(NEW YORK) — A United Nations committee strengthened a treaty on Monday on children’s rights in their fight against climate change, according to new guidance from the organization.
Countries should work to safeguard a clean, healthy and sustainable environment for children around the world as climate change becomes a growing issue, the U.N. said.
Children around the world are facing a systemic threat by a triple planetary crisis, consisting of the climate emergency, collapse of biodiversity and widespread pollution, the Committee on the Rights of the Child said in a report.
“The unsustainable extraction and use of natural resources, combined with widespread contamination through pollution and waste, have had a profound impact on the natural environment, fueling climate change, intensifying the toxic pollution of water, air and soil, causing ocean acidification and devastating biodiversity and the very ecosystems that sustain all life,” the committee said in its report.
Countries should also work to protect children’s rights from sudden harm and from future abuses of their rights stemming from not only their current actions but inaction, according to the committee.
“With its General Comment No. 26, the Committee on the Rights of the Child not only echoes and amplifies children’s voices, but also clearly defines the rights of children in relation to the environment that States Parties should respect, protect and fulfill collectively and urgently,” committee member Philip Jaffé said in the report.
Children from around the world have been leading the fight against the effects of climate change and have asked governments and businesses to ensure they have a safe future, according to Jaffé.
The committee said that children advocating for human rights and ecological protections, as well as their demands for a healthy environment, should be acknowledged.
The committee said the motivation behind the recent decision was in part due to a meeting in 2016 where 16,000 children from 121 countries took part in discussions on their rights and the environmental crisis.
The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said that the climate crisis is “a form of structural violence against children” that can lead to societal collapse within communities.
Some actions that countries should immediately take, according to the U.N. committee, include improving air quality by reducing both outdoor and household air pollution; guaranteeing access to safe water practices to prevent the spread of waterborne illnesses in children; and to phase out the use of coal and natural gases.
Earlier this month in the U.S., a group of young people from Montana won a major climate case after arguing the state failed to protect their right to a clean environment by continuing to use fossil fuels.
The ruling determined that a provision in Montana’s Environmental Policy Act violated the right to a clean environment, which is guaranteed under Montana’s state constitution, by promoting the continued use of fossil fuels.
“The climate crisis is a child rights crisis,” UNICEF Special Adviser on Advocacy for Child Rights and Climate Action Paloma Escudero said, according to the U.N.
“Every government has an obligation to protect the rights of every child in every corner of the planet, especially those boys and girls living in countries that have contributed least to this problem but are enduring the most dangerous floods, droughts, storms and heat,” Escudero said.
(DARWIN, Australia) — The Marine Corps on Monday identified the three Marines killed on Sunday when their Osprey aircraft crashed during a training exercise off the northern coast of Australia.
The MV-22B Osprey was carrying 23 service members when it went down at about 9:30 a.m. near the Tiwi Islands, in the Northern Territory of Australia, Marine officials said.
The three Marines killed were identified as:
Cpl. Spencer Collart, 21, of Arlington, Virginia
Capt. Eleanor LeBeau, 29, of Belleville, Illinois
Maj. Tobin Lewis, 37, of Jefferson, Colorado
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of three respected and beloved members of the MRF-D family. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and with all involved,” said Col Brendan Sullivan, commanding officer of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin.
Three others Marines remain hospitalized, one in critical condition, according to a Marine press release.
The Osprey had been transporting troops as part of a “routine training exercise” in support of Exercise Predators Run, a joint military exercise, officials said.
Recovery and investigation efforts are ongoing, officials said. The cause of the crash has not yet been determined.
Two days earlier, the Marine pilot of an F-18 Hornet died during a training flight near San Diego.
In June 2022, an Osprey crash killed five Marines in Glamis, California. A military investigation concluded an “unpreventable” mechanical failure caused the disaster.
Osprey aircraft are capable of tilting their rotors, allowing them to take off vertically, and go between flying like a helicopter to flying like a plane.
U.S. Army officials in April had ordered a 24-hour stand-down of all aviation units following two deadly mid-air helicopter collisions within 30 days.
ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Victoria Arancio and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(LONDON and AMSTERDAM) — Remains found after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private plane crashed last week were confirmed by genetic testing to be those of the Wagner Group leader, Russian investigators said on Sunday.
