the DON JONES INDEX…
		GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 7/10/23... 14,996.51 7/3/23... 14,948.24
	6/27/13… 15,000.00
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 7/10/23... 33,734.88; 7/3/23... 34,407.60; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

LESSON for July 10, 2023 – “WAG the (HOT) DOG!”

As the world, the wanton and the worried all know by now, the still-mysterious march to Moscow of infamous (and still very wealthy) butcher Yevgeny Prigozin’s Wagner Group for the purpose of: 1) overthrowing Russian dictator Mad Vlad Putin, 2) influencing him to at least contemplate purging some of his most inept cronies from their high office in the regular Russian army, currently losing ground to the outnumbered and outgunned but desperate Ukrainian patriots, or 3) just personally getting the hell out of Ukraine, period, and going back to some place more pleasant (like Syria or Mali) – which trinity of objectives abruptly and also mysteriously collapsed after seven hours on Saturday, June 25th.

There was a little bit of fighting involved... Young Yeevey complained that regular army troops under one of those clumsy commanders (like Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of general staff Valery Gerasimov) had shelled his own private army of mercenaries, conscripts and convicts instead of the Ukrainians and so felt justified in shooting down a few attacking aircraft... some more public relations (Priggo exploiting his popularity with the masses in and around Rostov) and, finally, a deal that ostansibly sent him into exile in Belarus while his men were either pardoned, persecuted or just left to their own devices.

President Joe watched the malarkey unfold and the situation fester, and waited from the White House. President Xi watched and waited from Beijing. President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians took advantage of the chaos and confusion among the invaders to seize back a few more miles of (largely pockmarked, disoccupied and rubble-strewn) territory.

The usual suspects among the media, the diplomatic community and on barstools from Memphis to Minsk voiced their opinions on what had happened, what could have happened and what would happen; not a one of their surmises corresponding with any other view. The majority agreed that Putin had been a loser, Belorussian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko a strange and unexpect winner and Prigozhin himself either a mass murderer suddenly turned humanitarian (his expressed reason for making the deal with Vlad was that “he didn’t want to spill Russian blood”), a crafty and cunning politician pursuing an agenda still unknown, or an overreaching idiot destined for the slaughterhouse.

Perhaps America’s most cogent opportunist, C.I.A. honcho Bill Burns, has had the most to gain amidst what is called the West. Calling out the Ukraine war’s “corrosive effect” on Russian leadership in remarks to the Ditchley Foundation in England on July 1, he predicted that:. “Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression.” Consider how Prigozhin’s revolt might impact Russian thinking in the context of the CIA’s recent appeal to Russians for clandestine cooperation, Burns waxed cheerful - “(t)hat disaffection,” Burns adding, “creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us at (the) CIA.” (Just Security, July 5^th, Attachment One)

Two weeks after the supposed finale of the fiasco, situations are still up in the air, floating along on a cloud of lies and grievances with the buzzards and bobolinks, the Jet Blue tourist aircraft and Chinese weather balloons.

These myriad and sordid situations stemming from the prevented putsch, are not exactly resolved, but the lines of contention are coming into focus – although minority reports continue to lean into the future like the crumbling walls of pockmarked buildings against one another in Bakhmut. Perhaps the strangest, most contentious contention came from the Guardian U.K.’s Down Under correspondent Anthony Walbran, who sympathizes with China’s contention that the whole insurrectional insanity was “an illusion”; an “incredible sleight of hand by the Russian president” with Priggo as a co-conspirator in a coup against Lukashenko, aimed at conquering and absorbing the men from Minsk back into the USSR? (July 3^rd, Attachment Two)

“Having created the fiction that Prigozhin is acting independently and against elements of the Russian establishment and then duping the Belarusian leader into taking him in (Trojan Horse-style), the setup would be complete, with the added beauty that Putin has full deniability in the case of a failure in execution. It would also cast the earlier stationing of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus in a new light.”

Or, as another Gukster postulated, perhaps the “insurrection” was a feint to get Wagner troops into Belarus so they they could “attack Kiev from the north, catching Ukraine in a pincer movement?”

