Rusia

It was easier to approach Moscow in June than to leave it in August. Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who staged a short-lived mutiny against the Russian military two months ago, was reportedly killed in a plane crash along with nine other passengers on Wednesday while traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, according to Russian authorities and Wagner-affiliated Telegram groups. Some reports have indicated that the plane was downed by Russian air defenses. Just hours earlier, General Sergei Surovikin, who allegedly had advance knowledge of the Wagner mutiny and had not been seen in public since it occurred, was removed from his post as head of Russia’s air force.

It was easier to approach Moscow in June than to leave it in August. Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who staged a short-lived mutiny against the Russian military two months ago, was reportedly killed in a plane crash along with nine other passengers on Wednesday while traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, according to Russian authorities and Wagner-affiliated Telegram groups. Some reports have indicated that the plane was downed by Russian air defenses. Just hours earlier, General Sergei Surovikin, who allegedly had advance knowledge of the Wagner mutiny and had not been seen in public since it occurred, was removed from his post as head of Russia’s air force.

À contre pied de quelques va-t-en-guerre occidentaux, la Hongrie, à l’instar de la Bulgarie, refuse d’alimenter le conflit en livrant des armes à Kiev. Source d’inspiration pour la Suisse qui a déjà perdu sa neutralité ?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the notorious mercenary company Wagner who became a key figure in Russia’s war on Ukraine before staging a mutiny that brought rebel fighters to Moscow’s doorstep, directly challenging President Vladimir Putin, died in a plane crash whose cause remains under investigation, state authorities said. He was 62.

A Conversation With Tatiana Stanovaya

In a Foreign Affairs article released earlier this month, Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, tallied the mounting stressors on Vladimir Putin’s regime—particularly the short-lived mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company. The rebellion was “the product of Putin’s inaction,” she wrote, and the leniency afforded to Prigozhin afterward made the Russian president look “less powerful.” On Wednesday, Putin may have gotten his payback after all: Prigozhin was listed among the fatalities of a private jet that crashed outside Moscow. Executive Editor Stuart Reid spoke with Stanovaya the same day. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

What It Will Take to Break Putinism’s Grip

On June 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a special ceremony on the St. Petersburg waterfront to mark the anniversary of three flags: the flag of the Russian Federation, otherwise known as Peter the Great’s tricolor, formally unfurled in 1693; the imperial Russian flag, introduced by Tsar Alexander II in 1858; and the Red Banner, the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle, adopted by the Soviet state 100 years ago and later used by Joseph Stalin. Putin watched the event from a boat as the National Philharmonic and the St. Petersburg State Choir performed the national anthem, which, thanks to a law Putin enacted in 2000, has the same melody as its Stalin-era counterpart. The portentous rite unfolded in front of the Lakhta Center tower, the country’s tallest building, as well as the $1.7 billion headquarters of Gazprom, the state-run gas company that has become another crucial symbol of Putin’s Russia.