a joint effort that I had asked him about during the last months.

Putin promised a full investigation into a possible mass killing which he possibly might have ordered.

Putin said Prigozhin had returned to Russia from Africa on Wednesday and had met with “some officials”.

He did not give details. However, the independent Russian outlet Meduza — citing a “source close to the Moscow region’s leadership” — said that Prigozhin met officials from the Moscow Mayor’s Office and the regional administration on Wednesday to discuss food supplies for public sector institutions.

Two sources said the meeting indicated Prigozhin had “learned nothing” after his rebellion.

He has a lot going on in Africa. He himself does business with the leadership of African states. So far, no one has interfered with this or forced him out. Why does he need school meal contracts here given the risks?

UPDATE 1240 GMT:

Ukraine military intelligence says units landed in Russian-occupied Crimea in a “special operation”.

The statement included video showing a small motorboat moving through water at night near the coastline. The landing point was purportedly on the western tip of the Crimean peninsula, near the settlements of Olenivka and Mayak.

The Defense Ministry’s intelligence directorate HUR said “all goals” had been achieved and casualties inflicted on the enemy: “Also, the state flag flew again in Ukrainian Crimea.”

HUR did not give details. However, in a separate statement on Wednesday, the Defense Ministry says a Russian S-400 advanced anti-aircraft system with “its missiles and personnel” had been destroyed about 10 a.m. near Olenivka.

UPDATE 1056 GMT:

The Wagner Group mercenaries have released the last video of its military commander Dmitry Utkin, who was killed with the Group’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and other members in Wednesday evening’s jet crash.

UPDATE 0902 GMT:

The pre-trial detention of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested in late March in Yekaterinburg in Russia’s Ural Mountains, has been extended by three months to November 30.

Thursday’s hearing in a Moscow court was closed to the public.

Gershkovich, who had worked in Russia for six years, was seized as he was working on stories in Yekaterinburg about local responses to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and to the Wagner Group mercenaries.

He faces up to 20 years in jail on espionage charges.

UPDATE 0752 GMT:

UK military intelligence notes that Vladimir Putin visited the headquarters of the Southern Military Command in Rostov-on-Don last Saturday.

The timing takes on added significance in the deaths — possibly by assassination — of senior officials of the Wagner Group mercenaries, including its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a jet crash on Wednesday evening.

The Wagner Group seized the Southern Command’s headquarters, without a shot fired, during its rebellion on June 23-24.

Putin met with the overall commander of his invasion, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, and other officers.

Just the mini-rebellion, Prigozhin had demanded the dismissals of Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu.

The UK analysts summarizes, “Putin highly likely wishes to project his authority and to portray the senior military command functioning as usual.”

UPDATE 0657 GMT:

Ukraine is celebrating Independence Day, marking its break from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted:

UPDATE 0645 GMT:

A Russian missile strike has wounded seven people in the city of Dnipro in south-central Ukraine.

Six of the victims are in hospital with moderate wounds.

Some transport infrastructure and about a dozen other buildings, including a bank, a hotel, and an administrative facility, were damaged.

UPDATE 0629 GMT:

Ukrainian troops raised the national flag in the village of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region on Wednesday, a “tactically significant” advance on the southern front of the 10-week counter-offensive.

A Ukrainian brigade posted on Telegram

A historic day! Soldiers of the 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade set up the flag of Ukraine in the village of Robotyne, [towards] one of the hottest destinations – [the port city of] Melitopol….

A blue and yellow flag signed by the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was raised on the school destroyed by the Russian invaders on the National Flag Day!

UPDATE 0618 GMT:

In contrast to headline coverage around the world, Russian State media relegated the Prigozhin plane crash to an afterthought in its reporting on Wednesday night.

When State TV did cover the story, it was to emphasize that the Investigative Committee’s criminal investigation is blaming “potential violations of air transportation safety and operation rules”.

The English-language site of TASS initially had the news at the top of the page but it fell “below the fold” by Thursday morning.

UPDATE 0608 GMT:

Flight tracking data indicates that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s jet was downed by a catastrophic event — a missile strike, a bomb, or sudden technical failure.

