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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, are pledging deeper economic cooperation as the list of international sanctions on Russia grows. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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The United Kingdom pledged on Thursday to find the former army soldier suspected of terrorism who escaped from prison by hiding under a food delivery van.

Daniel Abed Khalife is believed to have escaped from a medium-security London prison on Wednesday by leaving the prison kitchen where he was working and fastening himself to the bottom of a van.

“Daniel Khalife will be found, and he will be made to face justice,” U.K. Justice Minister Alex Chalk told parliament on Thursday.

The 21-year-old terrorist suspect is now the subject of a nationwide manhunt, which includes enhanced security checks at ports and airports. But as of Thursday evening in the U.K., police said there had not been any confirmed sightings of Khalife.

Discharged from the British army in May, the former soldier was awaiting trial on offenses related to terrorism and the Official Secrets Act.

Khalife is accused of planting fake bombs at an army base in England and collecting sensitive personal information about soldiers from a U.K. Defense Ministry database. He is also accused of gathering information for Iran, the BBC reported.

Khalife denied all the charges against him.

At parliament on Thursday, Chalk also said there would be an immediate investigation into the prison’s protocols and the decision about where Khalife was held. A second independent investigation will take place at a later date, Chalk said.

“No stone must be left unturned in getting to the bottom of what happened,” Chalk said.

More than 150 investigators and police staff are on the case, according to Metropolitan Police Commander Dominic Murphy, who is the lead investigator.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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A wealthy Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin was sentenced Thursday to nine years in prison for his role in a nearly $100 million stock market cheating scheme that relied on secret earnings information stolen through the hacking of U.S. computer networks.

Vladislav Klyushin, who ran a Moscow-based information technology company that did work for the highest levels of the Russian government, was convicted in February of charges that include wire fraud and securities fraud after a two-week trial in federal court in Boston.

Authorities say he personally pocketed more than $33 million in the scheme, which involved breaking into computer systems to steal earnings-related filings for hundreds of companies — including Microsoft and Tesla — and then using that insider information to make lucrative trades.

Klyushin, 42, has been jailed in the U.S. since his extradition in 2021, and the more than two years he’s been detained will be credited to his prison term. He was arrested in Switzerland after arriving on a private jet and just before he and his party were about to board a helicopter to whisk them to a nearby ski resort. After he completes his sentence, he’s expected to be deported to Russia.

Klyushin, who walked into the courtroom in handcuffs, sat at a table with his attorneys and listened to an interpreter through headphones as lawyers argued over the sentence. At the advice of his attorney, he declined to address the judge before she sentenced him.

Four alleged co-conspirators — including a Russian military intelligence officer who’s also been charged with meddling in the 2016 presidential election — remain at large, and even though prosecutors allege in a court filing that they’re still “likely sitting at their keyboards,” they acknowledge that the four will likely never be extradited to the United States to face charges.

Prosecutors had sought 14 years in prison, saying a stiff punishment was crucial to send a message to overseas cybercriminals. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Kosto told the judge that Klyushin has accepted no responsibility for his crimes and that once he serves his sentence, he’ll return to Russia, where he is a “powerful person” with “powerful friends in the highest echelons of Russian society.”

“Hackers will be watching this sentence to decide whether it’s worth engaging in this kind of conduct,” Kosto said.

Prosecutors say the hackers stole employees’ usernames and passwords for two U.S.-based vendors that publicly traded companies use to make filings through the Securities and Exchange Commission. They then broke into the vendors’ computer systems to get filings before they became public, prosecutors said.

Armed with insider information, they were able to cheat the stock market, buying shares of a company that was about to release positive financial results, and selling shares of a company that was about to post poor financial results, according to prosecutors. Many of the earnings reports were downloaded via a computer server in Boston, prosecutors said.

Klyushin denied involvement in the scheme. His attorney told jurors that he was financially successful long before he began trading stocks and that he continued trading in many of the same companies even after access to the alleged insider information was shut off because the hacks were discovered.

Defense attorney Maksim Nemtsev called prosecutors’ prison request “draconian,” adding that there is “no reason to think that he would risk the well-being of his family again by committing crimes.”

His lawyers asked the court for leniency, saying Klyushin had no prior criminal history and has already been seriously punished. He spent months in solitary confinement in Switzerland while awaiting extradition to the U.S., and his company has lost multimillion-dollar contracts, his attorneys wrote.

Klyushin owned a Moscow-based information technology company that purported to provide services to detect vulnerabilities in computer systems. It counted among its clients the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Ministry of Defense, according to prosecutors.

Klyushin’s close friend and an alleged co-conspirator in the case is military officer Ivan Ermakov, who was among 12 Russians charged in 2018 with hacking into key Democratic Party email accounts, including those belonging to Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Ermakov, who worked for Klyushin’s company, remains at large.

Prosecutors have not alleged that Klyushin was involved in the election interference.
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The United States and Britain on Thursday sanctioned 11 people who are part of the Russia-based Trickbot cybercrime hacking group, accusing it of targeting critical government infrastructure and businesses, along with hospitals, during the coronavirus pandemic.

A U.S. Treasury statement said the blacklisted targets included “key actors involved in management and procurement” for Trickbot, which it said has ties to Russian intelligence services.

Treasury undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a statement, “The United States is resolute in our efforts to combat ransomware and respond to disruptions of our critical infrastructure.”

Ransomware refers to the demand for payments to unlock computer services that cybercriminals have frozen.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the sanctions are an attempt to disrupt Trickbot’s business model and strip officials of their anonymity.

“We know who they are and what they are doing,” he said in a statement. 

British officials said the Trickbot group had extorted at least $180 million from people around the world to restore their computer services.

In conjunction with the sanctions, which block any assets the Trickbot officials have in the United States and Britain, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed indictments against nine individuals in the gang.

The U.S. said that in one instance, the Trickbot group used ransomware against three medical facilities in the midwestern state of Minnesota, “disrupting their computer networks and telephones, and causing a diversion of ambulances.”

The U.S. said Trickbot workers “publicly gloated over the ease of targeting the medical facilities and the speed in which ransoms had been paid to the group.” 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited a Ukrainian border guard site on the outskirts of Kyiv Thursday as he opened the final day of an unannounced two-day visit.

The tour included presenting four U.S.-provided mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles that are part of a group of 190 of the vehicles to be delivered in coming months.

Blinken also met with a Ukrainian team working to clear unexploded Russian ordnance at a farm where corn was grown for export.

“What’s hard to get our minds around is that one third of Ukrainian territory has mines or unexploded ordnance on it,” Blinken said.  

“Your work is having a profound impact on the lives of Ukrainians and on people around the world,” he said, noting Ukraine’s importance to global food supply.

Blinken Wednesday announced $1 billion in new U.S. aid for Ukraine, with $175 million in security aid that includes additional air defense equipment, artillery munitions, anti-tank weapons including depleted uranium rounds for previously committed Abrams tanks, and other equipment.

Asked whether he is concerned about sustaining support for that level of U.S. aid among American citizens and lawmakers, Blinken was optimistic.

“I was last here almost exactly a year ago,” he said. “And in that time, in the year since I was last here, Ukraine has taken back more than 50% of the territory that Russia has seized from it since February 2022. In the current counteroffensive, we are seeing real progress over the last few weeks.”

Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said what is being decided in this war is not just about Ukraine, but about what the world is going to look like after the war is over. If Russia wins, other autocrats will be empowered to invade their neighbors, he said, asking, ‘If the West cannot win this war, what war can they win?”

However, on Capitol Hill, one Republican senator expressed concerns to VOA, saying he would like to see a definitive strategy from the Biden administration for Ukraine to win the war.

“I’d like to see an announcement coming from all the NATO members saying that they are willing to step up. … I just got back from a trip to Europe, and we encouraged our NATO allies to actually step up their game, and I would like to see that happen,” Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said.

