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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that he he warned the Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to "watch out" for threats to his life before the plane crash said to have killed him. Mr Lukashenko helped broker a deal between Mr Prigozhin and the Kremlin that ended an attempted mutiny by Wagner forces against Moscow in June – an uprising that marked the most significant challenge to Mr Putin's authority in more than two decades in power. Two months to the day after that revolt was halted, with fighters 125 miles from the Russian capital, a plane believed to be carrying Mr Prigozhin and a number of other members of Wagner's senior leadership crashed on Wednesday evening. Mr Putin had called the Wagner mutiny treason, and had initially vowed to crush it, and a number of world leaders have suggested that he would not let the embarrassment of that incident stand. Mr Lukashenko said on Friday that Mr Prigozhin had twice dismissed concerns raised by the Belarusian leader about possible threats to his life. Mr Lukashenko said that during the mutiny he had warned Mr Prigozhin that he would "die" if he continued to march on Moscow, to which he said Mr Prigozhin had answered: "'To hell with it - I will die'." Then, Mr Lukashenko said, when Mr Prigozhin and his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, who was also listed as a passenger on the plane which crashed, had come to see him, he had warned them both: "Lads – you watch out". Mr Lukashenko said that the Wagner leader had never asked him for security guarantees. "I don't have to ensure Prigozhin's safety... the conversation was never in that vein." It was not exactly clear from Mr Lukashenko’s words, which were reported by state news agency BELTA, when that conversation took place, Reuters reports. Mr Lukashenko has previously claimed that he persuaded Mr Putin not to "wipe out" the Wagner leader. US officials, speaking to American media, have suggested that a preliminary US intelligence assessment concluded the plane was downed by an intentional explosion. One of the US and Western officials who described the assessment to the Associated Press said it determined that Mr Prigozhin was “very likely” targeted and that the explosion falls in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.” The Kremlin rejected that assessment on Friday, falling back on a regular refrain for Moscow that it is the West that are the root of the problem. “Right now, of course, there are lots of speculations around this plane crash and the tragic deaths of the passengers of the plane, including Yevgeny Prigozhin,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call with journalists. “Of course, in the West those speculations are put out under a certain angle, and all of it is a complete lie,” he claimed. On Thursday, Mr Putin appeared to eulogise Mr Prigozhin, calling him a “great businessman”. But he also said that the the Wagner leader had made “serious mistakes” in his life and had a “complicated fate”. A close ally of Mr Putin, the Belarusian president said that he believed the plane crash was “just too rough and unprofessional a job” for the Russian leader to be involved. “I know Putin: he is calculating, very calm, even tardy,” Lukashenko said. “I cannot imagine that Putin did it, that Putin is to blame.” The jet crashed soon after taking off from Moscow for St. Petersburg, carrying Mr Prigozhin, six other Wagner members and a crew of three, according to Russia's civil aviation authority. Rescuers found 10 bodies, and Russian media cited anonymous sources in Wagner who said Mr Prigozhin was dead. As part of the deal to end June's mutiny, Mr Prigozhin was due to set up in Belarus, with any Wagner fighters that wanted to join him. While the mercenary leader appeared to be able to travel freely, thousands have his fighters have travelled to Belarus, and have been training Belarusian soldiers near the border with Nato-member Poland. Warsaw has moved thousands of its own troops to its border in response. Britain's Ministry of Defence said on Friday that it was "highly likely" Mr Prigozhin was dead and that his death "would almost certainly have a deeply destabilising effect" on Wagner, with the reported deaths of Mr Utkin and logistics chief Valery Chekalov compounding a "leadership vacuum", Mr Lukashenko said Wagner fighters would remain in Belarus. "Wager lived, Wagner is living and Wagner will live in Belarus," the president said. "The core remains here." "As long as we need this unit, they will live and work with us," he said. Elsewhere, on the battlefield in Ukraine – which has been subject to Russian invasion for 18 months – there was a significant attack on Russian-occupied Crimea involving dozens of drones. Russia's Defence Ministry said that 42 drones had been shot down over Crimea and 73 as a whole across across the last 24 hours. The attacks were the latest in a surge of similar incidents in recent weeks. Ukraine has said that destroying Russia's military infrastructure helps a counteroffensive than Kyiv began in June. President Volodymyr Zelensky told an international conference this week that Kyiv would "de-occupy" Crimea. Ukrainian military intelligence said it had assisted the navy this week in a "special operation" in which they landed units on the western tip of Crimea, had a firefight with Russian forces and raised a Ukrainian flag. Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary What next for the Wagner Group in Russia? Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin? Wagner chief presumed dead in plane crash What is the Wagner mercenary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin?