Ten people died when the jet fell from the sky near the town of Kuzhenkino, north of Moscow, on August 23.
DNA tests showed that the remains recovered from the site matched all 10 people on the passenger list, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Sunday. The remains “conform to the manifest,” committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.
“Molecular and genetic tests have been completed as part of the investigation of the plane crash in the Tver region. According to their finding, all ten victims have been identified. They fully match the list on the flight manifest,” the committee said in a statement to Interfax, the Russian newswire.
The crash may have been caused by an explosion on board the plane, perhaps by a well-placed bomb, U.S. officials told ABC News last week, describing their findings from an initial investigation.
The death of Prigozhin, a businessman who rose to become a powerful international paramilitary leader after entering Putin’s good graces, came exactly two months after he led a daylong mutiny against Moscow.
Wagner Group forces, which been fighting in Ukraine, turned from their headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a key Russian city near the southern border, and marched toward the capital in the evening on June 23. Within a day, they had turned back.
What followed were weeks of speculation about Prigozhin’s whereabouts.
He was first said to be taking refuge in neighboring Belarus under an agreement with Putin that had been brokered by that country’s leader, Alexander Lukashenko. He was then said to have had a meeting with Putin at the Kremlin. A video posted before his death appeared to show him in Africa.
“I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said in a televised address on Thursday. “He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months.”
ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva contributed to this report.
(DARWIN, Australia) — At least three U.S. military personnel were killed on Sunday when a Marine helicopter crashed during a training exercise off the northern coast of Australia, U.S. officials said.
The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey was carrying 23 service members when it went down at about 9:30 a.m. near the Tiwi Islands, in the Northern Territory of Australia, officials with the Marine Rotational Force-Darwin said in a statement.
Five other service members were taken to the Royal Darwin Hospital in serious condition, the statement said.
The Osprey had been transporting troops as part of a “routine training exercise” in support of Exercise Predators Run, a joint military exercise, officials said.
Recovery efforts were ongoing, officials said. The cause of the crash had not yet been determined.
U.S. Army officials in April had ordered a 24-hour stand-down of all aviation units following two deadly mid-air helicopter collisions within 30 days.
“The safety of our aviators is our top priority, and this stand-down is an important step to make certain we are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect our personnel,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in a statement announcing the stand-down.
ABC News’ Edward Szekeres, Victoria Arancio and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Latest headlines:
-Biden, Zelenskyy discuss weapons assistance, nuclear plant during phone call
-All reactors at power plant shut down for 1st time in history
-Zaporizhzhia ‘1 step away’ from emergency radiation: Ukraine nuclear agency head
-IAEA hopes to go to Zaporizhzhia plant ‘hopefully in the next few days’
-Russian missiles hit close to nuclear reactors: IAEA director
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Aug 28, 12:32 PM EDT
Russian missiles hit close to nuclear reactors: IAEA director
The shelling by Russia in recent days around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine landed close to two of the facility’s nuclear reactor buildings, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, said Sunday that Russian rockets hit two “special buildings” about 100 meters, or less than 330 feet, from the nuclear reactor buildings.
Citing a report from Ukrainian officials, Grossi said the buildings hit in the attack house the facility’s water treatment plants, equipment repair shops or waste management facilities.
Grossi said there was damage to some water pipelines at the site but they have since been repaired. He said measurements of radioactivity were within normal range and there was no indication of any hydrogen leakage.
He said the nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, continues to access electricity from an off-site source after the plant temporarily lost connection to its last remaining operational 750 kilovolt external power line on Thursday.
Two reactor units that were disconnected from the electricity grid when power was cut to the plant on Thursday have been re-connected, Grossi said. The other four reactor units that were disconnected before Thursday remained shut down on Sunday.
He said the latest shelling once again underlines the risk of a potential nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is under the control of Russian forces but being operated by Ukrainian staff.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Aug 26, 3:28 PM EDT
IAEA hopes to go to Zaporizhzhia plant ‘hopefully in the next few days’
International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said he’s engaged in active consultations with all parties to lead and organize an IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “hopefully in the next few days.” Grossi said in a statement that Thursday’s sudden loss of external power showed that IAEA’s presence is urgently needed.