The United States is the largest donor of military aid to Ukraine in total dollars. Other countries, including Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, are making larger financial contributions to Ukraine relative to the size of their own economies, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany.

Some information in this report was provided by VOA congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson.
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Britain is rejoining the European Union’s science-sharing program Horizon Europe, the two sides announced Thursday, more than two years after membership became a casualty of Brexit.

British scientists expressed relief at the decision, the latest sign of thawing relations between the EU and its former member.

After months of negotiations, the British government said the country was becoming a “fully associated member” of the research collaboration body. U.K.-based scientists can bid for Horizon funding starting Thursday and will be able to lead Horizon-backed science projects starting in 2024. Britain is also rejoining Copernicus, the EU space program’s Earth observation component.

“The EU and U.K. are key strategic partners and allies, and today’s agreement proves that point,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who signed off on the deal during a call with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday. “We will continue to be at the forefront of global science and research.”

The EU blocked Britain from Horizon during a feud over trade rules for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member, the Republic of Ireland.

The two sides struck a deal to ease those tensions in February, but Horizon negotiations have dragged on over details of how much the U.K. will pay for its membership.

Sunak said he had struck the “right deal for British taxpayers.” The U.K. will not have to pay for the period it was frozen out of Horizon.

Relations between Britain and the bloc were severely tested during the long divorce negotiations that followed Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the EU. The divorce became final in 2020 with the agreement of a bare-bones trade and cooperation deal, but relations chilled still further under strongly pro-Brexit U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Johnson’s government introduced a bill that would let it unilaterally rip up parts of the Brexit agreement, a move the EU called illegal.

Johnson left office amid scandal in mid-2022, and Sunak’s government has quietly worked to improve Britain’s relationship with its European neighbors, though trade friction and deep-rooted mistrust still linger.

British scientists, who feared Brexit would hurt international research collaboration, breathed sighs of relief at the Horizon deal.

“This is an essential step in rebuilding and strengthening our global scientific standing,” said Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research. “Thank you to the huge number of researchers in the U.K. and across Europe who, over many years, didn’t give up on stressing the importance of international collaboration for science.”

The U.K.’s opposition Labour Party welcomed the deal but said Britain had already missed out on “two years’ worth of innovation.”

“Two years of global companies looking around the world for where to base their research centers and choosing other countries than Britain, because we are not part of Horizon,” said Labour science spokesman Peter Kyle. “This is two years of wasted opportunity for us as a country.”
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The Ukrainian military said Thursday its air defenses destroyed 25 of 33 drones that Russia used to attack the Sumy and Odesa regions overnight.

Oleh Kiper, the regional governor of Odesa, said the Russian attack hit the Izmail area for the fourth time in five days, injuring one person.

Kiper said the attack also damaged port infrastructure facilities and an administrative building.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed two Ukrainian drones over the Rostov region, as well as one in Bryansk and another on the outskirts of Moscow.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that debris from a downed drone landed in the Ramensky district but did not cause any damage or casualties.

At least 17 people were killed and nearly three dozen more injured in a Russian assault Wednesday on the central market in the eastern Ukraine city of Kostiantynivka, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack, saying a market, shops and a pharmacy were hit in the industrial city close to the current front lines of the battlefield, about 30 kilometers from the city of Bakhmut, where there has been heavy combat for months.

“Those who know this place are well aware that it is a civilian area. There aren’t any military units nearby,” Zelenskyy said during a news conference in Kyiv.

“This Russian evil must be defeated as soon as possible,” he added.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klimenko posted pictures showing rescue workers sifting through the rubble and carrying out bodies in black sacks.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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After hitting several resets, restoring historic treasures to former colonies, downsizing its military presence and striking new ties elsewhere on the continent, France’s Africa strategy seems at an impasse, some experts say.

