(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 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.
(NEW YORK) — Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company began releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday afternoon.
Executives of the company, known as TEPCO, told reporters they would immediately halt the release of the treated water into the Pacific if any issues were detected. The water began flowing at about 1 p.m. local time with an initial plan to release water “continuously” over a period of 17 days, according to the company.
The controversial decision, which had drawn protests in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere, prompted Chinese officials to issue a searing statement on Thursday, saying Beijing “opposes and strongly condemns it.” Japan’s actions were “selfish and irresponsible” as the ocean “belongs to all humanity,” China said.
“There could be a man-made secondary disaster to the local people and the whole world if Japan chooses to dump the water into the ocean just to serve Japan’s selfish interests,” Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said in the statement.
In the bustling business district of downtown Tokyo, activity swirled near TEPCO’s headquarters on Thursday. Although demonstrators weren’t permitted to approach the TEPCO building itself, hundreds assembled across the street, their determined presence contrasting sharply with the serenity of the nearby Imperial Palace, just a kilometer away.
Despite the blue skies, the mood was one of desperation. The crowd chanted various demands, among them a call to “protect our rights.”
The gathering was organized and peaceful. Demonstrators thoughtfully positioned themselves along the sidewalks, ensuring pedestrians could pass. Journalists, stationed at their designated spots, captured the event, while a sparse police force looked on.
Among the concerned faces, Terumi Kataoka stood out. A woman in her 60s from Fukushima, she held a blue banner decorated with fish, sending a clear message: “No Dumping Radioactive Water into The Ocean.”
She voiced her concern with conviction, saying, “Who says tritium is not so bad, government scientists? Can you believe that? Well, it is not safe at all. That is why we are protesting and trying to stop the dumping of radioactive water into the ocean.”
Beside her, Sachiko Ogawa’s impassioned voice rang out, amplified by a bullhorn, “The law says TEPCO must deal with the waste they create! They’re really messing up the sea. We can’t let this happen. We can’t let up!”
Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency were at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station as the water began flowing into the ocean, the agency said. Agency officials had signaled their approval for Japan’s plan.
“IAEA experts are there on the ground to serve as the eyes of the international community and ensure that the discharge is being carried out as planned consistent with IAEA safety standards,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Thursday.
Agency staffers had earlier in week taken samples from the first batch of water to be released. The agency’s “independent on-site analysis” of that water confirmed that levels of tritium in the water were “far below the operational limit.”
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and international experts have asserted the treated water meets safety standards.
TEPCO will “under the continued guidance of the Japanese Government, handle this matter with the firm awareness that we are responsible for ‘preventing reputational damage’ and ‘not betraying the trust of the people of Fukushima and the Japanese people’ throughout the course of the discharge period,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
A solitary man took a spot right in front of the TEPCO building across the street away from the demonstration o Thursday. For some reason, police didn’t remove him. He stood there silently throughout the hourlong protest.
Another protester in the crowd, a young Tokyoite named Taishi, held up a simple sign that read, “Stop It.”
He told ABC News in straightforward English, “They can stop this.”
The protest ended promptly and peacefully at about 11 a.m. The crowd went their different ways.
Shortly afterward and 250 kilometers away, TEPCO began releasing the treated water from the crippled nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, marking the start of a divisive process expected to go on for decades.
(LONDON) — North Korea said a second attempt to put a spy satellite into orbit failed early Thursday, but the reclusive country vowed to launch another in the coming months.
The Malligyeong-1 reconnaissance satellite was mounted on a new type of carrier rocket called the Chollima-1 and launched from a station in North Pyongan province in the early morning hours, according to the state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA). The first and second stages “all flew normally, but failed due to an error in the emergency explosion system during the flight of the third stage,” KCNA said in a statement.
North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration is investigating the cause of the accident and plans to attempt a third launch in October, according to KCNA.
North Korea attempted to launch its first spy satellite on May 31, but it crashed into the West Sea after an “abnormal starting” of the second-stage engine, KCNA said at the time.
In 2018, North Korea claimed to have put a satellite into space but international analysts later said that wasn’t true.
Thursday’s second attempt coincided with joint military drills between South Korea and the United States, which North Korea has long denounced.
The U.S., South Korea and Japan all issued statements “strongly” condemning North Korea’s use of ballistic missile technology for its launch, which despite its failure they said is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. The three allies also reaffirmed their commitment to work closely together to achieve “complete denuclearization” of North Korea in line with the U.N. Security Council resolutions.
“This space launch involved technologies that are directly related to the DPRK intercontinental ballistic missile program,” Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, said in a statement, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name. “The President’s national security team is assessing the situation in close coordination with our allies and partners.”
