Top stories from the Russian press on Thursday, August 24th

Embraer crash site ERG-135© Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation/TASS

MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/. BRICS leaders welcome the group’s expansion on key day of the Johannesburg summit, while highlighting its peaceful aims and global focus; Wagner PMC founder Prigozhin’s plane crashes in Russia’s Tver Region; and Ukraine bans Western media access to front after reports on Kiev’s martial failures and huge losses. These stories topped Thursday’s newspaper headlines across Russia. 

Media: BRICS leaders welcome group’s expansion, highlight its peaceful aims, global focus

August 23 was the main day of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, as the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa took part in both a closed-door meeting and an expanded session. All five national leaders highlighted the group’s peaceful nature in their addresses to the summit’s plenary session, along with its readiness to contribute to global development. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who addressed the event via video link, pointed out that Moscow would be taking over the rotating one-year chairmanship of the BRICS group from Pretoria, Vedomosti writes.

READ ALSOBRICS leaders adopt declaration of their summit in Johannesburg — South Africa’s president

As expected, the potential expansion of the BRICS group has been the keynote theme of the Johannesburg summit, with decisions pending on dozens of formal membership applications from aspirant countries. Thus, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor announced that the summit’s participants had agreed on the group’s expansion.Increasing trade payments in national currencies will be BRICS’ economic priority during the Russian chairmanship next year, Russian International Affairs Council member Yaroslav Lisovolik noted. The expert pointed out that in order to ensure more effective use of national currencies, the parties needed to reduce customs barriers, among other actions.

None of the BRICS countries is happy with the West’s hegemony, Izvestia notes. The group’s foundational principle remains the desire to create a multipolar world order wherein the rules of the game will not reflect solely the interests of the United States and its allies. That said, the collective West can be expected to show some significant pushback in the near future.”Washington and its allies can take various specific steps, from denying the group’s subjectivity and expressing an unwillingness to deal with it, to exerting political, diplomatic and economic pressure on specific [BRICS] members (up to imposing sanctions),” Alexander Vorobyov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Center for Public Diplomacy and World Policy Analysis, pointed out.

The reason why the US and its allies don’t accept BRICS is because they are reluctant to allow others to compete with Western economic and political institutions and seek to preserve their own monopoly and control over the global economy and political processes. In addition, the fact that it is China that plays a leading role in BRICS, as well as in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, does not sit well with the West. Moreover, the group keeps promoting things that the US and its allies do not find palatable, from the very idea of multipolarity to efforts to create an international payments system that would undermine the dominance of the US dollar, the expert added.”

The West’s resistance can only partially slow down BRICS’ development and hinder the implementation of some of the group’s initiatives in the economic and political fields, but it cannot fully stop the group’s further development and prevent its role in international affairs from growing,” Vorobyov concluded. 

Kommersant: Wagner PMC founder’s plane crashes in Russia’s Tver Region, probe ongoing

A private aircraft carrying Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Uktin crashed in Russia’s Tver Region, north of Moscow. According to experts in investigating air traffic accidents, the crash could have been caused by an explosion in the tail section of the aircraft. The experts said that holes in the fuselage and wings suggest that the business jet may have been downed by a missile strike, Kommersant writes.

READ ALSOIN BRIEF: Prigozhin listed as passenger on private jet that crashed north of Moscow

Experts interviewed by the newspaper are inclined to believe that the crash could have been caused by a missile attack or an explosion on board rather than by a technical malfunction or human error. The fact that the business jet broke up in the air supports this version of events. Numerous holes similar to those caused by the striking elements of surface-to-air missiles can be seen on debris from the plane’s wreckage.

An official at the Western Regional Investigation Department of the Russian Investigative Committee told Kommersant that no evidence proving a terrorist attack had yet been found, so a criminal investigation has been launched under Article 263 of the Russian Criminal Code (“Violation of Safety Regulations and Rules for the Operation of Transport Vehicles Causing the Death by Negligence of Two or More People”).

A technical probe into the crash will be carried out by the Interstate Aviation Committee, while Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency has formed a commission to look into the files related to the plane’s pre-flight preparations and the actions of ground crews that serviced the aircraft.”

Official reports contain all the necessary commentary. It is now up to investigators to take action,” Alexander Yushchenko, member of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) and head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation’s press service, told Kommersant. “I believe that no one should draw hasty conclusions. Investigative teams are working and the [regional] governor is in control,” Yaroslav Nilov, deputy chief of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR)’s State Duma faction, told the paper.

State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov, who represents the New People party, said that the party would wait for the official findings of the investigation before commenting. The United Russia party also had no comment, highlighting the need to wait for the results of the official probe into the incident.

source https://tass.com/pressreview/1664503