And what about those nukes? Head-scratchers in Washington were scratching their heads after Generous Vlad offered to supply Lukashenko with “tactical” nuclear devices, with our without conditions unknown… given Walbran’s belief that, while Lukashenko is loyal, the Belarusian people “have shown a preference for closer ties to Europe rather than Russia”.

Gregory Treverton, a “security scholar” and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the Obama administration contended, in an interview with Naomi Schalit of The Conversation (July 5, Attachment Three) that maybe Putin thought that… well, “this guy Progozhin got too big for his boots. He was helpful to Russia – not just in Ukraine, but in Africa. He’s now overstepped the line and therefore needs to be disciplined.” Otherwise, we are back to the late Cormac McCarthy’s observations about bad situations being preferable to worse ones.

“The U.S. would like Putin and Russia to behave better. On the other hand, we don’t want Russia to become a kind of lawless space to the east of Europe with nuclear weapons. The idea that you have a country coming apart, with the lawlessness of warlords, and all that in the presence of nuclear weapons – that seems to me to be one that does keep you up at night.”

On the other hand, retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt told the conservative journal Newsmax that, while it's “concerning that Prigozhin is in Belarus, where Putin has been shipping tactical nuclear weapons,” he did not go along with conspiracy theories, stating, rather, that the Wagner leader has "probably played out his course like a streaking comet across the sky." (June 28, Attachment Four)

And, you know, Treverton added, “if I were Progozhin, I’d be scared to death about possible attacks on my life.”

Given the history of Russians who’ve crossed Mad Vlad catching food poisoning or being poked with something sharp and toxic at the end of an umbrella, Prigozhin’s concern is justified. With the estimated 25,000 Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion likely to resent Prigozhin for putting them in their bind. “Prigozhin’s life is in danger from both Putin and his own guys because he set them up,” according to Tymofiy Mylovanov, President of the Kyiv School of Economics and an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (Time, June 26, 2023 6:01 PM EDT, Attachment Five). “All the prominent figures who challenged Putin in the past are either in exile or have been persecuted or killed.”

But Putin’s not out of the tundra, either… he’s likely to react by becoming “more paranoid, and even more repressive than in the past,” surmises another Time source, Martin Kragh, the deputy director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies. And the columnist Phillip Elliott, cites Time server W. J. Hennigan, who wrote that the threat of loose nukes is one that haunts Western policy wonks to no end; “the stuff of nightmares.” (Attachment Six)

Autocracy, at least, brings order. As Polish President Lech Walesa told George H.W. Bush during a 1991 period of uncertainty: “We are afraid of one thing in the Soviet Union—anarchy.”

This isn’t the first time Washington has faced deep uncertainty in Moscow that could upend the global order or the globe itself. Mikhail Gorbachev survived his 1991 coup attempt that found him locked in his dacha, cut off from the outside world with encircled troops, and pressured to resign for health reasons. Gorby prevailed after a few tense days in August—yet, by December of that year, was giving a farewell address and watching as the Soviet Union dissolved.

“That’s the thing about the internal threats, be they military or political,” Elliott contends. The public can see weakness when seemingly invincible figures stumble. Once the aura is pierced, things can go south quickly. No matter the form of government (and Elliott cites leaders in democracies like LBJ and Nixon, Carter after Irangate and Thatcher deposed by her own Tory parliamenteers), “wounded leaders often soon find themselves with a newly minted honorific: Ex-.

So far we have one Time columnist saying Priggy is doomed, another (Elliott) asking whether Putin will servive – now lets consider the both.

Contending that Yevgeny Prigozhin is a dead man walking… but so is Vladimir Putin… James Risen of the Intercept (June 25th, Attachment Seven) added: “(o)ne thing is clear: Prigozhin lost his nerve on Saturday. He had a golden opportunity to seize power at a moment when Putin was surprised and vulnerable. The Russian military had many of its resources in Ukraine rather than Russia, and Wagner’s heavily armed forces had at least the potential to outgun the remaining Russian security services guarding Moscow. Chechens?

But Prigozhin’s moment was fleeting. Now the odds are good that Putin will have his rival murdered. The Russian leader has had opponents thrown out of windows for far less. To think that Lukashenko, a Putin stooge, will protect Prigozhin in Belarus is madness. Moscow has a long reach; Putin has had plenty of opponents assassinated in the West, and Minsk, the capital of Belarus, might as well be a suburb of Moscow.

