WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Pro-Kyiv Russians urge Wagner Group to revenge Prigozhin's death

A group of Russian militants who fight on the Ukrainian side called on the Wagner Group of mercenaries to switch sides and join their ranks to revenge the deaths of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and their commander Dmitry Utkin.

Russian air authorities have said Prigozhin, Utkin and eight other people were on a private plane that crashed with no survivors north of Moscow on Wednesday.

"You are facing a serious choice now - you can stand in a stall of Russia's defence ministry and serve as watchdogs for executors of your commanders or take revenge," commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) Denis Kapustin said in a video address published late on Thursday.

"To take revenge you need to switch to Ukraine's side," the commander said.

The crash came two months to the day after Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries staged a mutiny against Russian military commanders in which they took control of a southern city, Rostov, and advanced towards Moscow before turning around 200 kilometers far from the capital.

Russia has opened an investigation into the crash, but its outcome is unlikely to shake a widespread belief that Prigozhin was killed as an act of vengeance for staging the mutiny.

Reuters had cited two U.S. officials earlier on Thursday saying a surface-to-air missile likely hit the plane. Pentagon later said it had no evidence to support that.

After 24 hours of silence, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid "sincere condolences" to the families of all 10 people on the plane, and praised Prigozhin as a "talented businessman".

RVC commander Kapustin, a far-right Russian national, founded the armed group a year ago. RVC fights on the Ukrainian side and has said it was behind several military attacks on Russian border regions.

"Let's end the bloody meat grinder of the special military operation," Kapustin said in his address to Wagner fighters using the Russian official name for the invasion of Ukraine.

"After that, we will march to Moscow and this time we will not stop 200 kilometers before the Moscow ring road but go to the end," he said.

** Top US general says Ukraine to get F16 jets soon

The United States' top general said on Thursday that Ukraine was likely to get F-16 fighter jets soon, and said its counter-offensive against the Russian invasion has been going slowly and had partial success.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said it was too early to say whether the counter-offensive had failed.

"F-16s. That is moving forward, actually. So there's a training program in place and they'll likely receive F-16s ... in the not-too-distant future," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said in an exclusive interview with Jordan's Al-Mamlaka public service TV news channel.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy recently said he had received pledges from Denmark and the Netherlands to deliver F-16s, saying they would strengthen Ukraine's air defences and help its counter-offensive against Russian forces.

Milley said the counter-offensive faced heavy Russian reinforcements with many months to prepare minefields, tank ditches and dragon's teeth tank obstacles "in a very complex set of defensive preparations that the Ukrainians are fighting through ...

"The Ukrainians have a significant amount of combat power remaining; this is not over yet," he said. "So I think it’s frankly too early to say whether it (has) succeeded or failed."

"Clearly it’s had partial success to date. Now the speed at which the offensive has been undertaking is slower than the planners had thought," Milley added in the interview in Amman.

Ukrainian forces were being trained intensively in various parts of Europe on "command and control of offensive formations and combined arms maneuver and to break complex obstacles that will bolster its capabilities," the four-star U.S. Army general said.

"Again, it's bloody, it's long and it's slow. And we had predicted that several months ago," he said.

Washington was still deliberating providing long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems known as ATACMS that Ukraine wants and which reach behind enemy lines, including Russia, Milley told Al-Mamlaka.

"They've gotten long-range artillery with the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) and the Brits have provided other types of capabilities that other countries have as well. So they've gotten a lot of artillery," he said. "But the ATACMS is a controversial topic.

"And for a lot of reasons, they haven't received those yet. They're still on the table. President Biden has not said no or yes at this time," Milley said.

Milley, who is slated to retire later this year, again cautioned against the likelihood of an outright Ukrainian military victory in the near term while highlighting the possibility of a political solution to end the fighting.

"It’s an offensive that is been going on for about, I guess, eight weeks or so. It’s very bloody, slow, high casualty- producing and its very difficult. So the idea of militarily kicking out two or three hundred thousand Russian troops is going to be very difficult and challenging.

"A different way of getting out of this is through negotiations and may be that will happen too."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian missile intercepted in western Russia – MOD

A Ukrainian S-200 missile has been intercepted and destroyed mid-air in Kaluga Region, southwest of Moscow, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Friday.

According to the MOD, the air defenses have “thwarted an attempt by the Kiev authorities to conduct terrorist attacks on civilian sites on the territory of the Russian Federation.”

The Soviet-era S-200 missiles were originally designed to strike airborne targets. However, Russian officials have warned that Ukraine has repurposed some of them for use against targets on the ground. 

According to reports on Telegram, loud explosions were heard in Obninsk, a city roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) of Moscow.

Two of Moscow’s three main airports – Domodedovo and Vnukovo – have been briefly shut down, news agency TASS reported, citing aviation services.

Hours later, the Defense Ministry said that 42 drones attacked Crimea overnight, nine of which were destroyed in the air, while the rest veered off course due to signal-jamming and crashed.

Ukraine has stepped up drone and missile attacks deep inside Russian territory in recent months, as its much-anticipated ground offensive has failed to yield significant results.

According to the Russian military, earlier this month Kiev’s forces fired an S-200 missile into the long bridge that connects Crimea with mainland Russia, but the projectile was shot down before reaching its target. The MOD said that a missile of this type was also used in the July 28 strike on the Russian southern city of Taganrog. More than 20 people were injured in that attack.

** Russian Armed Forces destroy Ukrainian ammunition depot — Defense Ministry

Battlegroup East units supported by aviation and artillery destroyed an ammunition depot, a stronghold and a vehicle with Ukrainian army fighters near Urozhainoe settlements in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Battlegroup spokesman Oleg Chekhov told TASS.

"Leading units of the Battlegroup East with the support of artillery and aviation delivered a fire strike against the enemy in the vicinity of Urozhainoe. Two temporary stationing points of the Ukrainian army were hit; an ammunition depot, a stronghold, and a vehicle with fighters were destroyed. Concentrated manpower was hit. A strike UAV destroyed an armored personnel carrier with Ukrainian army infantry," Chekhov said.

Servicemen of the Battlegroup are demonstrating courage and dedication when accomplishing combat missions, the spokesman added.

Reuters/RT/Tass