Moscow claims paramilitaries have agreed to hand over weapons after failed Rostov uprising
The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on his private jet on Tuesday, as Moscow claimed the paramilitary force had agreed to hand over its weapons after the group’s failed insurrection.
“Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said in comments first reported by Belta, the country’s national news agency.
Continue reading...Report details widespread and systematic torture with summary executions of more than 70 people
Russian forces have carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians detained in connection with their attack on Ukraine, summarily executing more than 70 of them, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
It interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the conflict, most of them by Russia. The vast majority of those interviewed said they were tortured and in some cases subjected to sexual violence during detention by Russian forces, the head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine said.
Continue reading...Russian president attacks ‘organisers of rebellion’ after Yevgeny Prigozhin also makes first public appearance since incident
Vladimir Putin has claimed that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising was “doomed to fail” and said the country showed “unity” in the face of a “treacherous” rebellion.
In an unscheduled late night televised address late on Monday, a visibly angry Putin said: “Any blackmail or way to bring confusion to Russia is doomed to failure … I made steps to avoid large-scale bloodshed.”
Continue reading...Russian president Vladimir Putin gives first address since mutiny; Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy claims advances ‘in all directions’
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces “advanced in all directions” on Monday following a meeting with his generals. “This is a happy day. I wished the guys [had] more days like this,” he added. His comments come after Ukrainian troops reportedly established a foothold near the Antonovsky bridge on the left bank of the Dnieper and retook the village of Rivnopil.
Zelenskiy also visited two areas along the frontline in eastern and southern Ukraine on Monday. The Ukrainian president handed out awards and posed with troops in video footage posted online, including a to unit heavily involved in holding off a Russian advanced in city Bakhmut. “Thank you for protecting our country, sovereignty, our families, children, Ukraine,” he said.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has met his generals and security officials following the mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner mercenary group. Putin used a Monday night address to accuse Ukraine and its western allies of wanting Russians to “kill each other” and claimed Prigozhin’s uprising was “doomed to fail”, adding that the country showed “unity” in the face of a “treacherous” rebellion. He said he granted amnesty to Wagner fighters so they could either return to their families, be absorbed into the Russian military or go to Belarus. Under an arrangement with the Russian government, Prigozhin has agreed to go into exile in neighbouring Belarus. Putin thanked security officials, including defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who Prigozhin had demanded be removed from his post.
Prigozhin released his first statement since the mutiny in which he denied his forces engaged in an attempted coup. In an 11-minute speech released via Telegram, Prigozhin said he was staging a protest at the treatment of his men and the conduct of the war with a “march for justice”. Wagner forces seized control of the military command in the southern city of Rostov and advanced within 200km of Moscow before pulling back. Prigozhin said his forces had set up artillery south of Moscow but decided that “a demonstration of protest was enough”.
The US has prepared a $500m military aid package for Ukraine. The package will deliver ground vehicles, including Bradley fighting vehicles and Stryker armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine as the country continues its offensive. The announcement follows a pledge by the Australian government to deliver a new $110m military assistance package in the next round of support for Ukraine, including vehicles, ammunition and humanitarian funding.
The defence ministry released footage on Monday that it claimed showed Shoigu “visiting the forward command post of one of the formations of the ‘western’ group of troops”. In the video, Shoigu is shown riding in a vehicle and arriving at a command post, where he listens to reports from officers and pores over a battlefield map. The video was released without sound and it was unclear when and where it was filmed, nonetheless, the footage showed tacit government support for Shoigu.
The aborted Wagner mutiny demonstrates that Moscow committed a strategic mistake by waging war on Ukraine, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday. “The events over the weekend are an internal Russian matter, and yet another demonstration of the big strategic mistake that President Vladimir Putin made with his illegal annexation of Crimea and the war against Ukraine,” he told reporters on a visit to Lithuania’s capital Vilnius.
Events over the weekend show that Russia’s military power is “cracking” and the “monster Putin has created is turning against him”, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs Josep Borrell has said. But he warned the instability in Russia is dangerous for Europe and must be taken into account in the coming days and weeks.
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda warned that Nato would need to strengthen its eastern flank if Prigozhin is exiled to Belarus. Following a state security council meeting on the mercenary group’s attempt to revolt against Russian military leadership, Nausėda said: “If Prigozhin or part of the Wagner group ends up in Belarus with unclear plans and unclear intentions, it will only mean that we need to further strengthen the security of our eastern borders.”
Continue reading...The short-lived rebellion by the mercenary group posed a serious challenge to Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia
Joe Biden has described the Wagner mercenary group’s brief mutiny against the Russian government as part of an internal power struggle, in which he said the US played no role.
