The President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, has reacted to the plane crash of the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Prigozhin presumably died alongside seven passengers and three crew who were on board the Embraer aircraft.
The plane crashed into a field in the Bologovsky district in the Tver region, 60 miles north of Moscow, bursting into a ball of flames.
President Biden, in his reaction on Wednesday, said he is not surprised at the news that Prigozhin died in a plane crash in Russia.
Biden, while addressing reporters after taking an exercise class with his family near Lake Tahoe, said, “I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised.
“There’s not much that happens in Russia that (President Vladimir) Putin is not behind.
“But I don’t know enough to know the answer” of what may have happened to the powerful former Putin henchman.
Prigozhin’s name was on the passenger list of the aircraft, which crashed northwest of Moscow, according to Russian state media.
The Wagner group leader had headed the mutiny in June, moving his troops from Ukraine, seizing the southern Russian city of Rostov on Don, and threatening to march on Moscow.
[8/24, 10:54 AM] DavidAdebayo Aye Akamara Dave bolton: Rudy Giuliani surrenders at Georgia jail in Trump election subversion case
Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, surrendered to authorities at the Fulton county jail on Wednesday on charges that he helped lead a racketeering enterprise and conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
The surrender in Atlanta marks a jarring moment for Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor who made his name with aggressive racketeering cases, now facing a racketeering charge himself.
Speaking to reporters after his surrender, Giuliani said, while laughing, that he was “very, very honored to be involved in this case because this case is a fight for our way of life”.
“This indictment is a travesty,” he continued. “It’s an attack on – not just me, not just President Trump … this is an attack on the American people. If this could happen to me, who is probably the most prolific prosecutor maybe in American history and the most effective mayor for sure, it can happen to you.”
Alongside Trump, Giuliani faces the most charges in the sprawling 41-count indictment handed up by a grand jury last week that described how he played a principal role in marshalling fake slates of electors among other schemes to reverse Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.
The bond for Giuliani was set at $150,000 after his lawyers met with the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis earlier in the day. The amount was slightly less than the $200,000 bond for Trump but more than the $100,000 bond for another former Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell.
Trump is expected to turn himself in for booking on Thursday evening, the Guardian has previously reported, during the prime viewing hours for the cable news networks as he seeks to distract from the indignity of surrendering by turning things into a made-for-television spectacle.
Giuliani left Manhattan in the morning to travel to Atlanta with his lead lawyer, John Esposito, on a private jet, though the source of the funding for the plane remains uncertain given Giuliani has struggled financially in the wake of mounting legal bills.
Giuliani’s financial trouble stemming from having to retain lawyers for the congressional and federal criminal investigations into efforts to subvert the 2020 election results have become particularly acute in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The money problems have been exacerbated by Giuliani’s recent setbacks in court – including in a defamation case against two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of stealing ballots – and the suspension of his law license over his election subversion efforts means he has few income streams.
The situation has led to Giuliani listing his Manhattan apartment for sale for more than $6m. He also travelled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in April to ask the former president to help pay his legal bills after Trump rejected his earlier entreaties for support, the people said.
