Europe

MOSCOW, Aug 26 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin has ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state after a deadly plane crash believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the volatile chief of the mercenary group.

Putin signed the decree bringing in the change with immediate effect on Friday after the Kremlin said that Western suggestions that Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an "absolute lie". The Kremlin declined to definitively confirm his death, citing the need to wait for test results.

KIEV, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Three pilots were killed after two L-39 military trainer jets collided in the sky over Ukraine's northern Zhytomyr region, the country's Air Force said Saturday in a statement on Telegram.

The crash took place on Friday, when two aircraft were performing a combat task, the statement said.

The regional prosecutor's office launched criminal proceedings into the crash on charges of violation of flight rules, said the Prosecutor General's Office.

An investigation into the collision is underway.

KIEV, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine on Saturday denounced the plans of five EU countries to extend Ukrainian grain import ban, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.

Those countries, including Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, have sought to extend the import ban on Ukrainian grain, so as to protect their own agricultural sector.

LONDON (AP) — The head of trustees at the British Museum said Saturday that the museum has recovered some of the 2,000 items believed to have been stolen by an insider, but admitted that the 264-year-old institution does not have records of everything in its vast collection.

Chairman of trustees George Osborne acknowledged that the museum’s reputation has been damaged by its mishandling of the thefts, which has sparked the resignation of its director and raised questions about security and leadership.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces struck a cafe in a key front-line area in northeastern Ukraine Saturday, killing two civilians and wounding a third, regional officials said.

The shelling near the city of Kupiansk came as U.K. officials said that Russia may try to retake the area, which was captured by Kyiv in a lightning counteroffensive last September after more than six months of Russian occupation. Fierce fighting there earlier this month prompted mandatory evacuations and fears of a second Russian takeover.

Russia (AP) —The Wagner Group’s presence extends from the ancient battlegrounds of Syria to the deserts of sub-Saharan Africa, projecting the Kremlin’s global influence with mercenaries accused of using brutal force and profiting from seized mineral riches.

But that was under Yevgeny Prigozhin, who in what may have been his final recruitment video, appeared in military fatigues and held an assault rifle from an unidentified dry and dusty plain as he boasted that Wagner was “making Russia even greater on all continents and Africa even more free.”

GENEVA (AP) — FIFA suspended Spanish soccer federation president Luis Rubiales from office on Saturday while its disciplinary committee investigates his conduct at the Women’s World Cup final, which included kissing a player on the lips without her consent.

The ruling comes six days after Rubiales was accused of becoming a national embarrassment in front of a global audience at the final in Sydney, Australia — overshadowing the enormous accomplishment of Spain women’s first World Cup title.

MINSK, August 25. /TASS/:  There is no reason for the West to be concerned about the drills the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is holding in Belarus from September 1 through 16 because these are scheduled exercises, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday.

GORKI, August 25. /TASS/: The decision to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was not an easy one to make, but it ensured peace in the Caucasus, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said at a meeting with the heads of the two republics - Aslan Bzhania and Alan Gagloyev.

MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/: Russian air defense systems operate quite effectively in repulsing Ukrainian drone attacks, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

"This activity was before as well. All the relevant air defense systems operate quite effectively," the Russian presidential spokesman said, responding to a question about whether the Kremlin and the head of state, in particular, were worried about increasingly frequent Ukrainian drone attacks.