If Prigozhin believes Putin will abide by their deal, he isn’t thinking straight — which may be why he launched the coup attempt in the first place.

If it’s of any consolation to Priggy... after last week’s disappearance and sightings all over the world, including in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Lukashenko avers he no longer needs to watch his back (or the mustard on his hotdog).

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has said Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is in Russia - and Vladimir Putin will not "whack" him.

Mr Lukashenko said Prigozhin may be in St Petersburg or Moscow, and insisted he is "absolutely free", adding his Wagner troops remain at the camps where they had stayed before the group's aborted coup attempt last month.

"As for Yevgeny Prigozhin, he is in St Petersburg where he is this morning, maybe he went to Moscow, maybe somewhere else but he's not in the territory of Belarus", Mr Lukashenko said.

Answering a question from Sky's Diana Magnay, Mr Lukashenko said Prigozhin would not be "whacked". (7/6, Attachment Eight)

"What will happen to him next? Well, things happen in life. But if you think that Putin is so malicious and vindictive and that he will, to say in plain Russian, whack him somewhere tomorrow - no, this will not happen. It will not happen," Mr. Lukashenko said, praising his patron’s decency, mercy and hmanitarianism.

But if Young Yeevy’s junk is temporarily free of bad intentions from Mad Vlad, his property is not.

In a raid reminiscent of President Joe, Aygee Garland and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s invasion of former President Donald Trump posh Mar-a-Lago estate, Putins police raided the mansion that Prigozhin maintained in St. Petersburg, searching not only for incriminating documents, but for loot easily transportable.

A wardrobe stuffed full of wigs, gold bars and a stuffed alligator were among the many bizarre finds in photos and footage published by pro-Kremlin media outlet Izvestia and followed up by a mini-roundup of timelines and takeaways in the Independent UK (July 6^th, Attachment Nine).

A “Wigstock” extravaganza in Forbes (Attachment Ten) noted that Russian state television networks were increasingly critical of Prigozhin over the last week, according to the Washington Post, as some outlets featured leaked photos of the raid on Prigozhin’s home, which featured images of wigs, gold bars, a sledgehammer and a weapon stash.

The images were broadcast by the state-run Russia-1 network as an exclusive on Wednesday, according to NBC, as the network’s “60 Minutes” show mocked Prigozhin’s property while host Yevgeny Popov—who also suggested the Russian government was still investigating Wagner’s uprising—labeled Prigozhin a “traitor.”

Russian journalist Eduard Petrov was also critical of Prigozhin on the show, labeling Prigozhin a “fighter for truth with two criminal records” while criticizing Prigozhin’s wealth: “A fighter for justice had 600 million rubles.”

Images of Prigozhin wearing the wigs from his home had been leaked by Russia’s security services on social media earlier in the week, including photos of Prigozhin wearing fake beards.

“Officials are also said to have found assault weapons, ammunition and even a photograph allegedly showing the severed heads of the Wagner leader’s enemies,” the IUK disclosed.

Trump that, Trump!

The IUK’s dispatches also included calls from Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, calling for Russia to grant experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine for “the safety and security of all, including Russia”, disclosures of Zelenskyy meetings in Turkey and Bulgaria and a brittle Peanut Gallery including notes on the sinking value of the rouble against the “world of the yuan", speculation on the management change and revitalization of the St. Petersburg “troll factories” and on the mercenary leader’s closet of disguises.

Some of the few Prighozin supporters still willing to speak up after the failed coup alleged that the photos had been doctored, so as to humiliate their hero and resuscitate Putin. But, according to GUK’s Manisha Ganguly, (Attachment Eleven, Friday) the images leaked by Russian security services were consistent with one another and appear distorted due to being pictures of a digital screen.

Preliminary assessment indicates that the images were photographs of a digital device or screen such as a smartphone, due to the visible rainbow pixellation, Ganguly contended. “In the photos, the level of granular details such as the wrinkles on Prigozhin’s forehead and frown lines, appear to be consistent across all the photos, with additional detailing of a pimple in one.