(This story contains language that readers may find offensive in paragraph 5) MOSCOW Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of

Donald Trump is appealing the verdict in the E Jean Carroll case after he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Ms Carroll was awarded $5m earlier this week by the jury in the civil trial in Manhattan. The appeal was filed not long after Judge Lewis Kaplan entered the jury’s verdict in the case, according to CNN. Ms Carroll, an author and magazine journalist, claimed in the trial that Mr Trump raped her in a dressing room at the Berghof Goodman department store in the mid-1990s. Mr Trump has consistently denied the allegation. The Trump legal team filed the notice of appeal in the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. The notice was filed only hours after Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the civil trial, wrote a ruling in support of the jury’s verdict, ordering the former president to pay the full $5m. The Trump legal team previously indicated that they would appeal the case. Ms Carroll argued that Mr Trump raped her and that he then defamed her when he rejected her claim and said she made up the story to sell books. The jury awarded Ms Carroll about $2m for the civil battery claim in relation to the sexual assault and about $3m for the subsequent defamation. The jury didn’t find Mr Trump liable for rape. While Ms Carroll testified extensively in the trial, Mr Trump didn’t attend. The twice-impeached ex-president mocked Ms Carroll at the CNN town hall that aired just a day after the verdict. The town hall has been criticised as divisive and even being “a volcano of bulls***” by commentators who accused the network of providing Mr Trump with a platform for airing several dubious claims. Mr Trump described Ms Carroll as a “whack job” and called the trial “rigged”. He was asked what he would tell voters who said the verdict disqualifies him from being president. “Well there aren’t too many of them because my poll numbers just came out – they went up,” Mr Trump said to the crowd, which, according to CNN, was composed of Republicans and undecided voters. The former president also called Ms Carroll’s allegations a “made-up story”. “I swear on my children, which I never do, I have no idea who this woman – this is a fake story, a made-up story,” he said. Mocking her, he said he was too famous to hang around department stores. Ms Carroll had told the jury in her testimony that she and Mr Trump had engaged in playful banter after a chance encounter at Bergdorf Goodman one evening in the mid-1990s. But after taking an escalator up to a deserted 6th floor to look for lingerie, Mr Trump led her to a dressing room, pushed her up against a wall and sexually assaulted her, she claimed. “I was very famous then and I owned the Plaza Hotel right next door and I owned the buildings around it – I’m not going into a dressing room of a crowded department store,” he said at the town hall. He also reiterated claims he did not know Ms Carroll at all, and called the trial “rigged.” “She wasn’t raped, OK? … And I didn’t do anything else either, OK, because I don’t know who the hell she is,” he said during the town hall, as the audience was heard laughing. On Thursday, Ms Carroll told The New York Times that she may sue Mr Trump again after his “vile” comments on CNN. Ms Carroll said that the former president’s comments were “just stupid, it’s just disgusting, vile, foul, it wounds people”. Her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, told the paper that “Everything’s on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it”. “We have to weigh the various pros and cons and we’ll come to a decision in the next day or so, probably,” she added. Read More Trump town hall – live: Trump to appeal E Jean Carroll verdict as she threatens to sue him again Trump may be sued again by E Jean Carroll after he called sexual abuse claim ‘fake’ at CNN town hall CNN faces backlash over chaotic Trump town hall event

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