Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed disbelief over the hostages’ captivity, praised Hamas for its ‘humanitarian act’ in freeing them, and vowed to push for the release of the remaining captives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with released Israeli-Russian hostages Sasha Troufanov, his mother Yelena, and girlfriend Sapir.
“Russia will do everything to ensure the release of all the people who were in the conditions you endured for so long.”pic.twitter.com/YunxESmKNf

— Israel National News – Arutz Sheva (@ArutzSheva_En) April 16, 2025

Putin met in the Kremlin with Alexander Trufanov, an Israeli and Russian citizen released from captivity in Gaza, his mother and fiancee, Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar and FEOR President Alexander Boroda. (via zarubin) pic.twitter.com/2gSB9IPCVB

— caterina doglio (@CaterinaDoglio) April 16, 2025

Putin is hosting Yelena and Sasha Trofenov and thanking Hamas for releasing Sasha – right in Sasha’s face. That’s all you need to know about the man. pic.twitter.com/bTEz2M88mj

— raz sauber – רז זאובר (@raz_sauber_) April 16, 2025

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While countless theories about the events swirled, most observers saw Prigozhin’s death as Putin’s punishment for the most serious challenge to his authority of his 23-year rule.

By Associated Press

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and top officers of his private Wagner military company were presumed dead in a plane crash that was widely seen as an assassination, two months after they staged a mutiny that dented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority.

Russia’s civil aviation agency said that Prigozhin and six top lieutenants were on a business jet that crashed Wednesday, soon after taking off from Moscow, with a crew of three. Rescuers quickly found all 10 bodies, and Russian media cited sources in Prigozhin’s Wagner company who confirmed his death.

U.S. and other Western officials long expected Putin to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny.

“I don’t know for a fact what happened but I’m not surprised,” U.S. President Joe Biden said. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”

Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately downed, including suggesting it could have been hit by an air defense missile or targeted by a bomb on board. These claims could not be independently verified. Numerous opponents and critics of Putin have been killed or gravely sickened in apparent assassination attempts.

Speaking to Lavian television, NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence Director Janis Sarts said that “the downing of the plane was certainly no mere coincidence.”

The crash came the same day that Russian media reported that Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former top commander in Ukraine who was reportedly linked to Prigozhin, was dismissed from his post as commander of Russia’s air force. Surovikin hasn’t been seen in public since the mutiny, when he recorded a video address urging Prigozhin’s forces to pull back.

Police cordoned off the field where the plane crashed as investigators studied the site. Vehicles were seen driving in to take the bodies, reportedly badly charred, for a forensic exam.

At Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, lights were turned on in the shape of a large cross. Prigozhin’s supporters brought flowers to the building in an improvised memorial.

While countless theories about the events swirled, most observers saw Prigozhin’s death as Putin’s punishment for the most serious challenge to his authority of his 23-year rule.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said on Telegram that “no matter what caused the plane crash, everyone will see it as an act of vengeance and retribution” by the Kremlin, and “the Kremlin wouldn’t really stand in the way of that.”

“From Putin’s point of view, as well as the security forces and the military — Prigozhin’s death must be a lesson to any potential followers,” Stanovaya said in a Telegram post.

In the revolt that started on June 23 and lasted less than 24 hours, Prigozhin’s mercenaries swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there without firing a shot, before driving to within about 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Moscow in what Prigozhin called a “march of justice” to oust the top military leaders who demanded that the mercenaries sign contracts with the Defense Ministry. They downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen Russian pilots.

Putin first denounced the rebellion as “treason” and a “stab in the back” and vowed to punish its perpetrators, but hours later made a deal that saw an end to the mutiny in exchange for an amnesty for Prigozhin and his mercenaries and a permission for them to move to Belarus.

Details of the deal have remained murky, but Prigozhin has reportedly shuttled between Moscow, St. Petersburg, Belarus and Africa where his mercenaries have continued their activities despite the rebellion. He was quickly given back truckloads of cash, gold bars and other items that police seized on the day of the rebellion, feeding speculation that the Kremlin still needed Prigozhin despite the mutiny.

