The trip and summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin received global attention since the leader seldom leaves his country and drew concerns over possible arms trade and technology transfer with Russia.

The vote across Russia and in the annexed regions for Putin's United Russia party has delivered on the Kremlin's long-repeated domestic message that Putin is by far the strongest guarantor of stability.

Breaking his silence, Putin described Prigozhin as a talented businessman whom he had known since the 1990s and said the investigation into the crash would take time.

Navalny, Putin's best-known critic, is serving sentences totalling 11-1/2 years in a penal colony on fraud and other charges he says were trumped up to silence him.

South Africa is due to host a summit of the BRICS club of nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – next month, which all of the heads of states of those countries are scheduled to attend.

South African officials has said the BRICS countries were considering moving the summit to China, which is not a member of the international court.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had earlier defended his aborted mutiny as a bid to save his mercenary outfit and expose the failures of Russia's military leadership – but not to challenge the Kremlin.

Biden offered a cautious assessment of unfolding events in an attempt to avoid inflaming tensions with nuclear-armed Russia while he offered firm support for Ukraine in its bid to turn back Russian invaders.

South Africa would theoretically be required to arrest Putin under the warrant issued in March by the court, which accused him of the war crime of forcibly deporting children from Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine.

A criminal case was opened in October against Irina Tsybaneva, who investigators say placed the note in a city cemetery earlier that month.

The men, who cannot be identified under Swiss reporting restrictions, were found guilty at a hearing at Zurich District Court and were given suspended fines totaling hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs.

Mikhail Abdalkin was convicted for a stunt, which he filmed and posted on social media, based on a Russian saying that someone who has been strung along or deceived has had noodles hung on their ears.