The crash raises questions about the future of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private army, which fought alongside Russian troops in Ukraine before his June uprising.
No reports of explosions nor videos of the alleged attack in Moscow's center appeared until the Kremlin announced it, 12 hours after the purported strike.
In an escalating tit-for-tat, the United States forced Russia on Thursday to shutter its consulate in San Francisco and scale back its diplomatic presence in Washington and New York, as relations between the two former Cold War foes continued to unravel.
A career Russian diplomat, who gained the reputation of a hawk during his earlier tenure at the Defense Ministry, was named the new ambassador to the United States on Monday.
Seeking leverage with Russia, the Trump administration has reopened consideration of long-rejected plans to give Ukraine lethal weapons, even if that would plunge the United States deeper into the former Soviet republic’s conflict.
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