ABC News’ Alex Faul
Aug 26, 10:00 AM EDT
Zaporizhzhia ‘1 step away’ from emergency radiation: Ukraine nuclear agency head
The head of Ukraine’s nuclear agency, Petro Kotin, called Thursday’s disconnection of power lines at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, a “very serious deterioration… due to Russian shelling on the side of Nikopol on the side of the Dnipro river.”
The diesel generator operators were able to kick in during the disconnection, Kotin told ABC News on Friday.
Asked what’s the likelihood this would happen again, Kotin said, “This is one step from the emergency radiation, actually. Diesel is just the last defense, if you actually lose the diesel stuff, you already have radiation, and it’s out of the territory of the plant.”
He said there’d be 10 days of idle time before a meltdown if the diesel generators are working. If all diesel generators are down, it could be 1.5 hours.
Inspectors could gain access to the site in as soon as five days, he said.
For Russia, the Zaporizhzhia plant is a strategic stronghold as it seeks to control the ground pathway from occupied Donetsk to Crimea and onto Odesa.
Zaporizhzhia supplies Ukraine with around 20% of its energy.
Kotin reiterated that Russia intends to switch power to Russian-controlled areas.
ABC News’ Britt Clennett, Dada Jovanovic and Yuri Zalizniak
Aug 25, 4:27 PM EDT
All reactors at power plant shut down for 1st time in history
All of the reactors at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where shelling has been ongoing, have been shut down for the first time in the plant’s history, Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator Energoatom reported.
Zaporizhzhia — the largest nuclear power plant in Europe — has six reactors, two of which are active, according to Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator, Energoatom. At 12:12 p.m. local time, the last operating line providing power to the plant was disconnected due to hostilities in the area, and as a result all six reactors were disconnected from the grid for 17 minutes, Energoatom said.
At 12:29 p.m. local time the overhead line was restored and reactors Nos. 5 and 6 start operating again.
At 2:14 p.m. local time, the overhead line was disconnected again, shutting down reactor No. 6 and leaving only reactor No. 5 operating. Work is underway to reconnect No. 6 to the grid.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the temporary shut down further shows “the urgent need for an IAEA expert mission to travel to the facility.”
If external power is lost there’s not active circulation of the water that cools the reactor and that could lead to a reactor meltdown. However, the plant “remained connected to a 330 kV line from the nearby thermal power facility that can provide back-up electricity if needed,” the IAEA said in a statement. “As a result of the cuts in the 750 kV power line, the ZNPP’s two operating reactor units were disconnected from the electricity grid and their emergency protection systems were triggered, while all safety systems remained operational.”
“There was no information immediately available on the direct cause of the power cuts,” the IAEA said. “The six-reactor ZNPP normally has four external power lines, but three of them were lost earlier during the conflict. The IAEA remains in close contact with Ukraine and will provide updated information as soon as it becomes available.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Thursday, “The world must understand what a threat this is: If the diesel generators hadn’t turned on, if the automation and our staff of the plant had not reacted after the blackout, then we would already be forced to overcome the consequences of the radiation accident. Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster.”
He called on the IAEA and other international organizations to act faster, “because every minute the Russian troops stay at the nuclear power plant is a risk of a global radiation disaster.”
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou, Fidel Pavlenko and Natalia Shumskaia
(KUZHENKINO, Russia) — The explosion that downed a plane carrying Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others in Russia was likely caused by a bomb, two U.S. officials told ABC News on Friday.
A senior U.S. official said the preliminary belief is that the private jet was downed by an explosion on board, potentially caused by a well-placed bomb. Another U.S official said the United States believes that a bomb was very likely the cause of the explosion.
The Kremlin vehemently denied having any involvement in the mysterious plane crash on Wednesday that presumably killed Prigozhin as well as Wagner Group co-founder Dmitry Utkin.
”There has been a lot of speculation around this crash [and] the tragic deaths of the plane’s passengers, among them Yevgeny Prigozhin. Of course, the West presents all this speculation from a particular angle. All of that is sheer lies,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday. “One should rely on facts. For now, there are not many facts, they have yet to be established in the ongoing investigative procedures.”
There was no indication a surface-to-air missile was the cause of the crash, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
“We don’t have any information to indicate right now … there was some type of surface-to-air missile that took down the plane, that we assessed that information to be inaccurate,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Thursday. “But beyond that, I’m really just not going to have any further information. What was it, something that came internal from inside the plane? Again, I don’t have any additional insight to provide on that.”
