BRICS SUMMIT/WAR IN UKRAINE: August 24, 2023
Confirmed: as expected (especially after words of Chinese President Xi Jinping that BRICS should expand) as of Jan 1 the bloc will welcome 6 new members - Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia (unexpected), Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “We welcome those new members; it’s a first phase and others will follow,” summit host and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said
“China is a friend Africa can count on,” Chinese President Xi Jinping tells fellow BRICS members. Boasts of bankrolling +6000 km of railways, +6000 km of highways and 80+ power facilities. No word on whether further dollars from Beijing will be tailored to prevent debt traps for recipients, especially on African continent
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, was the only speaker at BRICS Summit to have publicly referred to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as an “invasion.” Later, he cautioned the bloc against slipping towards a “multipolar world” and that strong multilateral institutions are needed. “We will not solve our common problems in a fragmented way.” The UN has been (legitimately) under fire here for slow pace of reform of UNSC and UN institutions
Dominating the headlines last night was the reported death of Wagner Group chief Yevgeni Prigozhin in a suspicious plane crush in Russia. As I told Sky News’ Saima Mohsin: the reported downing of the jet will be followed closely here on the African continent - not least by belligerent leaders (Wagner was most active in the CAR, Libya, Mali, & Sudan) who depended on the former crook and hotdog salesman for security, paramilitary assistance and disinformation campaigns. Also the Putin war machine is believed to have been massively subsidised by their earnings from blood diamonds, gold and other extraction activities such as logging
Investigators continued to sift through wreckage of a private jet belonging to the Wagner group early on August 24 after it crashed en route to St. Petersburg from Moscow, leaving no survivors.
On Ukraine's Independence Day, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed the contributions of all Ukrainians to the struggle to preserve their country's freedom in the face of Russia's unprovoked invasion as Moscow kept up its relentless attacks on civilian targets - RFE/RL
Ukraine shared dramatic footage of an attack on a Russian anti-aircraft system as reports emerge of a separate strike on an anti-ship missile launcher based in Russian-controlled Crimea. On Wednesday, Ukraine's military intelligence agency said it had destroyed a Russian S-400 air defense system in Crimea at around 10 a.m. local time at Cape Tarkhankut, on the western edge of the peninsula. "As a result of the explosion, the installation itself, the missiles installed on it and the personnel were completely destroyed," Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) said in a post on Telegram, publishing a video showing a large explosion followed by a dense cloud of smoke - Newsweek
General Sergei Surovikin, a top Russian officer who commanded the Ukraine war last year and who had ties to mutinous Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigzohin, has reportedly been relieved of his command of Russia’s Aerospace Forces.