Coups in half a dozen former French colonies in West and Central Africa over three years — including two, in Niger and Gabon, in just over a month — are sparking fresh soul searching about what went wrong and how, if possible, to put longstanding relations and interests back on track. 

Yet many suggest Paris can no longer call the shots, as some African governments cut ties altogether and carve new ones with foreign rivals, including Russia. 

“French influence in the Sahel has collapsed,” wrote France’s influential Le Monde newspaper this past week. “Elsewhere on the continent, it is on the defensive, and nothing Paris says can restore it.” 

That assessment comes as the paper and other media report that discussions between Paris and Niger’s military are under way about the withdrawal of some military elements from the African country.

Until now, French authorities have refused to recognize the military junta that seized power in Niger in late July, dismissing calls for its ambassador and 1,500 French troops stationed there to depart. 

The power grab in Niamey followed a now-familiar playbook. Not so long ago, Niger, along with neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, cooperated closely with Paris in a broader Sahel alliance fighting a jihadist insurgency. All three since have seen civilian leaders toppled by their militaries, followed by protests, sprinkled with Russian flags and slogans calling for the ouster of French forces and diplomats. 

The latest coup last week in oil-rich Gabon — once a staunch and long-standing ally of Paris — has taken a different path. Unlike in Niger, there have been no planeloads of French expatriates returning home or massive anti-French rallies. Although Paris suspended military cooperation — even though it has 400 troops in Gabon — it offered a muted reaction to the toppling of long-term leader Ali Bongo by his reported cousin, following disputed presidential elections. 

Junta leader Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema has restored the transmission of French broadcasters France 24 and Radio France International, cut under Bongo — while the three Sahel coup countries, Burkina Faso, Mail and Niger,  continue to keep those news organizations off the air. 

Listening to Africans? 

Berges Miette, an Africa research associate at Sciences-Po Bordeaux University in France, Miette takes the long view of simmering anti-French sentiment. In the late 1980s, he says, France continued to support some hardline regimes that held onto power, despite a wave of political uprisings. 

African youth, Miette says, have now “stopped dreaming,” pinning their hopes instead on heading to Europe. 

While so far staying silent on Gabon, French President Emmanuel Macron has decried an “epidemic of putsches” in the Sahel. Two other coups — in Guinea and Chad — have also taken place since 2020, with a mixed response from France. The French have maintained ties with Chad, a strong military ally in the Sahel, drawing accusations of having a double standard. 

In a lengthy interview in Le Monde, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna defended France’s Africa strategy. She differentiated the ousting of Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, with the situation in Chad, where she said Paris counted on N’Djamena’s military government delivering on its promise to restore civilian rule. 

“One cannot see our relations with the continent through the single prism” of the Sahel crises, Colonna added. “It’s not 3,000 or 5,000 people demonstrating in a stadium in Niamey … that can resume our relations with 1.5 million Africans.”

France’s position, she said, “is to listen to Africans, not to decide in their place.” 

For a while, Macron — born after France’s last colony in Africa, Djibouti, gained its independence — seemed the right man for the job. 

“I am of a generation that doesn’t tell Africans what to do,” he told cheering students in Burkina Faso, shortly after his election six years ago. 

Macron pledged to return looted colonial-era artifacts, although only a fraction has been shipped back, and sought new ties elsewhere, including with Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia and Angola. Like his recent predecessors, he maintained that the tangle of post-colonial business and political ties dubbed Francafrique was long dead. 

In February, Macron promised to draw down French forces in Africa and create a new “security partnership,” with bases on the continent transformed depending on African needs, and jointly managed with African staff. 

A coherent policy

Skeptics say Macron hasn’t always walked his talk. They point to many enduring trappings of French influence — from thousands of troops still stationed in Africa to a raft of longstanding mining concessions benefitting French companies, and the CFA franc, requiring West and Central African members to deposit half their foreign exchange reserves with the French treasury. 

Anti-French sentiment is on the rise in more stable countries, like Senegal, due to a youthful population untethered to the past, but very aware of the challenges of getting visas to France. 