Prigozhin, 62, was a former close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. His private paramilitary organization played a key role in Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine before briefly launching an insurrection against the Russian military in June. Forces loyal to Prigozhin marched toward Moscow before turning back after several days.
Putin offered his first comments on the plane crash on Thursday hours after ABC News learned that the bodies of the victims were moved to the Tver Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination.
“As for the aviation tragedy, first of all, I want to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all the victims,” the Russian president said in a televised address, noting that Wagner Group made a “significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.”
“I knew Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life,” he added. “He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months.”
Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a probe into the incident, which “will be carried out in full,” according to Putin.
“There is no doubt about that here,’ he said. “Let’s see what the investigators say in the near future. Tests — technical and genetic tests — are being carried out now. This takes some time.”
Earlier Thursday, Putin addressed the BRICS summit of leaders meeting in Johannesburg remotely but made no mention of the crash in his remarks.
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg — Prigozhin’s hometown — dozens of people have been arriving to light candles and drop flowers at a pop-up memorial.
The jet manufacturer that Prigozhin and Utkin were reportedly on has an impeccable record and Wednesday’s crash was the first recorded in the history of the Embraer Legacy 600.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made remarks commemorating marking Ukrainian Independence Day and handed out medals to Ukrainian solders.
Among the 10 people killed in Wednesday’s plane crash were three crew members and seven passengers, according to Russian officials. The seven passengers identified on a flight list were Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Dmitriy Utkin, Nikolay Matuseev and Yevgeny Prigozhin. The crew was identified as Cmdr. Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova.
Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said the plane was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg on Wednesday when it went down near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region, north of Moscow..
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement on Wednesday that White House officials were watching the reports of the crash.
“If confirmed, no one should be surprised,” Watson said. “The disastrous war in Ukraine led to a private army marching on Moscow, and now — it would seem — to this.”
ABC News’ Nadine El-Bawab, Will Gretsky, Mark Osborne, Ivan Pereira, Joe Simonetti and Tanya Stukalova contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As Russia continues its nearly 16-month-long invasion of neighboring Ukraine, political turmoil has erupted in Moscow while Kyiv tries to take back territory.
A feud between Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group, and Russia’s top military brass escalated as Prigozhin’s forces left the front line in Ukraine and marched across the border to seize a key Russian city. They then marched north toward Russia’s capital, seemingly unopposed, before turning around just hours later. The short-lived rebellion was described by international observers as the most significant challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority in his more than 20 years of rule.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops are in the early stages of a counteroffensive to reclaim the almost one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory that is under Russian control.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Aug 25, 8:17 AM EDT
Kremlin denies role in plane crash believed to have killed Prigozhin
Russia on Friday vehemently denied having any involvement in the mysterious plane crash that is believed to have killed Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“There has been a lot of speculation around this crash [and] the tragic deaths of the plane’s passengers, among them Yevgeny Prigozhin. Of course, the West presents all this speculation from a particular angle. All of that is sheer lies,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters while answering questions during a press briefing. “One should rely on facts. For now, there are not many facts, they have yet to be established in the ongoing investigative procedures.”
Prigozhin, 62, was a former close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. His private paramilitary organization played a key role in Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine before briefly launching an insurrection against the Russian military in June. Forces loyal to Prigozhin marched toward Moscow before turning back after several days.
A private jet was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg on Wednesday when it went down near the village of Kuzhenkino in Russia’s Tver region, north of Moscow. All 10 people on board were killed. Prigozhin and Wagner Group co-founder Dmitry Utkin were among the passengers identified on a flight list, according to Russian officials.
The U.S. Department of Defense said Thursday that Prigozhin was “likely” killed in the plane crash.
Aug 24, 6:41 PM EDT
Biden calls Zelenskyy to wish Independence Day greetings
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that he spoke with President Joe Biden who offered greetings on the Independence Day of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy in return thanked Biden for America’s support during the war.
“The U.S. took the lead in rallying global support for Ukraine. This crucial leadership enabled our struggle and bent the arc of history toward good,” he said.
-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman
Aug 24, 5:11 PM EDT
Ukraine appeals to Wagner troops
In light of the presumed death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry put out a statement appealing to the PMC’s members.
