Witnesses say Jetline ride, which reaches 55mph and heights of 30 metres, partly left the tracks
One person has been killed and nine injured, including children, in a rollercoaster accident at an amusement park in Stockholm.
Witnesses said the Jetline ride at the Gröna Lund theme park had partly derailed during a ride on Sunday, sending people crashing to the ground.
Continue reading...Disparity between rescue responses has sparked debate in Pakistan about double standards
Anees Majeed, who lost five relatives in the boat that sank off Greece on 14 June, watched in disbelief and growing anger as a frantic, multimillion-dollar rescue effort played out for five other men lost at sea last week.
Like thousands of others across Pakistan, Majeed, a law student from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, grieved at funeral prayers without a body to bury. At least 350 Pakistani citizens were on the overcrowded craft, the interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, confirmed on Friday.
Continue reading...Newspapers around the world raced to cover fast-moving events inside Russia, with many assessing what it could mean for Vladimir Putin
The extraordinary uprising by the Wagner mercenary force so crucial to Vladimir Putin’s war machine in Ukraine has dominated headlines around the world and raised question marks about the Russian president’s grip on power.
The Sunday Times said “Putin humiliated by mutiny” alongside a main picture showing Wagner mercenaries training their rifles on the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, the southern Russian city key to the invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin agrees to call off march on Moscow and leave Russia in deal brokered by Belarus
In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had called off his troops’ march on Moscow and ordered them to move out of Rostov. Under a deal brokered by Belarus, Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and move to Belarus. He will not face charges and Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion will not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.
In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”. “Now the moment has come when blood can be shed,” he said. “Therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one side, we will turn our convoys around and go in the opposite direction to our field camps.”
The Wagner leader was later pictured leaving the headquarters of the southern military district (SMD) in Rostov, which his forces had occupied on Saturday. Wagner forces also shot down three military helicopters and had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, before they were called back.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.
Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin. He appeared on television earlier on Saturday in an emergency broadcast, issuing a nationwide call for unity in the face of a mutinous strike that he compared to the revolution of 1917. “Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” he said.
Putin reportedly took a plane out of Moscow heading north-west on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.
Before the Belarus deal was announced, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that: “Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Whoever throws hundreds of thousands into the war, eventually must barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.”
Ukraine’s military said on Saturday its forces made advances near Bakhmut, on the eastern front, and further south. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said an offensive was launched near a group of villages ringing Bakhmut, which was taken by Wagner forces in May after months of fighting. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, commander of the southern front, said Ukrainian forces had liberated an area near Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.
Continue reading...In the southern Russian city, the Wagner group boasted of taking key buildings without firing a shot amid an uneasy calm
As forces from Wagner occupied key buildings in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don in Russia on Saturday, some local residents met them as heroes, bringing them water and sweets even as Russian president Vladimir Putin decried their armed insurrection as a “stab in the back”.
“Finally, we can welcome them home,” said Evgeny, 36, a supporter of the war who has been among those crowdfunding and ferrying goods into occupied Ukraine. “The army has been fighting incorrectly from the beginning and they put too much [pressure] on these guys. In Bakhmut, everywhere. And you see what happens? Our own army is trying to stop us from winning this war.”
Continue reading...Official TV usually ignores inconvenient news – during the 1991 coup attempt it showed a tape of Swan Lake. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s action was different
Russians who watched television on Saturday actually saw the reports about the attempted coup, as state news agencies covered the armed insurrection led by Yevgeny Prigozhin while downplaying the potential chaos threatening Russia.
Prigozhin’s 24-hour uprising was perhaps the most direct internal threat to the Kremlin since the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, when communist hardliners detained Mikhail Gorbachev and sought to seize control of the country.
Continue reading...Kyiv’s long-awaited counter-offensive has been slow, but a mutiny in the Russian lines looked like changing it all
When news of a potential civil war in Russia circulated across the country, Ukrainians struggled to believe it was real. But by Saturday morning, as footage was shared online showing the Wagner mercenary troops with their tanks and armoured vehicles advancing towards Moscow, millions were glued to their mobile phones.
The Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has since called off the advance, but for 24 hours, Ukrainians dared to dream that the warlord’s action could be the fatal blow in the war.
Continue reading...Ukraine said Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising reflected Russia’s ‘full-scale weakness’ as western allies watched closely
As Vladimir Putin responded with ire and defiance to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising, later halted by the Wagner chief to avoid “Russian bloodshed”, world leaders closely watched the biggest challenge yet to the Russian president’s decades-spanning rule.
Ukraine
Continue reading...Russian president gives televised address as Yevgeny Prigozhin claims to have taken over city of Rostov
The Russian president has accused Yevgeny Prigozhin of “treason” after the warlord launched an uprising against Russia’s army, taking over at least one major Russian city as social media footage showed his mercenaries at the main headquarters of Russia’s southern military command.