Critics point to what they consider a series of French missteps, too, in the Sahel. Despite early wins, France’s decade-long counterterrorism operation there lost local trust, they say, and finally was shuttered last year amid a spreading Islamist insurgency. Even as France promotes democracy, skeptics describe a tacit acceptance of some authoritarian governments like Chad. 

“France needs to have a coherent policy,” says Sciences-Po researcher Miette, who argues anti-French sentiment is not the real threat to Paris, but rather “a profound questioning of France’s Africa policy.”

He counts among those who believe it is not too late for Paris to hit the reset button yet again. With other authoritarian regimes potentially at risk of falling — in Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea — the sooner, the better. 

“France has everything to win in changing its Africa policy,” Miette says. “It needs to go beyond talk and be concrete.” 
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At a critical moment in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered a changing of the guard, naming Rustem Umerov as the country’s new defense minister. 

On Wednesday, 338 of the 360 members of the Ukrainian parliament endorsed Umerov, a Crimean Tatar businessman, and a former parliamentarian. Observers see the replacement as part of Zelenskyy’s efforts to address corruption in his administration as the Ukrainian military strives to retake southern Ukraine and areas near the Crimean Peninsula.

A long-time financial supporter of the Crimean Tatar community and father of three, Umerov, a practicing Muslim, became a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament with the Holos party in 2014, championing a reformist and progressive agenda. 

Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he played a pivotal role in negotiations with Moscow. 

“He was part of the delegation that negotiated with Russia prior to the conflict. He played a key role in the grain deal due to his connections in Turkey, and our sources indicate his involvement in negotiations to secure the return of kidnapped Ukrainian children,” said Sevgil Musaeva, editor of the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper.

In an interview with Euronews in April 2022, Umerov was resolute, affirming that Ukraine would not compromise on territorial issues. “We want our partners to understand that the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine are a red line for us. Nevertheless, we are ready to hear any possible solutions that do not endanger our territory, our independence, and our dignity,” Umerov said in the interview.

Umerov brings with him a strong resumé as a skilled negotiator and has played a prominent role in efforts to return Crimea to Ukrainian control.

He serves as a co-chairman of the Crimean Platform, an international coordinating mechanism that seeks to negotiate the reversal of Russia’s 2014 unilateral annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. He is a member of the group responsible for developing the Strategy for the De-occupation and Reintegration of Crimea and Sevastopol, initiated by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine in 2020.

Umerov has also led efforts to exchange political prisoners from Crimea and, as a member of parliament, helped shape legislation to provide social support to political prisoners and their families. 

“He is involved in a number of negotiations about the release of prisoners, as well as difficult negotiations about supplies of humanitarian support, weapons,” Tamila Tasheva, a prominent member of the Crimean Tatar community and the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, told VOA, citing Umerov’s strong communication skills and negotiating experience with Persian Gulf countries and Turkey.

In an interview with Ukrainska Pravda in October 2022, Umerov underscored his longstanding commitment to human rights, going back to when Ukraine was under pro-Russian governments before the Maidan Revolution of 2014. 

“I was born in Uzbekistan, but I returned to Ukraine, where I engaged in activities related to European and NATO initiatives when they weren’t popular,” Umerov told the newspaper.

Why now?

The change was necessary at a time when Ukrainians have grown wary of corruption scandals at the Defense Ministry, according to political analyst and director at Think Tank Politics, Mykola Davydiuk. In addition to being a problem for Ukraine, “it was a bad message to our foreign partners,” Davydiuk told VOA.

Rumors of Reznikov’s impending replacement had been circulating for a year. In February 2023, Fox News quoted David Arakhamia, Ukraine’s parliament majority leader as suggesting that Oleksiy Reznikov might be replaced, although the president chose not to act at the time, allowing then-Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov to remain in his position.

