Moscow under pressure to rejoin deal to safeguard Ukrainian grain shipment

Russia has said that Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed with several close associates in an unexplained plane crash last week, as international pressure mounted on Moscow to renew a deal to safeguard grain exports from Ukrainian ports.

Mr Prigozhin was presumed dead after a private jet he was thought to be aboard crashed en route from Moscow to Saint Petersburg last Wednesday, two months after Wagner fighters staged a brief revolt against Russia’s military leadership, seizing the southern city of Rostov, shooting down several military aircraft and threatening to march on Moscow.

“As part of the investigation into the plane crash in the Tver region, molecular-genetic tests have been completed. Based on their results, the identities of all 10 dead have been established and correspond to the list stated on the flight sheet,” Russia’s investigative committee said on Sunday.

The flight sheet named Mr Prigozhin and close allies among seven passengers on the plane, including Dmitry Utkin, whose nom de guerre “Wagner” became the name of the infamous mercenary group and who sported tattoos of Nazi SS symbols on his shoulders.

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The cause of the plane’s demise is not clear, but theories include a strike from a Russian air defence system or the detonation of a bomb placed on board the jet. Three crew members also died in a crash.

Mr Prigozhin was a long-time associate and supporter of Russian president Vladimir Putin, but fiercely criticised his country’s military leadership for several months as Wagner forces suffered huge losses before seizing the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in late May.

After Mr Prigozhin abandoned the daylong Wagner uprising on June 23rd, the Kremlin said he would go into exile in Belarus and members of the group must either join him there, disarm and go home, or sign contracts with the Russian armed forces.

Mr Putin signed a decree on Friday obliging members of all Russian paramilitary groups to swear loyalty to the state, “strictly follow their commanders and superiors’ orders and conscientiously fulfil their obligations”. The Kremlin has described any suggestion that it ordered the plane to be destroyed as “total lies”.

Heavy fighting is continuing in southeastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces are making slow gains through minefields laid by Russia’s occupation force, and in northeastern areas where Moscow’s troops are trying to retake towns from which they were expelled a year ago.

“The enemy has significantly stepped up the frequency of its attacks along the Lyman and Kupiansk front,” said Ukrainian military spokesman Illia Yevlash, referring to towns in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions respectively. “Looking at the entire area, about 110,000 Russian servicemen are deployed there,” he added.

Ukraine announced that three military pilots died in a collision during a training exercise west of Kyiv, just as Nato states prepare to train Ukrainians to fly US-made F-16s.

[ Supply of F-16s to Ukraine a hugely expensive test for Kyiv’s allies ]

European Commission executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis urged Russia to rejoin an agreement to allow Ukraine to ship grain via the Black Sea, six weeks after it pulled out of the deal and began repeated air strikes on Ukrainian ports and grain storage sites.

He accused Russia of using “grain as a weapon” and said the EU backed “all efforts by United Nations, by Turkey on the Black Sea grain initiative”.

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan said in Kyiv on Friday that “reviving this initiative is a priority for Turkey ... I hope we’ll get a successful result.”

[ Millions to ‘pay the price’ for Russian refusal to extend Ukrainian grain export deal, says UN ]