In an emergency televised address on Saturday morning, Vladimir Putin said “the fate of our people is being decided”, accusing the Wagner group headed by Prigozhin of “armed mutiny” and vowing to “neutralise” the uprising.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy aide claims Ukrainian counteroffensive intensified internal divisions between Moscow and paramilitaries
Glued to their mobile phones, millions of Ukrainians spent a sleepless night on Friday, after the head of the Wagner mercenary group declared war against his rivals in the Russian military, sparking unprecedented political turmoil in Moscow.
“Events are developing according to the scenario we talked about all last year,’’ said Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “The start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive finally destabilised the Russian elites, intensifying the internal split that arose after the defeat in Ukraine. Today we are actually witnessing the beginning of a civil war.’’
Continue reading...Images of tanks in streets of Moscow evoke memories of a faltering Soviet Union’s final months in 1991
For months Yevgeny Prigozhin has theatrically railed against Russia’s military leaders. He has lambasted the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and commander in chief, Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of bungling and incompetence over the war in Ukraine.
In one video Prigozhin blamed Moscow for the deaths of soldiers from his Wagner mercenary unit. Their bodies were piled up behind him. In a letter, he challenged Shoigu to visit the bloody Ukrainian frontline for himself, where Wagner troops have been fighting and dying in the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Luke Harding’s “Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival” is published in paperback by Guardian Faber
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war in our new live blog
Russian security services have moved swiftly against the Wagner boss,
denouncing Prigozhin for “treachery” and ordering the mercenary
group’s fighters to detain their commander.
The defence ministry also published videos with several senior
military generals who urged Prigozhin to stop what one commander
described as a “coup.”
Boat capsized in strong winds with most passengers feared dead, according to four survivors cited by migrants’ organisation
Thirty-seven people are missing after their boat capsized between Tunisia and the Italian island of Lampedusa, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday, citing an account by four survivors of the shipwreck.
The UN agency said the survivors, all from sub-Saharan Africa, arrived on Lampedusa late on Thursday, having been rescued from the shipwreck by another vessel.
Continue reading...FSB opens criminal case after Yevgeny Prigozhin accuses Russia’s military of rocket attack and says ‘evil’ leadership must be stopped
Russia’s FSB security service has opened a criminal case for armed mutiny against Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin after the mercenary chief accused the Russian military of targeting his forces and vowed to “destroy” his rivals.
In an extraordinary series of audio clips released late on Friday, Prigozhin claimed that a Russian rocket attack had killed scores of his fighters, vowing to take “revenge” and “stop the evil brought by the military leadership of the country”.
Continue reading...Spanish and Moroccan authorities blamed for 12-hour delay after up to 60 people seen stranded en route to Canary Islands
Spain’s public ombudsman has begun an investigation into why as many as 60 people stranded on an inflatable boat bound for the Canary Islands had to wait more than 12 hours to be rescued, leading to the loss of at least 35 lives, among them a child.
Passengers on the boat – which got into difficulties off the coast of Western Sahara on Tuesday afternoon – appealed for help, but a Moroccan rescue boat did not appear until the following day, when it picked up 24 people.
Continue reading...Yevgeny Prigozhin dismisses justification for war that Kyiv was planning 2022 attack on Donbas and Crimea
The Wagner head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has accused Moscow’s leadership of lying to the public about the justifications for invading Ukraine, in the latest sign of conflict between Vladimir Putin’s government and one of his most important allies.
In an explosive 30-minute video posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin dismissed Moscow’s claims that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine in February 2022.
Continue reading...Countries in debt distress thrown financial lifeline but critics say measures fall short of what is needed
Poorer countries struggling with a growing debt crisis were thrown a lifeline at a global finance summit in Paris but the plans still fell short of the debt forgiveness programme that some had hoped for.
Progress was made on reforms that would help address the climate emergency, as nearly 40 world leaders and the heads of global institutions met in Paris for the summit, which ended on Friday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Head of ground forces says ‘everything is still ahead’ in counteroffensive against Russia
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces has confirmed for the first time that the main force of his offensive reserve is yet to be committed into battle with Russia, saying: “Everything is still ahead.”
In an exclusive interview from a military base in east Ukraine, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi spoke of the stresses and difficulties of the fight, with Moscow launching its own offensive efforts in recent days.
Continue reading...Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-installed governor of the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, says Chongar bridge would be closed for around 20 days. This live blog is now closed
Ukraine’s armed forces have stopped a Russian offensive in the east of the country towards the cities of Kupiansk and Lyman, a senior defence official has claimed.
The deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television: “We had very fierce battles in the Kupiansk and Lyman directions, but our soldiers stopped the enemy there.”
Continue reading...Statues were unearthed last year in what was a place of worship for both the Etruscans and Romans
A trove of bronze statues buried by mud and boiling water for thousands of years before being found in the ruins of a network of ancient thermal springs in a small town in Tuscany are going on display in Rome.
The 24 bronzes, mostly dedicated to the gods, are the largest discovery of their kind in Italy and were unearthed last year in the ancient springs of San Casciano dei Bagni, in what used to be a place of worship for both the Etruscans and Romans.
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