“We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Biden said during an event at the White House on Monday. “We’re going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend’s events and the implications for Russia and Ukraine. But it’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”
Continue reading...Party to use opposition debate to call for workable proposals, saying Moscow must pay for destruction in Ukraine
Labour has made a partial break from the government over its Ukraine policy by demanding ministers come up with a plan to freeze Russian assets within 90 days. It is also demanding a deadline is set after which it will be a criminal offence to fail to disclose information about the whereabouts of Russian assets.
Labour, which has been reluctant to make public any differences with the government over the Ukraine war, has decided to put pressure on ministers, believing other countries are ahead of the UK with plans to seize Russian assets.
Continue reading...Mercenaries are ‘recovering, eating and repairing gear’, says source, as some Russian officials call for them to be disarmed
The Wagner group appeared to be continuing some of its operations on Monday, with recruitment centres open and fighters returning to their bases, as the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, made his first public comments since abandoning his armed mutiny.
In an audio recording, Prigozhin made no mention of his whereabouts or those of his fighters. Nor did he confirm any plans to exile himself to Belarus as had been announced as part of a settlement supposedly negotiated with the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko.
Continue reading...Pro-Russian Telegram channels say Ukrainians crossed Dnipro River in apparent advance towards Crimea
Ukrainian forces have reportedly crossed the Dnipro River and retaken territory on the left bank of Kherson province, in a move that paves the way for a future possible advance towards Crimea.
According to pro-Russian Telegram channels, Ukrainian troops have seized the village of Dachi, opposite the city of Kherson, and near the destroyed Antonivskyi Bridge. They have dug in and are seeking to establish a bridgehead, the channels said.
Continue reading...Josep Borrell says Putin is facing consequences of working with Wagner and Russian military power ‘is cracking’
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in Russia was “the monster acting against his creator”, the EU’s foreign policy chief has said.
“The political system is showing fragilities, and the military power is cracking,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Luxembourg as he arrived for a meeting with ministers from across the 27-member bloc.
Continue reading...Footage released showing Sergei Shoigu visiting troops in Ukraine as counterterror measures ended
Russia’s defence minister has appeared on state TV and emergency counterterrorism measures have been cancelled in Moscow and surrounding regions as the Kremlin seeks to restore calm following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny.
The defence ministry released footage on Monday that it claimed showed Sergei Shoigu “visiting the forward command post of one of the formations of the ‘Western’ group of troops”. In the video, Shoigu is shown riding in a vehicle and arriving at a command post, where he listens to reports from officers and pores over a battlefield map.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Over the weekend, Russian mercenary group Wagner marched on Moscow – only to turn back at the last moment. Why did one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies turn on him – and how was bloodshed averted?
Good morning.
Months of simmering tension between the Russian military and the Wagner group, a Russian mercenary organisation, came to the boil over the weekend after the group’s leader, hitherto Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed to have seized control of all military sites in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
NHS | Britons die sooner from cancer and heart disease than people in many other rich countries, partly because of the NHS’s lack of beds, staff and scanners, a study has found. The UK “underperforms significantly”, in part because the NHS has been weakened by years of underinvestment, according to the King’s Fund health thinktank.
Strikes | The government is prepared to overrule and block the pay rises that public sector review bodies recommend, a senior minister has confirmed, as unions threaten to strike over the issue.
Tax | More than 180,000 people on low incomes were fined for not filing a tax return on time last year, even though they received so little that they had no tax to pay in the first place. Many of these people, already in severe financial difficulties, misunderstood the initial fine and were then subjected to further fines and interest.
Greece | The New Democracy Party has won a comfortable victory in Greece’s second election in five weeks. The centre-right party won 40.5% of the vote, giving them an outright majority and their leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a second four-year term in office.
UK news | The musicians Fatboy Slim, Billy Bragg, and Olugbenga Adelekan of Metronomy – in a letter to home secretary Suella Braverman – have called for the government to allow the resumption of tests of confiscated pills at music festivals. A cross-party group of MPs have condemned the Home Office’s decision to block onsite drug testing as “shortsighted and dangerous”.
Continue reading...Beijing says it supports Russia in maintaining national stability, without explicitly referring to Vladimir Putin personally
Chinese officials have described an aborted rebellion by the Wagner group of mercenaries as Moscow’s “internal affairs”, while one state media mouthpiece dismissed the divisions in Russia as an “illusion” being exploited by the west.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko held talks in Beijing on Sunday after the most serious challenge to president Vladimir Putin’s grip on power since he came to power in 2000.
Continue reading...Secretary of state says mutiny may help Ukraine counteroffensive after Yevgeny Prigozhin calls off advance on Moscow
A day after renegade Wagner mercenaries almost sparked a civil war in Russia, the top US diplomat has said the uprising showed “real cracks” in Vladimir Putin’s government and may offer Ukraine a crucial advantage as it conducts a counteroffensive that could influence the outcome of the war.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the upheaval triggered by the aborted advance on Moscow by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries on Saturday was far from over. Neither Prigozhin nor Putin have been heard from since coming to a last-minute agreement on Saturday to avert clashes near Moscow between mercenaries and regular Russian troops.