“The door has not closed on diplomacy but Pyongyang must immediately cease its provocative actions and instead choose engagement,” Watson added. “The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and the defense of our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies.”
The incident was assessed as not posting “an immediate threat to U.S. personnel, territory, or that of our allies,” according to a statement from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which noted that it would “continue to monitor the situation.”
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the military “was prepared in advance through identifying signs of an imminent launch.”
The office for Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi confirmed that he held a telephone call with his South Korean and U.S. counterparts on Thursday morning to discuss North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launch. The three officials agreed that the launches are happening “in an unprecedented frequency and in new manners” and that they “constitute a grave and imminent threat to the regional security and pose a clear and serious challenge to the international community,” according to a statement from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Group of Seven, an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S., also released a statement condemning “in the strongest terms” North Korea’s launch.
ABC News’ Joohee Cho, Ellie Kaufman, Hakyung Kate Lee, Matt Seyler and Anthony Trotter contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The bodies of those killed in the plane crash near Kuzhenkino, Russia, including Yevgeny Prigozhin and the commander of the Wagner PMC Dmitry Utkin, have been moved to the Tver Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination, ABC News has learned.
There has still been no comment from the Kremlin or the Russian Ministry of Defense on Wednesday’s crash.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, spoke on Thursday morning as he 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 Prigozhun 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 Ukrainian Independence Day and handed out medals to Ukrainian solders.
Among the 10 dead were three crew members and seven passengers. The seven passengers were identified as 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.
(NEW YORK) — Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company began releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday afternoon.
Executives of the company, known as TEPCO, told reporters they would immediately halt the release of the treated water into the Pacific if any issues were detected. The water began flowing at about 1 p.m. local time with an initial plan to release water “continuously” over a period of 17 days, according to the company.
The controversial decision, which had drawn protests in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere, prompted Chinese officials to issue a searing statement on Thursday, saying Beijing “opposes and strongly condemns it.” Japan’s actions were “selfish and irresponsible” as the ocean “belongs to all humanity,” China said.
“There could be a man-made secondary disaster to the local people and the whole world if Japan chooses to dump the water into the ocean just to serve Japan’s selfish interests,” Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said in the statement.
Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency were at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station as the water began flowing into the ocean, the agency said. Agency officials had signaled their approval for Japan’s plan.
“IAEA experts are there on the ground to serve as the eyes of the international community and ensure that the discharge is being carried out as planned consistent with IAEA safety standards,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Thursday.
Agency staffers had earlier in the week taken samples from the first batch of water to be released. The agency’s “independent on-site analysis” of that water confirmed that levels of tritium in the water were “far below the operational limit.”
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and international experts have asserted the treated water meets safety standards.
TEPCO will “under the continued guidance of the Japanese Government, handle this matter with the firm awareness that we are responsible for ‘preventing reputational damage’ and ‘not betraying the trust of the people of Fukushima and the Japanese people’ throughout the course of the discharge period,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
(LONDON) — The Wall Street Journal reporter being held in Russia had his pre-trial detention extended for three months during a hearing at a Moscow court on Thursday.
Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent with the paper’s Moscow bureau, was arrested in March and stands accused of “acting on the instructions of the American side” and collecting state secrets about the military.
“The court’s decision in respect of Gershkovich extended the period of detention for three months, and only up to eight months, that is, until November 30, 2023,” the press service of the court said on Thursday.
The FSB filed a request to extend the journalist’s detention for “an unspecified period of time” as he awaits trial, Emma Moody, the Journal’s editor for Standards and Ethics, said in an email to staff on Wednesday, citing Russian media reports.
“We are deeply disappointed he continues to be arbitrarily and wrongfully detained for doing his job as a journalist,” the Wall Street Journal said in an emailed statement following the hearing. “The baseless accusations against him are categorically false, and we continue to push for his immediate release. Journalism is not a crime.”
Gerskovich appeared in court in April and June for hearings to appeal his pre-trial detention, which had been approved through Aug. 30. Under Russian law, prosecutors are required to request his pre-trial detention be continued every few months.
The Biden administration and the Kremlin have both confirmed they are in discussions to find a possible deal to free Gerskovich, likely in a prisoner swap. But the U.S. has said so far there is little progress.
President Joe Biden, who spoke with Gershkovich’s family in April, has said the detention was “totally illegal.”
State department officials said the U.S. determined the journalist had been “wrongfully detained.” The House of Representatives in June unanimously passed a resolution calling for the immediate release of Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American being held in Russia.
(MEXICO CITY) — At least 16 people were killed and 36 others were injured in a bus crash in central Mexico on Tuesday, authorities said.
