Katharina Wagner on view. Wagner also took a bow after every performance, with audiences split between bravas and boos. On 1 September 2008, Katharina Wagner was named together with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier as the new director of the Bayreuth Festival by the Richard Wagner Foundation, succeeding their father Wolfgang. This followed an extended family dispute. They were chosen in preference to their cousin Nike Wagner and the Belgian opera director and administrator Gerard Mortier, who had placed a late joint bid for the directorship on 24 August. In October 2010, Wagner planned to visit Israel in order to invite the Israel
Wagner Group news site "The Insider" in early December 2017, veteran Russian officer Igor Strelkov confirmed that Wagner PMCs had returned to Luhansk from Syria. Strelkov had a key role in the annexation of Crimea by Russia, as well as in the early stages of the war in the east of Ukraine where he was one of the most senior commanders. He was pulled out of eastern Ukraine in August 2014, reportedly because the Russian authorities felt he was too much of a liability, after which he started opposing the Kremlin. In mid-May 2018, the SBU reported that about 100 Wagner PMCs