Putin orders Wagner fighters to sign oath of allegiance after Prigozhin death – live

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appealed a Moscow court’s decision to extend his pretrial detention in Russia until the end of November, documents on the court’s website show.

Mr Gershkovich is the first US journalist held on espionage charges in Russia since the Soviet era, after he was arrested in March during a work trip to the city of Yekaterinburg, nearly 1,200 miles east of Moscow. Washington has declared him to be wrongfully detained.

An order that authorised keeping Mr Gershkovich in jail before his trial was set to expire on 30 August. The Moscow City Court extended the custody order on Thursday by three months, drawing objections from US government officials and the Wall Street Journal.

The court’s website showed on Saturday that Gershkovich’s defence team had filed an appeal. The court in June rejected his appeal of the earlier ruling to keep him behind bars until the end of August.

Boris Johnson has stated that Vladimir Putin’s “mask is now fully off”, as world leaders and commentators continue to question his role in the death of Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The former prime minister has described the downing of the Wagner chief’s plane as “violent liquidation” and claimed that Putin was “being transformed before our eyes into an Asiatic despot”.

“I cannot think of another example of such ostentatious and uninhibited savagery by a world leader – not in our lifetimes,” he said.

Exiled Russian journalist Elena Kostyuchenko has said she believed she would be safe in Europe – as Berlin prosecutors investigate whether she was poisoned last October.

“When you work as an investigative reporter in Russia you are always careful,” she told Reuters. “You have lots of protocols you’re following all the time. But when I found myself in Europe I totally forgot all these security measures … Somehow I was thinking that in Europe, I’m safe.”

Having worked as a foreign correspondent who exposed alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper before it was forced to close under threat from Moscow, Ms Kostyuchenko’s symptoms started with disorientation and stomach ache on a train journey from Munich to Berlin.

“I had to take off my rings because my fingers looked like sausages,” she said, describing the swelling that was among her symptoms. Months later, she is still exhausted and only able to work three hours a day.

When doctors told her she had likely been poisoned her initial reaction was to laugh.

She was one of three Russian independent woman journalists who were apparently poisoned while abroad in a similar period. All three suffered similar symptoms.

The second ship to leave Odesa since Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal has set sail for Bulgaria, according to Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, who posted a photograph of what he said was the ship leaving the port.

The Liberia-flagged bulk carrier Primus is moving from Odesa to the port of Varna in Bulgaria, news agency Interfax Ukraine reported citing the MarineTraffic database.

Odesa’s three seaports shipped tens of millions of tons of grain during Russia’s invasion under a UN-brokered deal which collapsed in July after Moscow withdrew.

Russian forces have since targeted Ukrainian ports with volleys of missiles and kamikaze drones.

This is the bizarre moment Vladimir Putin’s voice appeared to be ‘altered’ as he addressed a summit this week.

The pre-recorded video of his opening speech raised eyebrows when it was shown to delegates at the BRICS Business Forum in South Africa.

Russian journalists posted a 30-second clip of the video on Telegram, with the caption: “Putin addressed the BRICS Business Council via video link, but not with his own voice.”

The original clip, which features his regular speaking voice, was posted on the Russian government’s website. It is unclear whether the altered video was a technical fault or had been changed on purpose.

Germany has launched an investigation into the suspected attempted murder of a Berlin-based Russian journalist after she suffered symptoms consistent with poisoning.

Elena Kostyuchenko exposed allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine while working for the Nobel Prize-winning Novaya Gazeta newspaper, until it was forced to close as part of Moscow’s harsh information crackdown.

The 35-year-old – who left Ukraine last March after being told Chechen units at Russian checkpoints had been ordered to kill her – recently revealed that she had experienced extreme disorientation, abdominal pain and swollen extremities while on a train journey from Munich to Berlin last October.

Riga-based investigative website The Insider, which helped link the alleged Salisbury Novichok attackers with Russia’s FSB security service, reported that Ms Kostyuchenko was one of three exiled Russian journalists to have fallen ill with poisoning symptoms in European capitals over the same period.

Ukrainian forces believe they have broken through the most difficult line of Russian defences in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and will now be able to advance more quickly, a commander told Reuters.

Well-prepared Russian defence lines reinforced by minefields have slowed Ukraine’s counteroffensive, including their southward advance towards the Sea of Azov aimed at breaking Russia’s land bridge with annexed Crimea.

A commander who led troops into Robotyne, whose callsign “Skala” is eponymous with the battalion he leads, said just two houses in the village remained under Russian control, adding: “We don’t stop here. Next we have Berdiansk, and then more. I made it clear to my fighters at once: our goal is not Robotyne, our goal is [the Sea of] Azov.”

Berdiansk is a port of the Sea of Azov, situated roughly 100km from Robotyne, and 85 km from the strategic city of Melitopol. Both are occupied by Russia.

“We have passed the main roads that were mined. We are coming to those lines where we can go [forward]. I’m sure we’ll go faster from here,” Skala said.

Skala said Ukrainian troops had now entered territories where there were only “Russian logistics” groups, and where he made clear he did not expect Russian defences to be as difficult to break through, adding: “We are moving on to liberate all our territories.”

Three Ukrainian pilots have died after two L-39 trainer aircraft collided in mid-air in central Ukraine, Kyiv’s air force has said.

The loss of three pilots will be a blow to Ukraine, which is about to undertake a huge effort to quickly train up its air crews on Western-donated F-16 fighter jets, up to 61 of which have been pledged to Kyiv.

The crash occurred on Friday over the Zhytomyr region, which lies west of Kyiv. The air force said one of the pilots killed, using the callsign “Juice”, had become well known after giving numerous interviews to international media.

“We express our condolences to the families of the victims. This is a painful and irreparable loss for all of us,” the air force wrote on Telegram, adding that an investigation into the circumstances of the crash was taking place.

Vladimir Putin has ordered Wagner mercenaries to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state after a plane believed to be carrying their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed near Moscow.

With immediate effect on Friday, Russia’s president signed the decree, published on the Kremlin website, which obliges anyone carrying out work on behalf of the military or Moscow’s war in Ukraine to swear a formal oath of allegiance to Russia.

Described in the decree as a step to forge the spiritual and moral foundations of the defence of Russia, the wording of the oath includes a line in which those who take it promise to strictly follow the orders of commanders and senior leaders.

Mr Putin’s introduction of a mandatory oath for employees of Wagner and other private military contractors appears to be clearly intended to bring such groups under tighter state control.

Shelling near the city of Kupiansk that left two dead this morning came as UK officials warned Russia may try to retake the area, captured by Kyiv last September after more than six months of Russian occupation.

Fierce fighting there earlier this month prompted mandatory evacuations and fears of a second Russian takeover.

Russian shells on Saturday morning struck the cafe in Podoly, an eastern suburb of Kupiansk, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a Telegram post. He added that rescue teams were working at the site.

UK military intelligence on Saturday assessed that Russia may “increase the intensity of its offensive efforts” around Kupiansk and nearby Lyman in an attempt to take pressure off its forces near Bakhmut and in the Zaporizhzhia region, where a Ukrainian counteroffensive has reportedly made gradual gains.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation of nearly 12,000 civilians from 37 towns and villages around Kupiansk, citing a concerted effort by Russian troops to punch through the front line.

After the Russian occupiers left Kupiansk last year, Ukrainian authorities said they found torture chambers and mass graves in the region.

Ukrainian officials have so far reported limited advances in Kyiv’s large-scale counteroffensive launched in early June, including in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and on the outskirts of Bakhmut, the eastern city that became the site of the war’s longest and bloodiest battle before falling to Moscow in May.