‘Farewell ceremony’ for Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin; Moscow extends detention of former US consular employee
A drone attack on the city of Pskov in north-western Russia damaged four heavy transport planes, state media reported early on Wednesday, amid multiple other reports of explosions in regions south of Moscow. Videos posted online showed major fires and explosions.
Ukrainian drones also attacked the Tula and Belgorod regions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday, without indicating if there had been damage or casualties.
A “farewell ceremony” for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, took place behind closed doors, his spokespeople said on Tuesday in a statement on social media. Russian mercenaries also gathered for the funeral of Valery Chekalov, one of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s deputies who was killed with his boss in a plane crash last week, as the Kremlin said Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend Prigozhin’s funeral.
Russia’s military said early on Wednesday that one of its aircraft had destroyed four Ukrainian rapid vessels carrying up to 50 paratroops in an operation on the Black Sea.
A Moscow court on Tuesday extended for three months the detention of a former US consular employee accused of gathering information for Washington on the war in Ukraine and other issues, Tass news agency reported. Tass quoted the press service of the Lefortovo court as saying that a three-month extension requested by investigators until 23 November had been granted for the detention of Robert Shonov, a Russian national.
Russian shelling killed a 45-year-old civilian man in the Ukrainian town of Kupiansk, according to local officials, as Moscow’s forces try to advance in north-eastern Ukraine.
An FSB security services helicopter crashed on Tuesday in central Russia, leaving three people dead, regional officials said.
More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, Unicef has said.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, a day after claiming control over the village on the southern front.
Vladimir Putin will skip the G20 summit in India next month and will send his foreign minister instead, said the office of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.