A passenger bus carrying locals and migrants — mostly from Venezuela — collided with a trailer truck on the Cuacnopalan-Oaxaca highway near the border between the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Puebla early Tuesday morning, according to the Puebla state government.
The reason for the crash was unknown.
There were 52 people on board the bus, including 10 from Venezuela. The migrants were traveling to an appointment with the United States Customs and Border Protection to legally enter the country, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Migration.
Among the dead were 15 Mexican citizens and one Venezuelan national. Nine Venezuelans were among the injured, three of whom remain hospitalized in Tehuacan, the National Institute of Migration said.
(RUSSIA) — Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russian private military company the Wagner Group, which played a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before briefly launching an insurrection against the Russian military, and President Vladimir Putin by extension, died Wednesday in a plane crash.
Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday, according to the press service of Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency. Ten people in total were killed in the crash, the agency said.
“An investigation has been launched into the crash of the Embraer aircraft, which occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the department said in a statement.
Wagner Group co-founder Dmitriy Utkin also died in the crash, the agency said.
Prigozhin, a longtime ally of Putin, co-founded Wagner Group in 2014 with Russian military officer Utkin at the onset of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict after Putin invaded Crimea.
The group’s moniker reportedly came from a nickname for Utkin or is a reference to the composer Richard Wagner. Prigozhin was known in the West by the nickname “Putin’s chef,” because of how he and Putin met decades earlier, when Prigozhin was a restauranteur.
Prigozhin long denied having any involvement in the group until late 2022 when he publicly confirmed his role, months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The White House estimated that at one stage around 50,000 fighters from the Wagner Group were fighting in Ukraine, the majority of them convicts recruited from Russian prisons.
In early 2023, the U.S. labeled Wagner a “significant transnational criminal organization” and levied new sanctions against the group, not only because of their action in Ukraine but also because of Wagner links to mass executions, abductions and other human rights abuses in the Central African Republic and Mali, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Wagner Group also allegedly operated in Syria and in various African countries.
Wagner operated for years as a deniable military force for the Kremlin, in Syria and across Africa. Prigozhin’s influence ballooned during the war in Ukraine, as Putin came to increasingly rely on his forces, particularly in the bloody battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut. Once in the shadows, Prigozhin grew famous for his videos lambasting Russia’s military leadership for the disastrous handling of the war, publicly feuding with Russia’s minister of defense Sergey Shoigu and chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov.
Wagner’s insurrection against Russian military leadership began on June 23, 2023, when Prigozhin accused the Russian military of deliberately shelling his forces in Ukraine that day.
“There are 25,000 of us and we are coming to sort things out…Those who want to join us, it’s time to finish with this mess,” Prigozhin said then, appearing to threaten armed rebellion against Russia’s military leadership.
The next morning, on June 24, Prigozhin said his forces had taken control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, seizing the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District that oversaw much of the war in Ukraine.
Prigozhin demanded defense minister Shoigu and the head of the general staff Gerasimov be handed over to him, threatening he would march on Moscow, saying, “We are moving forward and will go until the end.”
In a televised address that aired that morning, Putin responded by declaring that actions taken by Prigozhin amounted to a “stab in the back.”
By the early afternoon, a column of Wagner forces reached the Voronezh region, about 300 miles south of Moscow, apparently unopposed by Russian forces along the way. The march halted that evening when Prigozhin suddenly announced his mercenaries would turn back to their base camps, saying he wanted to avoid shedding Russian blood.
But just hours later, with the column less than 100 miles from Moscow, Prigozhin abruptly announced his mercenaries were turning back and ended his mutiny, saying he wanted to avoid shedding Russian blood.
The stunning reversal followed an apparent deal struck with Putin, with the Kremlin announcing that Prigozhin would relocate to Belarus and would not be prosecuted for his actions.
But many observers questioned whether the Kremlin would remain so forgiving.
“His long-term survivability is hard to calculate,” a senior U.S. official told ABC News, after Prigozhin’s stand-down.
Prigozhin himself insisted he had never intended a “coup” against Putin and had merely been seeking “justice” for his Wagner fighters in their dispute with Shoigu and Russia’s military leadership.
In the weeks after the coup, Prigozhin dropped largely out of sight but appeared to have returned to work, baffling observers. While his media empire was reportedly dissolved, he remained in Russia, spotted at a summit in St. Petersburg for African leaders attended by Putin. Some Wagner troops moved to a camp set up in Belarus.
The Kremlin said Wagner would be absorbed into Russia’s ministry of defense but some experts suggested Prigozhin might be permitted to continue operating in Africa, where Wagner has established significant influence in several countries, in particular Mali.
In recent weeks, Prigozhin and Wagner were being linked to the military coup in Niger, where Prigozhin offered the junta Wagner’s support.
