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Voting in the Russian presidential election began this morning and will end Sunday. At that point, Putin's victory will be announced and he will start his 5th term as president. The vote tally doesn't really matter. It will be whatever the Kremlin decides it should be. Having killed off his only two real opponents in the past year, Navalny and Prigozhin, he probably feels like he earned it. The presidential vote in Russia, which began Friday and lasts through Sunday, features the trappings of a horse race but is more of a predetermined, Soviet-style referendum. President Vladimir V. Putin, 71,...

The assassination of warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin was 'put in motion' by Vladimir Putin's closest security aide Nikolai Patrushev, it was reported today. Progozhin - formerly close to Putin and the boss of Wagner private army - died in a plane crash in August, months after he launched a failed coup against the Kremlin. Now an investigation by The Wall Street Journal says a 'small explosive device' was 'slipped under the wing', and that shadowy ex-FSB security service chief Patrushev, 72, was behind the assassination. -snip- The WSJ said the bomb was planted on Prigozhin's Embraer Legacy 600 before it took...

-snip- The assassination of the warlord was two months in the making and approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s oldest ally and confidant, an ex-spy named Nikolai Patrushev, according to Western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer. The role of Patrushev as the driver of the plan to kill Prigozhin hasn’t been previously reported. The Kremlin has denied involvement in Prigozhin’s death, and Putin offered the closest thing to an official explanation for the plane’s fiery crash, suggesting a hand grenade had detonated onboard. -snip- Controlling the levers of that machine is Patrushev. He has climbed to the...

Russian patriotic bloggers on Friday poured scorn on President Vladimir Putin's intimation that mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane was blown up with hand grenades while those on board were high on cocaine and alcohol. The private Embraer jet on which Prigozhin was travelling to St Petersburg crashed north of Moscow killing all 10 people on board on Aug. 23, including Dmitry Utkin, co-founder of the mercenary Wagner group, four bodyguards and a crew of three. Putin said on Thursday fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of the dead and that investigators had ruled out any external impact...

Wagner troops are outraged after Russian officials bulldozed a cemetery of its mercenary fighters just days after the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin himself had opened the cemetery last year in the village of Nikolayevka, Samara Oblast, in Russia's southwestern region. Video footage from a Wagner supporter today showed that cement had been poured over the gravesites of those who died fighting in Ukraine. The crosses marking the grave sites had also been ripped out of the ground and were thrown into a landfill "like rubbish". The supporter tells viewers on Telegram that "everything has been demolished" The...

Former President George W. Bush on Sunday said he was shocked to discover that Yevgeny Prigozhin — the longtime Wagner Group leader — had served him dinner more than 17 years ago. While speaking at the Yalta European Strategy conference, Bush was asked whether he felt the reports of Prigozhin's death in a plane crash were "shocking" to him. The conference was held in Kyiv, but Bush joined via video call. "No, what's shocking to me is I saw a picture the other day of a G8 summit in St. Petersburg, where he was the guy serving me the food,"...

He really is dead. Today Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried in his hometown of St. Petersburg. There were conflicting reports leading up to the ceremony about where and when it would take place. It seems pretty clear that the Kremlin wanted this to be a very low-key affair with few people allowed so that no images or video showing long lines of mourners would wind up in the media. (snip) Even after his murder, Putin is obviously worried about his remaining supporters. To be clear, I think Prigozhin was a ghoul rounding up desperate criminals and sending them to die at...

....Prigozhin is 'alive, well, and free' in an unnamed country, according to Dr Valery Solovey, even as Russia stages his funeral which Vladimir Putin is refusing to attend. The astonishing assertion holds that Prigozhin cheated an assassination bid sanctioned by Putin and drawn up by his security council. Prigozhin is now plotting his revenge, says the political analyst, a former professor at Moscow's prestigious Institute of International Relations [MGIMO], a training school for spies and diplomats. Dr Solovey accuses the Russian authorities of lying over Prigozhin's DNA being found at the crash site in Tver region, while being aware the...

He really is dead. Today Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried in his hometown of St. Petersburg. There were conflicting reports leading up to the ceremony about where and when it would take place. It seems pretty clear that the Kremlin wanted this to be a very low-key affair with few people allowed so that no images or video showing long lines of mourners would wind up in the media.Prigozhin’s press service said in a brief statement that the last rites for Prigozhin were held in secret Tuesday without offering details of the time and location, or providing photographs of the event...

We knew these denials were coming and now they are here. A Kremlin spokesman called the suggestion that Putin ordered Prigozhin’s death an “absolute lie.” (snip) Lukashenko’s denial is especially funny because back in June when he was eager to take credit for brokering peace between Prigozhin and Putin, he said outright that Putin wanted to have Prigozhin killed. (snip) Here’s video of his statement about killing Prigozhin. Given that this was Putin’s first thought and that he had to be talked out of it, it’s a bit of a stretch to claim now that Putin wouldn’t go there.

Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus said the plane crash that killed Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin this week was likely an assassination by Russian President Vladimir Putin and proved Russia is a “mafia state.” “I think that Putin saw that his image — at the very least, if not the reality — was that he was seen as weakened by this. He was obviously directly challenged by someone he created,” Petraeus said in a NewsNation interview Friday.

The Kremlin dismissed rumors Friday that it ordered the assassination of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who reportedly died in an aviation incident after leading an uprising against Russia's military leadership. "There is a lot of speculation around the plane crash and the tragic death of the passengers, including Yevgeny Prigozhin," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a briefing. "Of course, in the West, this speculation is being presented from a certain angle. All of this is an absolute lie," Peskov said. The crash on Wednesday occurred exactly two months after Prigozhin led a deadly rebellion against Moscow's top brass....

U.S. officials told media outlets on Thursday that they believe the plane presumed to be carrying mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was deliberately taken down, though there was some disagreement as to how exactly the plane was destroyed. Russian air authorities have said Prigozhin, his right-hand man Dmitry Utkin, and eight other people were on the private plane that crashed with no survivors north of Moscow on Wednesday. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that it was likely a surface-to-air missile originating from inside Russia shot down the plane. The officials stressed that the information was...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied any involvement in the plane crash north of Moscow on Wednesday that reportedly killed Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, telling reporters “everyone realizes” who the true culprit is. Prigozhin and several other senior members of Wagner appeared on the flight manifest of an Embrarer-made private jet that crashed in Tver Oblast, north of Moscow, on Wednesday. Russian authorities confirmed that Prigozhin’s name was on the manifest, appeared to confirm he was on board, and proceeded to claim all ten people on the plane had died. They had not, however, officially declared Prigozhin...

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group who rebelled against Russia’s military leadership in June, has been confirmed dead by Russian authorities in a plane crash 100 miles northwest of Moscow. But can those authorities be trusted to tell the truth? Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and former senior official at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), says there may be a number of reasons the Kremlin would want us to think Prigozhin was dead. “At this time, we lack independent confirmation whether the Russian media or the Federal Air Transport Agency reporting about Prigozhin’s...

Update from Ukraine | Wagner Boss Kaputt | What is Next? Ukraine liberated Robotine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H2FGud37RQ The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the recent developments on the battlefield, as of 23rd August 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-546-summary/ *** Great interactive maps with viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use for each Front! https://militaryland.net/maps/

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed in Russia's Tver region on Wednesday, according to the press service of the Federal Air Transport Agency . Ten people were killed in the crash, but it is not yet clear whether he was actually on board the plane.

Video showing what appears to be the trail of an anti-aircraft missile, as a business plane allegedly carrying Wagner chief Yegveny Prigozhin falls from the sky.There is no still no official confirmation if Prigozhin was on the plane, where he was listed as a passenger.⚡️ Самолёт, который разбился в Тверской области, принадлежит Евгению Пригожину, утверждают издание Baza и журналистка Ксения Собчак. На борту бизнес-джета Embraer, как утверждается, были 7 человек, они погибли.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed Wednesday after a plane he was aboard crashed northwest of Moscow, according to Russian authorities. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny attempt against the Kremlin in June. Photo: Russian Investigative Committee Handout/Shutterstock…

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a jet which crashed killing all on board, Russia's civil aviation authority has said. Earlier, Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported that the private plane, which belonged to Prigozhin, was shot down by air defences. It was flying from Moscow to St Petersburg, with seven passengers and three crew.