The decision to let Reznikov stay at the time came despite a shakeup at the Defense Ministry that included the resignations of Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov and Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksiy Symonenko in late January of the same year amid allegations of fraud and a coverup involving the purchase military food rations and equipment at inflated prices. 

The Defense Ministry denied any involvement in corrupt practices.

Last month, Ukrainian investigative reporter Mykhailo Tkach from Ukrainska Pravda exposed another scandal related to military procurement.

Reznikov himself does not face any charges in the corruption scandals. 

But the more recent revelation sparked new outrage among Ukrainians and sent a negative signal to Western partners about retaining Reznikov in his role, according to Davydiuk, who points to several other reasons for the timing of Reznikov’s removal.

“The start of the new political season, some unofficial push for replacement from the western partners, and preparation for the visit U.N. General Assembly to New York at the end of this month,” Davydiuk said, are other reasons, at a time when President Zelenskyy needs to address the corruption allegations, regain his credibility, and restore his positive image in the eyes of Western partners.

As Ukraine slowly retakes territory and sets its eyes on reclaiming Crimea, the job of ensuring victory is now on the shoulders of Umerov.
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The death toll from severe rainstorms that lashed parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria increased to 11 Wednesday after rescue teams in the three neighboring countries recovered four more bodies.

A flash flood at a campsite in northwestern Turkey near the border with Bulgaria killed at least four people — with two found dead Wednesday — and carried away bungalow homes. Rescuers were still searching for two people reported missing at the campsite.

Another two people died in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, where Tuesday’s storms inundated hundreds of homes and workplaces in several neighborhoods.

The victims in Istanbul included a 32-year-old Guinean citizen who was trapped inside his basement apartment in the low-income Kucukcekmece district, Turkish broadcaster HaberTurk TV reported. The other was a 57-year-old woman who died after being swept away by the floods in another neighborhood, the private DHA news agency reported.

The surging flood waters affected more than 1,750 homes and businesses in the city, according to the Istanbul governor’s office. They included a line of shops in the Ikitelli district, where the deluge dragged parked vehicles and mud into furniture stores, destroying the merchandise, DHA reported.

The floods also engulfed a parking area for containers and trucks on the city’s outskirts where people found safety by climbing on the roof of a restaurant, Turkish media reports said.

In Greece, a record rainfall caused at least two deaths near the central city of Volos and three people were reported missing. The fire department said one man was killed Tuesday when a wall buckled and fell on him, and the body of a woman was discovered Wednesday.

Authorities banned traffic in Volos, the nearby mountain region of Pilion and the resort island of Skiathos, where many households remained without electricity Wednesday. Traffic was also banned in another two regions of central Greece near Volos, while the storms were forecast to continue until at least Thursday afternoon.

In Bulgaria, a storm caused floods on the country’s southern Black Sea coast. The body of a missing tourist was recovered from the sea Wednesday, raising the overall death toll to three. Border police vessels and drones were assisting efforts to locate another two people still listed as missing.

TV footage showed cars and camper vans being swept out to sea in the southern resort town of Tsarevo, where authorities declared a state of emergency.

Most of the rivers in the region burst their banks and several bridges were destroyed, causing serious traffic problems.

Tourism Minister Zaritsa Dinkova said about 4,000 people were affected by the disaster along the entire southern stretch of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

“There is a problem transporting tourists because it is dangerous to go by coach on the roads affected by the floods,” she added.
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Britain said Wednesday it will declare Russia’s Wagner mercenary group a terrorist organization.

The government said it would introduce an order in parliament that if approved would make it illegal to be a member of or support the group.  The order would also allow the government to seize Wagner’s assets.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said Wagner “has been involved in looting, torture and barbarous murders. Its operations in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa are a threat to global security.”

Wagner was involved in Russia’s war in Ukraine, and in June its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin carried out a brief rebellion against the Russian military. 

Prigozhin was reported killed in a plane crash last month.

Britain had previously sanctioned Wagner and Prigozhin.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters
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