Just two days before his death, Prigozhin posted what would be his last video, purportedly showing him in an African country, with armed fighters and promising to “make African even more free.”
Prigozhin was born on June 1, 1961, in Leningrad, Soviet Union, now Saint Petersburg. At one point he served nine years in prison for robbery, according to Meduza, a well-regarded Russian investigative news outlet based out of Latvia.
Prigozhin was freed in 1990 and returned to Saint Petersburg, selling hot dogs around the city before opening New Island, a posh restaurant on the city’s waterfront. The floating restaurant soon became a watering hole for the country’s elite, including the future president, Vladimir Putin.
In 2018, U.S. prosecutors charged Prigozhin for his suspected role in funding the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. described as a Russian “troll farm” that sought to use digital campaigns to increase political and social tensions in the U.S. Prigozhin himself on social media in 2022 said “we have interfered [in elections], are interfering and will interfere.”
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this story.
(RUSSIA) — Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a plane that crashed in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday, according to the press service of Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.
Ten people were killed in the crash near the town of Kuzhenkino, including Prigozhin.
“An investigation has been launched into the crash of the Embraer aircraft, which occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the list of passengers, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the department said in a statement.
Among the 10 dead were three crew members and seven passengers.
The Federal Air Transport Agency said the plane was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement 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.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the plane crash in Russia, according to the White House.
Biden told reporters he didn’t “know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised.”
“There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer,” he told reporters in Lake Tahoe, where he is on vacation.
Prigozhin is 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.
Prigozhin allegedly struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin where he didn’t face prosecution and was relocated to Belarus, according to the Kremlin. The Russian president and Prigozhin allegedly met face to face on June 29, less than a week after the failed coup, the Kremlin said.
On July 3, Prigozhin released a message on social media claiming the rebelling was aimed at “fighting traitors and mobilizing our society.”
“I think we have achieved a lot of it. In the near future, I am sure that you will see our next victories at the front. Thanks guys,” he allegedly said.
Prigozhin’s last known public appearance came in a video dated Aug. 21 from an undisclosed location in Africa.
Prigozhin helped to launch the Wagner Group toward the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the Crimean Peninsula around 2014, according to reports published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
In 2018, U.S. prosecutors charged Prigozhin for his suspected role in funding the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. described as a Russian “troll farm” that sought to use digital campaigns to increase political and social tensions in the U.S.
The Department of Justice accused the IRA of conspiring to “defraud the United States … for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.”
The complaint described tactics like posing as U.S. citizens and creating false online personas.
ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Ben Gittleson, Nathan Luna and Leah Vredenbregt contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK)– India on Wednesday became only the fourth country in the world to land a spacecraft on the moon, and the first to do so in the lunar south pole region.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the mission, known as Chandrayaan-3, in mid-July, with the spacecraft traveling a forty-day, fuel-efficient course before touching down at 8:34 a.m. ET.
India now joins the U.S., Russia and China as the only countries to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface.
“Chandrayaan-3 Mission: ‘India, I reached my destination and you too!” the ISRO announced upon touchdown. “Chandrayaan-3 has successfully soft-landed on the moon!”
A “soft landing” is one in which the spacecraft touches down intact, with little to no damage.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared in a video stream displayed in the ISRO control room as he watched the landing from South Africa, where he is attending a conference, and expressed his pride in the mission’s success.
“India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone…this success belongs to all off humanity, and it will help moon missions by other countries in the future,” Modi said. “We can all aspire for the moon and beyond.”
Now that the soft landing has occurred, the remaining objectives of the Chandrayaan-3 mission are to demonstrate the rover moving on the moon and “to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.”
The lander and rover will be functional for about two weeks, during which time researchers will study several things, including the temperature of the lunar surface, lunar seismic activity, the chemical composition of rocks and soil, and any variation in the moon’s thin atmosphere.
The lunar south pole in particular is a desirable region for study due to the presence there of frozen water, but it has not been well explored due to its rugged terrain, which includes impact craters.
India previously attempted to reach the moon in 2019, but its Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft failed due to a last-minute software glitch, resulting in the lander crashing onto the moon’s surface.
Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing comes just four days after Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft, launched on August 11, crashed into the lunar surface as the country attempted to return to the moon for the first time since Luna 24’s successful landing in 1976.
NASA has previously announced that for its Artemis II missions, which will send American astronauts back to the moon, it is also looking to reach the lunar south pole.
In June, when Indian Prime Minister Modi visited the U.S., he and President Joe Biden issued a joint statement hailing the countries’ relationship and their collaboration in several fields, including space.
In the statement, NASA announced it will provide training to Indian astronauts at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, “with a goal of mounting a joint effort to the International Space Station in 2024.”
