Aleksei Bugayev, a former member of Russia’s national soccer team who played at Euro 2004, has been killed in the 34-month-old war in Ukraine, Russian media quoted his father and agent as saying on Sunday.

“Unfortunately, the news about Aleksei’s death is true. It happened today,” TASS news agency quoted the player’s father Ivan Bugayev as telling the Sport24 news outlet.

 Aleksei Bugayev – Russia Mandatory Credit: Action Images / Andrew Couldridge/File Photo 

RIA news agency quoted Bugayev’s agent, Anton Smirnov, as saying intense fighting had made it impossible to retrieve Bugayev’s body for burial.

Bugayev, dead at age 43, played two matches for the Russian national team in the 2004 European championship and also played for Moscow sides Torpedo and Lokomotiv as well as other provincial sides. He ended his career in 2010 at the age of 29.

In September Bugayev was sentenced by a court in southern Russia to nine and a half years in prison on drug trafficking charges.

He later declared his intention to sign up to fight in the Ukraine war. Russian authorities actively recruit in prisons for the conflict.

-Reuters

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What’s happened so far

• *Syria rebels claim Damascus
• *Ends Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year authoritarian rule 
• *Army officers and Russia say Assad fled the capital 
• *Thousands celebrate “Freedom” in Damascus 
• *PM says ready to cooperate with any leadership
• *Biden, Trump and UN – how the world reacted
• *Here’s a wrapup of Sunday’s fast-moving events

Who are Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels, led by Abu Mohammed al-Golani

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was al Qaeda’s franchise in the Syrian civil war.

Its commander is Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a previously shadowy figure who kept out of the public eye, even when his group became the most powerful faction fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

Today, he is Syria’s most recognisable insurgent, having gradually stepped into the limelight since severing ties to al Qaeda in 2016.

He rebranded his group and now emerging as a potential de facto ruler of Syria.

The transformation has been showcased since rebels led by Golani’s HTS, formerly known as the Nusra Front, captured Aleppo just over a week ago.

Golani featured prominently, sending messages and videos aimed at reassuring Syrian minorities who have long feared the jihadists.

“The future is ours,” he said in a statement read on Syria’s state TV, urging his fighters not to harm those who drop arms.

PR EFFORT?

“Golani has been smarter than Assad. He’s retooled, he’s refashioned, made new allies, and come out with his charm offensive” towards minorities, said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Aron Lund, a fellow at think-tank Century International, said Golani and HTS had clearly changed though still remaining “pretty hardline.”

“It’s PR, but the fact they are engaging in this effort at all shows they are no longer as rigid as they once were. Old-school al Qaeda or the Islamic State would never have done that,” he said.

DESIGNATED AS A TERRORIST BY US IN 2013

Before founding the Nusra Front, Golani had fought for al Qaeda in Iraq, where he spent five years in a U.S. prison.

He returned to Syria once the uprising began, sent by the leader of the Islamic State group in Iraq at the time – Abu Omar al-Baghdadi – to build up al Qaeda’s presence.

The United States designated Golani a terrorist in 2013, saying that al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria.

Turkey, the Syrian opposition’s main foreign backer, has also designated HTS as a terrorist group, while supporting some of the other factions that fight in the northwest.

RAPID EXPANSION

Golani gave his first media interview in 2013, his face wrapped in a dark scarf and showing only his back to the camera. Speaking to Al Jazeera, he called for Syria to be run according to sharia law.

Some eight years later, he sat down for an interview with the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service’s FRONTLINE programme, facing the camera and wearing a shirt and jacket.

Golani said the terrorist designation was unfair and that he opposed the killing of innocent people.

He detailed how the Nusra Front had expanded from the six men who accompanied him from Iraq to 5,000 within a year.

But he said that his group had never presented a threat to the West. “I repeat – our involvement with al Qaeda has ended, and even when we were with al Qaeda we were against carrying out operations outside of Syria, and it’s completely against our policy to carry out external action.”

MESSAGES TO MINORITIES

Golani fought a bloody war against his old ally Baghdadi after Islamic State sought to unilaterally subsume the Nusra Front in 2013. Despite its al Qaeda ties, Nusra was regarded as more tolerant and less heavy handed in dealings with civilians and other rebel groups compared to Islamic State.

Islamic State was subsequently beaten out of territory it held in both Syria and Iraq by an array of adversaries including a U.S.-led military alliance.

With the Sunni Muslim rebels now in control, the HTS administration has issued statements seeking to assure the Shi’ite Alawites and other Syrian minorities. 

Lund said HTS had displayed “logistical and governance capacity” by ruling its own territory in Idlib for years.

“They have adopted the symbols of the wider Syrian uprising… which they now use and try to claim the revolutionary legacy – that ‘we are part of the movement of 2011, the people who rose up against Assad, and we are also Islamists’.”

-Reuters

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) may have issues making up the numbers in the final competition of the African Nations Championship holding in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania from February 1 to 25, 2025.

Tunisia, one of the already qualified teams from the North African zone has pulled out.

According to information gathered this Thursday, Tunisia pulled out owing to the country’s busy schedule.

The decision was taken this Thursday, November 28, following the meeting between the FTF normalization committee, the Tunisian Football Federation, and club representatives.

Algeria, Libya and Egypt had previously withdrawn. Morocco will be featuring their Under-23 squad.This edition of the African Nations Championship is planned as a dress rehearsal for the trio of Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya – the three countries designated as joint hosts of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations.