Russia

Russia (AP) —The Kremlin on Friday rejected allegations it was behind a plane crash that is presumed to have killed mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose brutal fighters were feared in Ukraine, Africa and Syria and conducted a brief but shocking mutiny in Russia two months ago.

Prigozhin, who was listed among those on board the plane, was eulogized Thursday by President Vladimir Putin, even as suspicions grew that the Russian leader was behind a crash that many saw as an assassination.

MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/: The results of the BRICS summit have been stellar and US attempts to weaponize "isolation" via sanctions have been vanquished once and for all, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"The results are brilliant. The weaponization of 'isolation' by the Americans has been vanquished forever," she wrote on her Telegram channel about the results of the 15th BRICS summit.

MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/: Russian forces delivered a multiple-launch strike by high-precision weapons, destroying a Ukrainian military command center over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Thursday.

"Last night, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a multiple-launch strike by seaborne and ground-based long-range precision weapons against a Ukrainian military command center," the spokesman said.

Aug 23 (Reuters) - Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was believed dead after a private jet on which he was listed as a passenger crashed north of Moscow with no survivors.

Prigozhin, 62, spearheaded a mutiny against Russia's top army brass on June 23-24, which President Vladimir Putin said could have tipped Russia into civil war.

Others who have opposed Putin or his interests have also died under unclear circumstances or come close to death.

Here are some details about these mysterious incidents:

KUZHENKINO, Russia, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Residents of a village near the site of a plane crash which is believed to have killed Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said they had heard a bang, then saw the jet plummet to the ground.

The plane, an Embraer Legacy 600private jet, crashed on Wednesday near the village of Kuzhenkino in Russia's Tver region on its way from Moscow to St. Petersburg and killed all 10 people on board - seven passengers and three crew members.

MOSCOW, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Russian civil aviation authority (Rosaviatsia) published on Thursday the names of all 10 passengers and crew members who were on board the Embraer plane that crashed in the Tver region, among them -- Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin.

Also on the list were Sergey Propustin, Yevgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, Valery Chekalov and Nikolay Matyuseev. The names of three crew members were made public as well.

Russia (AP) —Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine who was linked to the leader of a brief armed rebellion, has been dismissed as chief of the air force, Russian state media reported Wednesday after weeks of uncertainty about his fate.

Surovikin has not been seen in public since June 23-24, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, sent his men to march toward Moscow. In a video released during the uprising, Surovikin — who was believed to have close ties to Prigozhin — had urged him to pull the mercenaries back.

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/: The world situation has become more complicated due to the destructive stance of the West, thus making the role of inter-party diplomacy increasingly significant, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said to the organizers and participants of the International Congress of Members of the Youth Wings of Political Parties.

MOSCOW, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Russia said Ukrainian drones had attacked four separate regions in a flurry of attempted strikes on Sunday, injuring five people and forcing two of Moscow's airports to briefly divert flights.

Russia's Kursk, Rostov and Belgorod regions, all of which border Ukraine, reported attempted drone strikes, while Russia's defence ministry said it had jammed a Ukrainian drone in the Moscow region, forcing it to crash in an unpopulated area.

MOSCOW, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Russia's first moon mission in 47 years failed when its Luna-25 space craft spun out of control and crashed into the moon after a problem preparing for pre-landing orbit, underscoring the post-Soviet decline of a once mighty space programme.

Russia's state space corporation, Roskosmos, said it had lost contact with the craft at 11:57 GMT on Saturday after a problem as the craft was shunted into pre-landing orbit. A soft landing had been planned for Monday.