The statement offered them “a difficult but rather logical choice: either become a stall of the [Russian] Ministry of Defense in the service of your killers commanders, or save their honor and take revenge on their executioners, going over to the side of Ukraine.”
“If you have not committed war crimes on the territory of Ukraine, then we invite you to join our ranks,” the statement said.
The defense ministry said it would guarantee any defectors “security and decent conditions.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Aug 24, 4:21 PM EDT
Several Ukrainian pilots to receive F-16 training in US
Beginning in October, the U.S. will provide F-16 training to a small number of Ukrainian pilots and maintenance teams, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday.
Ryder said “several” pilots and “dozens” of aircraft maintenance personnel will begin training at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, after they receive English training in September at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. The number of pilots and personnel will be determined by Ukraine.
“Although some Ukrainian pilots have English language skills we are anticipating that all the pilots coming to the United States will require some level of additional English language instruction, given the complexities and the specialized English that’s required to fly these aircraft,” said Ryder.
Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, told reporters earlier this week that the U.S. was open to the idea of training on F-16’s if European countries reached capacity though she couldn’t define what numbers would constitute capacity. Ryder on Thursday also wouldn’t provide a number and said the U.S. wasn’t going to wait for the Netherlands and Denmark to reach capacity.
“We know that as the Danes and the Dutch prepare to train those pilots that at a certain point in time in the future, capacity will be reached. So preemptively acknowledging that and leaning forward in order to to assist with this effort is the impetus for why we’re doing this now,” said Ryder.
Ryder wouldn’t get into when F-16 deliveries to Ukraine might begin. Denmark’s Prime Minister said over the weekend that the first Danish F-16’s could arrive by New Year’s.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Aug 24, 4:52 PM EDT
Prigozhin ‘likely’ killed in Russian plane crash, US says
Wagner Group leader Yevgency Prigozhin was “likely” killed in a plane crash near Kuzhenkino, Russia, on Wednesday, the Pentagon said.
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said there is no information to suggest a surface-to-air missile brought down the plane. Nine others, including Wagner’s co-founder, Dmitry Utkin, are also presumed dead.
“We don’t have any information to indicate right now … there was some type of surface to air missile that took down the plane … we assessed that information to be inaccurate,” Ryder said.
He added, “But beyond that, I’m really just not going to have any further information. What was it, something that came … from inside the plane? Again, I don’t have any additional insight to provide on that.”
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Aug 24, 2:27 PM EDT
Putin addresses Yevgeny Prigozhin’s presumed death in plane crash
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his first comments Thursday on the plane crash that presumably killed Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin and the private military company’s co-founder Dmitry Utkin along with eight others near Kuzhenkino, Russia, on Wednesday.
“As for the aviation tragedy, first of all, I want to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all the victims,” Putin said in an on-camera address, adding that Wagner Group made a “significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.”
“I knew (Yevgeny) Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said. “He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months.”
Putin said of the investigation, “But what is absolutely clear — the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me this morning, they have already launched a preliminary investigation into this incident. And it will be carried out in full and to the end. There is no doubt about that here. Let’s see what the investigators say in the near future. Tests — technical and genetic tests — are being carried out now. This takes some time.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Aug 24, 1:10 PM EDT
Putin addresses Yevgeny Prigozhin’s presumed death in plane crash
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his first comments Thursday on the plane crash that presumably killed Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin and the private military company’s co-founder Dmitry Utkin along with eight others near Kuzhenkino, Russia, on Wednesday.
“As for the aviation tragedy, first of all, I want to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all the victims,” Putin said in an on-camera address, adding that Wagner Group made a “significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.”
“I knew (Yevgeny) Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said. “He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months.”
Putin said of the investigation, “But what is absolutely clear — the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me this morning, they have already launched a preliminary investigation into this incident. And it will be carried out in full and to the end. There is no doubt about that here. Let’s see what the investigators say in the near future. Tests — technical and genetic tests — are being carried out now. This takes some time.”
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Aug 24, 11:44 AM EDT
Wagner mercenaries observed exiting Belarus
Mercenaries with the Russian private military company Wagner Group were observed leaving Belarus where the group’s forces had set up camp since a failed rebellion against Russian military leaders in June, according to Andrii Demchenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service.
The group’s movements were observed by Ukrainian border guards and intelligence officials, Demchenko said Thursday.
