BREAKING: Yevgeny Prigozhin, a.k.a."#Putin's chef" & notorious head of PMC "Wagner" & St.Petersburg's "troll factory" reported dead in airplane crash in DR Congo where he went to meet country's President Félix Tshisekedi. Reports yet unconfirmed but...
Prigozhin's meeting w/ Tshisekedi didn't take place as was scheduled & Prigozhin himself hasn't been in touch w/ his people in #Russia for a long while.Plane crash (An-72) that does cargo deliveries for Congo's Prez confimred but not clear whether Prigozhin was on board
UPDATE: #Russia/n embassy says the plane crash indeed took place, few high-level DR Congo's officials killed but only two RUS citizens were on board (Vladimir Sadovnichiy, 61 & Vitaly Shumkov, 64), Prigozhin wasn't there.
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The conflict in #Ukraine is a collateral damage of a massive #US-#Russia crisis that has been brewing for years. Now that the conflict penetrates every political, economic and social level regionally and globally, it’s important to see what comes next. LONGISH THREAD.
I’m an academic,not my job to advise govs/ companies,but analysis of most global consultancies gets increasingly biased.Mine probably too.But I'd present the other side of the picture from what people get from MSM dominated discourse of things in #Ukraine &costs #Russia shld bear
1/ So, the new drastic sanctions on RUS were slapped & will hurt, esp in the long run. Numerous literature on it. Many talk about how energy markets will be effected, so I’m gonna skip this & say a few things about other, less discussed yet very important domains.
Unconfimred reports of #Russia/n hitting 13 bio-lab munitions throughout #Ukraine, some of them underground, so it took a few strikes to destroy them.
The issue of foreign powers resarch bio labs in UKR is gaining traction in RUS media - watch this space
The official RU discourse now suggests that #Russia's 3 precise types of threats emanating from UKR were:
👉#Ukraine in NATO (geopolitics)
👉URK allegedly wanting to get nukes (existential threat)
👉UKR hosting "murky #US bio labs" (bio weapons) - #China on this story now too
If you watch the tone of the discourse,you get a sense that #Ukraine not the ultimate addressee of these concerns -#US is.
No problem if UKR in NATO,problem is US may control Black Sea/big territory near Russia
No problem w/ nuclear UKR,problem is US will manage their nukes, etc.
⚡️#Putin begins his address to the nation regarding his decisions on #Donbass
#Putin says a guide into history is necessary to understand where modern day events in #Ukraine stand, argues that today's Ukraine is a product of Bolshevik Russia, is a virtual assortment of different lands
Putin discusses Lenin principles of Soviet state & nation building,questions some decisions of the time ("not clear why did they [early-day Soviet leaders] seek to satisfy some nationalist ambitions"),adds the decisions were not senseless but concludes the principles were flawed
1. @RTErdogan officially came w/ a “peacekeeping” mission, but no illusions in #Moscow of waht kinda olive branch he carries.
3 goals:
a) insert #Turkey in conflict to expand regional influence
b) sell more arms
c) access #Ukraine's tech market
2. #Turkey has arms to offer which #Ukraine needs – good overlap of interests here.
Bayraktars are what everyone focusesd on (+ #Ukraine built a plant to service them) but UKR interested in expanding the drone lineup,so it’s the Akinci drone that the parties may be discussing +..
🔥⚡️Deputy Chairman of Foreign Affairs Commiitee of the #Russia/n Council of Federation (Senate): #US response to Russian security proposals does not satisfy #Moscow. RUS will prepare its own response within days & it will be prepared in consulations w/ partners including #China
Meanwhile,27 #Russia/n diplomats @RusEmbUSA are leaving #US today (28 more expected to leave during summer) upon #US decision
Amb.Antonov said @StateDept "made it clear that he himself would also have to leave by April if RUS fails to give visas to guards of US embassy in Moscow"
Top it off with the latest news that the investigation into the terrorist attack on board of a city bus in Voronezh in August 2021 (that killed 2 and left many wounded) discovered it might have been perpetrated by #Ukrainian special ops unit.. vesti.ru/article/2668791
#Lavrov on talks with @ABlinken: #US sought to put #Ukraine at the top of the negotiations agenda, but it seemed to me that at the end of th meeting they realized we'd eventually have to focus on the substance of [#Russia's] security proposals
#Lavrov on the meeting with @ABlinken: We believe that publicizing #US response to #Russia's security proposals would be a right thing to do, I'd ask Secretary #Blinken that we should do it
This is the key point that pundits,media,politicians in #US/#EU are missing about the situation w/ #Russia. It is not about #Ukraine or European security order/architecture. It's about #Russia's own security guarantees which #Moscow intends to ensure for itself with or w/out US