Russia

• Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and other members of Wagner's top brass were killed by an apparent explosion aboard their Embraer Legacy 600 private plane over Russia.
• Western officials believe the plane was sabotaged, and many had expected a fate like this to befall Prigozhin since he led a mutiny against Pres. Putin's leadership in late June.
• Putin coyly offered his "most sincere condolences to the families of all the victims" - adding, "it's always a tragedy" - but he also cast a shadow on Prigozhin's legacy by calling him "a man with a difficult fate" who "made serious mistakes in life."
• Russian media sought to divert attention away from Prigozhin's murder and instead featured news from the BRICS summit in South Africa.
• Separately, Sergei Surovikin - the general who led Russia's air and space forces - was formally dismissed from his command. Surovikin hadn't appeared in public since the Wagner mutiny and there was speculation his career was on the rocks because of his closeness to Prigozhin.
• A Russian court extended the detention of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich by three months: from Aug. 30 to Nov. 30. Russia is likely seeking to buy more time to lock in a prisoner swap for Gershkovich, who the U.S. says is wrongfully detained.

• Norway followed Denmark and the Netherlands in committing to give Ukraine F-16s.
• The U.S. said it could start its first one-year F-16 training program for Ukrainian pilots in September - although Ukraine has only identified a handful of candidates with strong enough English to join the program.
• Ukrainian special forces briefly landed in Crimea and clashed with Russian troops there. The landing point in Crimea is around 100 miles (160 km) from the closest Ukrainian territory, so this incursion shows Ukraine is improving its ability to launch distant attacks.
• Ukraine claims a Russian helicopter pilot defected by flying his Mi-8 into Ukraine with unsuspecting crew - who panicked when they found out where they'd landed and were subsequently shot as they tried to flee. Russia acknowledges losing the helicopter but says its pilot was tricked into accidentally landing in Ukraine.

• The BRICS club of fast-growing developing nations invited six more countries to join its ranks in 2024: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
• Iran's inclusion adds to the group's geopolitical positioning as a counterweight to the U.S.-led world order - but some analysts think it will muddle the group's common objectives and dilute its effectiveness.

• Niger's junta responded to ECOWAS's authorization of a standby intervention force by authorizing its own anti-intervention force consisting of troops from neighboring fellow military governments in Burkina Faso and Mali.
• Like the ECOWAS force, Niger's pro-coup counterforce won't deploy yet - if ever - and is primarily intended to signal combat readiness without actually starting the fight.

• North Korea tried for a second time to launch a military reconnaissance satellite - but failed for a second time.

• Russia's Deputy Defense Minister, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, met with eastern Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi on Thursday, following a technical meeting between the two sides the day before.
• They reportedly discussed how Russia can help Haftar's eastern armed forces fight "terrorism and transnational crimes."

• Japan started releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean Thursday. Critics opposed the move - and China even banned the sale of all Japanese seafood because of it - but testing shows the wastewater has lower levels of radioactive tritium than the WHO suggests for drinking water (China's ban is clearly based on politics rather than facts: China's own nuclear plants regularly release wastewater with much higher tritium levels).
• Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned to Thailand after 15 years in exile avoiding charges of corruption, and he was promptly arrested upon his return (he denies wrongdoing).
• India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon, following failed Israeli, Japanese, Russian, and Emirati missions. The Chandrayaan-3 - which cost less to build and send to space than the 2013 astroflick Gravity cost to film - will study possible water ice on the moon.