The reported exit comes a day after Wagner leader Yvegeny Prigozhin and the group’s co-founder and operations manager Dmitry Utkin were presumed to have died in a plane crash near Moscow.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Aug 24, 11:44 AM EDT
Wagner mercenaries observed exiting Belarus
Mercenaries with the Russian private military company Wagner Group were observed leaving Belarus where the group’s forces had set up camp since a failed rebellion against Russian military leaders in June, according to Andrii Demchenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service.
The group’s movements were observed by Ukrainian border guards and intelligence officials, Demchenko said Thursday.
The reported exit comes a day after Wagner leader Yvegeny Prigozhin and the group’s co-founder and operations manager Dmitry Utkin were presumed to have died in a plane crash near Moscow.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Aug 24, 10:04 AM EDT
Ukrainian forces move into occupied Crimea, official says
Ukrainian troops have landed in occupied Crimea, a state defense official said on Thursday.
The landing in territory long held by Russian forces was accomplished without Ukrainian casualties, Andriy Yusov, spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, said on Telegram. Russian forces suffered personnel losses, he said.
Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti
Aug 23, 1:16 PM EDT
Zelenskyy warns of ‘dangerous voices’ in Congress, impact of US election year
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke out against American critics who are pushing for cuts to military support to his country stating there are “dangerous voices” in Congress and in the U.S.
Zelenskyy told reporters Wednesday that his team was in constant contact with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and other U.S. national security officials, stating he was “glad” Ukraine had the backing of the White House, enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress and received “a lot” of support from the American public.
However, Zelenskyy said the coming year will be “very difficult,” referring to the U.S. presidential election, which “will definitely have an impact on support for Ukraine.”
“I think we’re going to have a hard time,” Zelenskyy said.
He said the election results could be positive or negative for Ukraine.
“For our part, we will do everything to ensure that the support of the United States does not decrease…we will give all our time, our energy to constantly work with the USA,” Zelenskyy said. “I expect that our partners in the United States will continue to be our partners and friends.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine was working on lobbying Biden for longer range missiles.
(ATHENS, Greece) — As firefighters battle wildfires raging across swathes of Greece that have killed at least 20 people, authorities warned that “arsonist scum” are trying to ignite new blazes.
There were nine arson attempts within a period of four hours on Thursday morning in the Avlona area in the northern foothills of Mount Parnitha, some 30 miles north of Athens, according to Greek Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Vassilis Kikilias.
“Arsonist scum are setting fires that threaten forests, property and, most of all, human lives,” Kikilias said in a televised statement on Thursday. “You are committing a crime against the country. You will not get away with it. We will find you and you will be held accountable.”
Authorities have made 140 wildfire-related arrests so far, including 117 for negligence and 23 for deliberate arson. Almost all were for heat-inducing or agricultural outdoor work, according to the Hellenic Fire Service, the national agency for fire and rescue service.
On Tuesday, firefighters discovered the bodies of 18 people believed to be migrants in a recently burned area of a forest near the northeastern port city of Alexandroupolis, which is close to Greece’s border with Turkey, according to the Hellenic Fire Service.
While working to contain hundreds of wildfires nationwide over the past week, at least 60 firefighters have been injured or have developed serious breathing problems, according to the Hellenic Fire Service.
The blaze in the Alexandroupolis region has burned more than 730 square kilometers (282 square miles) in six days, making it the largest on record in the European Union, according to European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic. Eight countries within the European Union have deployed a total of 246 firefighters, 40 vehicles and eight aircraft to assist Greece, according to the European Commission. The Hellenic Fire Service said Bulgarian, Albanian, Romanian and Czech firefighters with vehicles were helping in the Alexandroupolis fire.
Greece suffers destructive wildfires every summer. The deadliest killed 104 people in 2018 in a seaside resort near Athens that residents had not been warned to evacuate. Authorities have since erred on the side of caution, ordering evacuations whenever inhabited areas are under threat.
Greece’s climate crisis and civil protection minister described the situation as unprecedented. Many areas of Greece have been placed at Level 5, the highest for fire risk, seven times so far this year, which Kikilias said was twice as many in 2021, four times more than in 2019 and seven times that of 2012.