The Embraer plane was flying normally until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, crashing near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region, north of Moscow.

In those 30 seconds, the jet fell more than 8,000 feet from its cruising altitude of 28,000 feet.

Ian Petchenik of Flightradar24 summarized:

Whatever happened, happened quickly.

They may have been wrestling after whatever happened….[Before that, there was] no indication that there was anything wrong with this aircraft.

Before Wednesday, the Embraer executive jet model in Wednesday’s crash had only recorded accident in more than 20 years. That was due to crew mistakes rather than mechanical failure, according to International Aviation HQ.

UPDATE 0548 GMT:

Among the other passengers on the crashed jet was Valery Chekalov, the Wagner Group’s head of security for Prigozhin.

Analyst Cristo Gorzev notes that “among other duties over the years”, Chekalov “surveilled, harassed and attacked journalists who dared investigate his boss”.

The St. Petersburg outlet Fontanka said other members of Prigozhin’s security detail, a cameraman, and Wagner’s logistics manager were among the seven passengers.

Andrey Zakharov of BBC Russian posted that Prigozhin flew to Russia from Africa with Wagner’s “entire leadership team” before boarding the flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

UPDATE:

The Russian Aviation Authority, Rosaviatsia, has confirmed that the head of the Wagner Group mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and its chief commander Dmitry Utkin were among the 10 people killed on the Embraer passenger jet that crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday night.

Russian media reported that the Kremlin received video from the cameras of Prigozhin and Utkin as they boarded the jet.

A Wagner-linked Telegram channel posted its suspicion that Prigozhin was murdered:

“The head of the Wagner Group, a Hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia.

But even in Hell, he will be the best! Glory to Russia!

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Has Vladimir Putin assassinated Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group mercenaries who briefly rebelled and advanced on Moscow in late June?

Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed north of the Russian capital on Wednesday evening, killing all three pilots and seven passengers.

Video shows a plane with a plume of smoke behind it before the aircraft fell from the sky. The jet was surrounded by flames after it crashed in a field.

Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation authority, said Prigozhin was on the manifest of the Embraer business jet travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

The cause of the crash, in the Tver region was not immediately apparent.

The jet, with the tail number RA-02795, was under US sanctions since 2019 because of its connection to Prigozhin.

In a clip posted on Monday — his first video message since the June rebellion — Prigozhin appeared to be in Africa. He stood in a desert area in camouflage and with a rifle in his hands. Armed men and a pickup truck were in the distance behind him.

Prigozhin said that Wagner, conducting reconnaissance and search activities, is “making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free”. He asserted that the mercenaries “will fulfil the tasks that were set”.

From Ukraine Frontlines to Rebellion In Russia

Prigozhin’s mercenaries had been essential to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last autumn, as the military operations lost ground to a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the east and south of the country.

Using thousands of recruited convicts as well as his fighters, Prigozhin oversaw “human wave” attacks on the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region from November to May.

The devastatated city finally surrendered — after the deaths of 20,000 Wagner members, according to Prigozhin — in a short-lived victory which was symbolic if strategically insignificant.

Prigozhin immediately said his fighters would withdraw, handing over the city to conventional Russian forces. But, having declared for months that the Russian Defense Ministry had starved his men of weapons and ammunition, he then accused Moscow’s units of firing on his fighters as they pulled back from Donetsk to Russia.

Prigozhin escalated his rhetoric against a “monstrous bureaucracy” and officials who were “traitors” with the demand for the dismissals of Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the overall commander of the invasion.

On June 23, only five weeks after “winning” in Bakhmut, the Wagner Group suddenly declared its intention to move into Moscow. It took over the city of Rostov-on-Don, including the headquarters of the Southern Military Command, without firing a shot, and lead units moved up highways to within 200 km (125 miles) of the Russian capital.

About 36 hours after the start of the rebellion, it was curbed by a deal, mediated by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, between the Kremlin and Prigozhin. The Wagner Group leader would go to Belarus, joined by any fighters who wished to make the move.

On June 27, Prigozhin reportedly flew from St. Petersburg to Belarus in the plane which crashed on Wednesday.