Continue reading...Muscovites tell of shock and anxiety in city blindsided by Prigozhin’s short-lived revolt
A sense of normal returned to Moscow on Sunday after Yevgeny Prigozhin halted his assault on the Russian capital under a deal that defused an unprecedented challenge to the authority of president Vladimir Putin.
Security forces were seen disassembling barricades that had been hurriedly put up as Prigozhin’s Wagner troops approached along the M4 road from Rostov-on-Don, while workers began repairing roads leading up to the capital that were destroyed to stop the warlord’s advances before he ordered their withdrawal.
Continue reading...Driven by his feud with the defence minister, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion has petered out … for now
Last Thursday Yevgeny Prigozhin let rip on his favourite subject: the incompetence and vanity of Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Seated in front of a Wagner flag and sipping from a mug of tea, he called his bitter enemy a scumbag. Shoigu was a craven PR man and oligarch who had never held a weapon in his life, he raged.
The defence ministry had duped Vladimir Putin into last year’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin added. The decision had nothing to do with “denazification” or “demilitarisation”, or an imminent Nato attack on Russia – the official reasons for the war. It was all about Shoigu’s wish for a second “hero of Russia” medal, he claimed.
Continue reading...Newspapers around the world raced to cover fast-moving events inside Russia, with many assessing what it could mean for Vladimir Putin
The extraordinary uprising by the Wagner mercenary force so crucial to Vladimir Putin’s war machine in Ukraine has dominated headlines around the world and raised question marks about the Russian president’s grip on power.
The Sunday Times said “Putin humiliated by mutiny” alongside a main picture showing Wagner mercenaries training their rifles on the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, the southern Russian city key to the invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin agrees to call off march on Moscow and leave Russia in deal brokered by Belarus
In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had called off his troops’ march on Moscow and ordered them to move out of Rostov. Under a deal brokered by Belarus, Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and move to Belarus. He will not face charges and Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion will not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.
In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”. “Now the moment has come when blood can be shed,” he said. “Therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one side, we will turn our convoys around and go in the opposite direction to our field camps.”
The Wagner leader was later pictured leaving the headquarters of the southern military district (SMD) in Rostov, which his forces had occupied on Saturday. Wagner forces also shot down three military helicopters and had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, before they were called back.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.
Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin. He appeared on television earlier on Saturday in an emergency broadcast, issuing a nationwide call for unity in the face of a mutinous strike that he compared to the revolution of 1917. “Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” he said.
Putin reportedly took a plane out of Moscow heading north-west on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.
Before the Belarus deal was announced, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that: “Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Whoever throws hundreds of thousands into the war, eventually must barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.”
Ukraine’s military said on Saturday its forces made advances near Bakhmut, on the eastern front, and further south. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said an offensive was launched near a group of villages ringing Bakhmut, which was taken by Wagner forces in May after months of fighting. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, commander of the southern front, said Ukrainian forces had liberated an area near Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.
Continue reading...In the southern Russian city, the Wagner group boasted of taking key buildings without firing a shot amid an uneasy calm
As forces from Wagner occupied key buildings in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don in Russia on Saturday, some local residents met them as heroes, bringing them water and sweets even as Russian president Vladimir Putin decried their armed insurrection as a “stab in the back”.
“Finally, we can welcome them home,” said Evgeny, 36, a supporter of the war who has been among those crowdfunding and ferrying goods into occupied Ukraine. “The army has been fighting incorrectly from the beginning and they put too much [pressure] on these guys. In Bakhmut, everywhere. And you see what happens? Our own army is trying to stop us from winning this war.”
Continue reading...Official TV usually ignores inconvenient news – during the 1991 coup attempt it showed a tape of Swan Lake. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s action was different
Russians who watched television on Saturday actually saw the reports about the attempted coup, as state news agencies covered the armed insurrection led by Yevgeny Prigozhin while downplaying the potential chaos threatening Russia.
Prigozhin’s 24-hour uprising was perhaps the most direct internal threat to the Kremlin since the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, when communist hardliners detained Mikhail Gorbachev and sought to seize control of the country.
Continue reading...Kyiv’s long-awaited counter-offensive has been slow, but a mutiny in the Russian lines looked like changing it all
When news of a potential civil war in Russia circulated across the country, Ukrainians struggled to believe it was real. But by Saturday morning, as footage was shared online showing the Wagner mercenary troops with their tanks and armoured vehicles advancing towards Moscow, millions were glued to their mobile phones.
The Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has since called off the advance, but for 24 hours, Ukrainians dared to dream that the warlord’s action could be the fatal blow in the war.
Continue reading...