Earlier this week, the mercenary chief published his first video since the mutiny, declaring that he was speaking from an undisclosed location in Africa where Wagner is “making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free.”

‘Final step to eliminate Wagner’

Prigozhin’s overseas activities reportedly have irked Russia’s military leadership, who have sought to replace Wagner with Russian military personnel in Africa.

The Institute for the Study of War argued that Russian authorities likely moved to eliminate Prigozhin and his top associates as “the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization.”

Flight tracking data reviewed by The Associated Press showed a private jet that Prigozhin had used previously took off from Moscow on Wednesday evening, and its transponder signal disappeared minutes later.

Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone showed a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting wildly as it fell, one of its wings missing. A freefall like that occur when an aircraft sustains severe damage, and a frame-by-frame AP analysis of two videos was consistent with some sort of explosion mid-flight.

Prigozhin’s death is unlikely to have an effect on Russia’s war in Ukraine. His forces fought some of the fiercest battles over the last 18 months, but pulled back from the frontline after capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut in late May.

As news of the crash was breaking, Putin projected calm, speaking at an event commemorating the WWII Battle of Kursk and hailing the heroes of Russia’s war in Ukraine. On Thursday, he addressed the BRICS summit in Johannesburg via videolink, talking about expanding cooperation between the group’s members. He didn’t mention the crash and the Kremlin made no comment about it.

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Zelensky’s top adviser claimed Thursday that Russia had “staged” the alleged drone attack, citing the delay in Russian state media reporting it and “simultaneous video from different angles.”

By Associated Press

Ukraine and Russia pressed their wartime rhetoric Thursday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressing confidence that Vladimir Putin would be convicted of war crimes, and the Kremlin alleging that the U.S. was behind what it called an assassination attempt against the Russian president.

The countries’ leaders have personally attacked each other multiple times during the war that Russia started by invading Ukraine in February 2022. The latest flare-up came Wednesday, with Russia’s claim that Ukraine had attacked the Kremlin in Moscow with drones meant to assassinate Putin.

Zelensky denied that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the purported drone attack. The Kremlin promised unspecified retaliation for what it termed a “terrorist” act, and pro-Kremlin figures called for the assassinations of senior Ukraine leaders.

Uncertainty still surrounds exactly what happened in the purported attack.

Putin’s spokesman on Thursday accused the United States of involvement. To generate domestic support for the war, Moscow has often tried to blame Washington for trying to destroy Russia through its help for Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a daily conference call that the Kremlin was “well aware that the decision on such actions and terrorist attacks is not made in Kyiv, but in Washington.”

“And then Kyiv does what it’s told to do,” Peskov said, without offering evidence for his claim.

John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council at the White House, described the claim as “ludicrous.” Zelensky, in the Netherlands, said he was “not interested” in the Kremlin’s opinion.

U.S intelligence officials are still trying to determine who was behind the drone incident and are exploring various possibilities, including a false flag operation by Russia or that a fringe group with sympathies for Ukraine could have been involved, according to a U.S. official.

But the official, who spoke Thursday on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said intelligence officials don’t yet have any definitive answers. The official added that the Biden administration “certainly would not support the strike against Mr. Putin.”

Zelensky’s top adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, claimed Thursday that Russia had “staged” the alleged drone attack. He cited the delay in Russian state media reporting it and “simultaneous video from different angles” that appeared to show the aftermath of the alleged 2:30 a.m. attack.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War also saw evidence of staging.

“Russia likely staged this attack in an attempt to bring the war home to a Russian domestic audience and set conditions for a wider societal mobilization,” the think tank said.

Given recent Russian moves to bolster security, it’s “extremely unlikely that two drones could have penetrated multiple layers of air defense and detonated or been shot down just over the heart of the Kremlin in a way that provided spectacular imagery caught nicely on camera,” the ISW stated.

