Footage released showing Sergei Shoigu visiting troops in Ukraine as counterterror measures ended

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

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.

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?

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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”.

Driven by his feud with the defence minister, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion has petered out … for now

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

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.

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.”

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.

Russian president gives televised address as Yevgeny Prigozhin claims to have taken over city of Rostov

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

The Russian president has accused Yevgeny Prigozhin of “treason” after the warlord launched an uprising against Russia’s army, taking over at least one major Russian city as social media footage showed his mercenaries at the main headquarters of Russia’s southern military command.

In an emergency televised address on Saturday morning, Vladimir Putin said “the fate of our people is being decided”, accusing the Wagner group headed by Prigozhin of “armed mutiny” and vowing to “neutralise” the uprising.

Yevgeny Prigozhin dismisses justification for war that Kyiv was planning 2022 attack on Donbas and Crimea

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

The Wagner head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has accused Moscow’s leadership of lying to the public about the justifications for invading Ukraine, in the latest sign of conflict between Vladimir Putin’s government and one of his most important allies.

In an explosive 30-minute video posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin dismissed Moscow’s claims that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine in February 2022.

President admits Russia has lost 54 tanks in the opening assaults but insists Ukraine’s losses are greater

• Russian missile strike kills at least 10 in Kryvyi Rih

Vladimir Putin has denied Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s claims of early success in Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, which has seen Kyiv’s troops regain some territory, while admitting that Russia had lost 54 tanks in the opening assaults.

In a televised meeting with military bloggers, Russia’s president conceded that his forces had taken losses but insisted that Ukraine had lost 25% to 30% of its foreign-supplied military vehicles including 160 tanks.