“This summer is the worst since meteorological data began to be collected and and the fire risk map was first issued in the country,” he told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday.
(KUZHENKINO, Russia) — Wagner Group leader Yevgency Prigozhin was “likely” killed in a plane crash along with 9 others near Kuzhenkino, Russia, on Wednesday, the Pentagon said, but there is no indication a surface-to-air missile was the cause of the crash.
“We don’t have any information to indicate right now … there was some type of surface to air missile that took down the plane, that we assessed that information to be inaccurate,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said.
He added, “But beyond that, I’m really just not going to have any further information. What was it, something that came internal from inside the plane? Again, I don’t have any additional insight to provide on that.”
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his first comments on the mysterious plane crash that presumably killed Prigozhin and the private military company’s co-founder Dmitry Utkin.
His comments were made hours after the bodies of the crash victims were moved to the Tver Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination, ABC News learned.
“As for the aviation tragedy, first of all, I want to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all the victims,” Putin said in an on-camera address, adding that Wagner Group made a “significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.”
“I knew (Yevgeny) Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said. “He achieved the results he needed both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause, as in these last months.”
He added on the investigation, “But what is absolutely clear – the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me this morning, they have already launched a preliminary investigation into this incident. And it will be carried out in full and to the end. There is no doubt about that here. Let’s see what the investigators say in the near future. Tests — technical and genetic tests — are being carried out now. This takes some time.”
Earlier Thursday, Putin addressed the BRICS summit of leaders meeting in Johannesburg remotely, but made no mention of the crash in his remarks.
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg — Prigozhin’s home town — dozens of people have been arriving to light candles and drop flowers at a pop-up memorial.
The jet manufacturer that Prigozhin and Utkin were reportedly on has an impeccable record and it was the first recorded crash in the history of the Embraer Legacy 600.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made remarks commemorating marking Ukrainian Independence Day and handed out medals to Ukrainian solders.
Among the 10 dead were three crew members and seven passengers, Russian officials said. The seven passengers identified on a flight list were Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Aleksandr Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov, Dmitriy Utkin, Nikolay Matuseev and Prigozhin. The crew was identified as Cmdr. Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova.
The Federal Air Transport Agency said the plane was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg when it went down near Kuzhenkino.
White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement on Wednesday that officials were watching the reports of the plane crash.
“If confirmed, no one should be surprised. The disastrous war in Ukraine led to a private army marching on Moscow, and now — it would seem — to this,” she said.
Prigozhin was the head of the private paramilitary organization Wagner Group, which played a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before briefly launching an insurrection against the Russian military in June. Forces loyal to Prigozhin marched toward Moscow, before turning back after several days.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti, Will Gretsky, Mark Osborne, Ivan Pereira and Tanya Stukalova contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The five-nation BRICS group announced expansion of members on Thursday, having invited six countries to join the bloc.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is hosting the group’s summit in Johannesburg, said that Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would begin their membership in January.
“This membership expansion is historic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping said. “It shows the determination of BRICS countries for unity and development.”
This expansion was a central topic of discussion during the three-day summit, although Ramaphosa said the idea had been worked on for over a year.
Mohammad Jamshidi, Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs to Iran, commented on social media. “In a historic move, Islamic Republic of Iran becomes a permanent member of BRICS, a strategic victory for Iran’s foreign policy.”
United Arab Emirates leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan welcomed the announcement to include his nation in “this important group.”
“We look forward to a continued commitment of cooperation for the prosperity, dignity and benefit of all nations and people around the world,” Mohammed said in a post.
“We look forward to cooperating and coordinating with the member states and with other countries invited to join the bloc, to achieve its goals of strengthening economic cooperation among us, and raise the voice of the Global South regarding the issues and development challenges we encounter,” Egyptian President El-Sisi said, according to Egypt Today.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hailed what he called “a great moment” for his country.
Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina, called this “a new step in the consolidation of brotherhood and openness to the world that we always dreamed of.”
While Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa all publicly expressed support for expansion, there was division among the leaders over how many countries could join and how quickly it would happen.
The last time the BRICS expanded was in 2010, when South Africa joined, adding an “S” to the acronym, one year after the creation of the block. Currently, it represents around 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of global GDP.
The expansion signifies an important move in the attempt to reshape the global order into a multipolar world, with voices from the Global South at the center of the international agenda.