In The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is based, Zelensky urged the global community to hold Putin accountable and told the war crimes court’s judges that Russia’s leader “deserves to be sentenced for (his) criminal actions right here in the capital of the international law.”

In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. It was the first time the global court circulated a warrant for a leader of one of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members.

Zelensky’s visit to the Netherlands came a day after he went to Finland, which doubled the size of NATO’s border with Russia when it joined the military alliance last month, largely out of its concerns about Moscow’s long-term ambitions.

The Ukrainian president also used his trip to press the prime ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands to send advanced warplanes so his country can achieve “justice on the battlefield.” Zelensky has successfully assembled significant Western military and political support for Ukraine’s defense since the war began.

Zelensky traveled in a Dutch-supplied plane and an armored car, with security kept tight at his appearances. Next week, he is expected to go to Berlin, the capital of European Union economic powerhouse Germany, in the latest display of the Western might marshaled against Putin.

Zelensky’s trips have paid dividends. After traveling to Washington last December and then London, Paris and Brussels in February, Ukraine received heavy artillery and tanks.

But the chances of Putin standing trial in The Hague are remote. The court, which puts individuals on trial for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression, doesn’t have a police force to execute its warrants. The Russian leader is unlikely to travel to any of the ICC’s 123 member nations, which are under obligation to arrest him, if they can.

On the battlefield, Ukraine’s military said that three Russian drones that hit the southern city of Odesa early Thursday had “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” written on them, seemingly implying they were sent in retaliation for the reported strike on the Kremlin.

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The European Union immediately responded to Putin’s latest step with a joint statement rejecting and condemning “the illegal annexation” of the four regions.

By Jon Gambrell and Hanna Arhirova, AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties Friday to annex parts of Ukraine in defiance of international law, vowing to protect the newly incorporated regions by “all available means” in another escalation of his seven-month invasion of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded by saying his country is submitting an “accelerated” application to join the NATO military alliance.

Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for peace talks but immediately insisted he won’t discuss handing back occupied regions — keeping him on a collision course with the Ukrainian government and its Western backers that have rejected his land-grab.

In a Kremlin ceremony at the ornate St. George’s Hall to herald the annexation of the occupied parts of Ukraine, Putin accused the West of fueling the hostilities as part of what he said is a plan to turn Russia into a “colony” and a “crowds of slaves.” The hardening of his position, in the conflict that that has killed and wounded tens of thousands of people, further cranked up tensions, already at levels unseen since the Cold War.

The European Union immediately responded to Putin’s latest step with a joint statement rejecting and condemning “the illegal annexation” of the four regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The EU’s 27 member states said they will never recognize the illegal referendums that Russia organized “as a pretext for this further violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Ukraine vowed to continue fighting, and Zelenskyy announced the “accelerated” NATO application, although it wasn’t immediately clear what that would mean, since it requires the unanimous support of the alliance’s members.

“De facto, we have already proven compatibility with alliance standards. They are real for Ukraine — real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction,” Zelenskyy said. “We trust each other, we help each other, and we protect each other. This is the alliance.”

The Kremlin ceremony came three days after the completion in occupied regions of Moscow-orchestrated “referendums” on joining Russia that were dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a bare-faced land grab held at gunpoint and based on lies.

But Putin, in a fiery speech at the ceremony, insisted that Ukraine must treat the Kremlin-managed votes “with respect.”

After the signing ceremony of treaties to join Russia, Moscow-installed leaders of the occupied regions gathered around Putin and they all linked hands, before then joining chants of “Russia! Russia!” with the audience.

Putin also railed at the West, cutting an angry figure as he accused the United States and its allies of seeking to destroy Russia. He said the West acted “as a parasite” and used its financial and technological strength “to rob the entire world.”

He portrayed Russia as being on a historical mission to reclaim its post-Soviet great power status and counter Western domination that he said is collapsing.

“History has called us to a battlefield to fight for our people, for the grand historic Russia, for future generations,” he said.

The separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine have been backed by Moscow since declaring independence in 2014, weeks after the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The southern Kherson region and part of neighboring Zaporizhzhia were captured by Russia soon after Putin sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Both houses of the Kremlin-controlled Russian parliament will meet next week to rubber-stamp the treaties for the regions to join Russia, sending them to Putin for his approval.

Putin and his lieutenants have bluntly warned Ukraine against pressing an offensive to reclaim the regions, saying Russia would view it as an act of aggression – threats that Moscow can back up with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear warheads.

The Kremlin-organized votes in Ukraine were an attempt by Putin to avoid more defeats on the battlefields that could threaten his 22-year rule. By setting Russia’s gains in stone, at least on paper, Putin seemingly hopes to scare Ukraine and its Western backers with the prospect of an increasingly escalatory conflict unless they back down — which they show no signs of doing.

Russia controls most of the Luhansk and Kherson regions, about 60% of the Donetsk region and a large chunk of the Zaporizhzhia region where it took control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

The push forward with annexation comes with the Kremlin on the verge of another stinging battlefield loss, with reports of the imminent Ukrainian encirclement of the eastern city of Lyman.

Retaking it could open the path for Ukraine to push deep into Luhansk, one of the regions Russia is absorbing.

“It looks quite pathetic. Ukrainians are doing something, taking steps in the real material world, while the Kremlin is building some kind of a virtual reality, incapable of responding in the real world,” former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said.

“People understand that the politics is now on the battlefield,” he added. “What’s important is who advances and who retreats. In that sense, the Kremlin cannot offer anything сomforting to the Russians.”

Russia on Friday also pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets and suicide drones, with one strike reported to have killed 25 people. The salvos together amounted to the heaviest barrage that Russia has unleashed for weeks.

They followed analysts’ warnings that Putin was likely to dip more heavily into his dwindling stocks of precision weapons and step up attacks as part of a strategy to escalate the war to an extent that would shatter Western support for Ukraine.

A Ukrainian counteroffensive has deprived Moscow of mastery on the military fields of battle. Its hold of the Luhansk region appears increasingly shaky, as Ukrainian forces make inroads there, with the pincer assault on Lyman. Ukraine also still has a large foothold in the neighboring Donetsk region.

In the Zaporizhzhia region’s capital, anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has repurposed as ground-attack weapons rained down Friday on people who were waiting in cars to cross into Russian-occupied territory so they could bring family members back across front lines, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said.

The general prosecutor’s office said 25 people were killed and 50 wounded. The strike left deep impact craters and sent shrapnel tearing through the humanitarian convoy’s lined-up vehicles, killing their passengers. Nearby buildings were demolished. Trash bags, blankets and, for one victim, a blood-soaked towel, were used to cover bodies.

Russian-installed officials in Zaporizhzhia blamed Ukrainian forces for the strike, but provided no evidence.

Russian strikes were also reported in the city of Dnipro. The regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said at least one person was killed and five were wounded.

Ukraine’s air force said the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa were also targeted with Iranian-supplied suicide drones that Russia has increasingly deployed in recent weeks, seemingly to avoid losing more pilots who don’t have control of Ukraine’s skies.

Zelenskyy held an emergency meeting of his National Security and Defense Council on Friday and denounced the latest Russian strikes.

“The enemy rages and seeks revenge for our steadfastness and his failures,” he posted on his Telegram channel. “You will definitely answer. For every lost Ukrainian life!”

With Ukraine vowing to take back all occupied territory and Russia pledging to defend its gains, threatening nuclear-weapon use and mobilizing an additional 300,000 troops despite protests, the two nations are on an increasingly escalatory collision course.

That was underscored by the fighting for Lyman, a key node for Russian military operations in the Donbas and a sought-after prize in the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in late August.

The Russian-backed separatist leader of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said the city is now “half-encircled” by Ukrainian forces. In comments reported by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, he described the setback as “worrying news.”

”Ukraine’s armed formations,” he said, “are trying very hard to spoil our celebration,”

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