“Alongside the selfies, it is also possible to match at least one of the wigs in the photos, a dark blond one, to the one lying in the cupboard in his mansion. The bad lighting, awkward and inconsistent selfie angles seem to suggest they might be authentic, although it is difficult to be sure.”

And, so, the circus rolled on.

“Now that Prigozhin's store of disguise kits, wigs etc have been made public, can't wait to see what Putin's disguise clothing looks like,” surmised a peanut called Bolbi (probably no relation to “Barbie”). “An ageing dictator in a pink dress and blonde wig doesn't quite cut it.”

Above and beyond the potential for abrupt gender neutrality, Newsweek’s David Brennan challenged the dictator’s masculinity after another quick, shady deal returned millions in gold, arms and (presumably) photos of severed heads to Prigozhin (Attachment Twelve) while the Institute for the Study of War's Wednesday bulletin said Prigozhin was being absolved "of financial responsibility for damages caused by the Wagner Group rebellion" in Rostov-on-Don, which local authorities have said cost around $1 million.

European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrel wrote this week that the Wagner conflagration shows that the Kremlin's quagmire in Ukraine "has weakened Vladimir Putin's regime far more than many observers had thought."

Robert Kaplan of the Foreign Policy Research Institute told Newsweek that Putin "is not acting like a normal dictator. A normal dictator would have arrested or relieved, or possibly even executed a pretender like Prigozhin months ago. Now, after calling Prigozhin a traitor, Putin has made a deal with him.

"Maybe this is because Putin desperately needs the Wagner Group. Maybe it's because Putin is unable to project-specific military and logistical power in southern Russia. Either way, it demonstrates how weakly institutionalized Putin's personalized state is, compared to that of his Soviet predecessors. A weak state means more unpredictable events lie in the future," Kaplan said.

But then again, Sad Vlad may just be marking time while he re-secures his domestic tranquility through force or bribery or just plain lies... pretending submission as we noted in last week’s DJI, Attachment Five from Time (replicated here as Thirteen). Time sought out Russophiles, Russophobes and Russophibes like Tymofiy Mylovanov, President of the Kyiv School of Economics and an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who believes the Wagner mercenaries are “likely to resent Prigozhin for putting them in their bind,” or Martin Kragh, the deputy director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, who predicted that Putin would “likely rethink allowing Prigozhin to live in quiet exile in Belarus” (or in Africa, Syria or back in the U.S.S.R.).

It’s obvious that Prigozhin’s life is in danger... and from numerous quarters... but Sad Vlad’s tenure on Earth is also at the highest rate of risk ever – not to mention his tenure in office. “Vladimir Putin survived the Wagner Group rebellion,” averred Time’s uber-columnist Phillip Elliott (Attachment Fourteen), but “history shows that doesn’t mean he’s safe.

Nor are the thousands, maybe millions, in danger, too, if intimations that a frustrated Russia is planning to blow up the Zaporizha nuclear power plant and engender a lethal plutonium cloud over the region. (GUK: Fri 30 Jun 2023 07.24 EDT, Attachment Thirteen)

An explosion in the cooling pond could lead to a partial nuclear meltdown similar to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the US state of Pennsylvania, Oleksiy Kovynyev, a former senior engineer, said. In this scenario, most radiation would be contained.

But he added: “Of course, if you are an absolute maniac and open the ventilation channels this would throw out radiation.” Kovynyev said the dry storage area at the plant contained 24 spent “fuel assemblies”, sealed in 120 “hermetic” steel casks.

“In a normal situation, they are absolutely safe. If you wanted, you could destroy them. You could shell several times. This could cause a nuclear accident with radiation release.”

Yes: far from the palace intrigues of Moscow and Minsk the war on the ground soldiers on. Ten days ago, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the top officer in Ukraine’s armed forces, said he needs more — of every weapon. And he told anyone who will listen, including his American counterpart Gen. Mark A. Milley, that he needs those resources now.

In a rare, wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post (June 30, Attachment Fourteen), Zaluzhny expressed frustration that, while his biggest Western backers would never launch an offensive without air superiority, “Ukraine still has not received the modern American-made F-16s, promised only recently, are not likely to arrive until the fall — in a best-case scenario.”

It “pisses me off,” Zaluzhny said, when he heard that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive in the country’s east and south has started slower than expected — an opinion publicly expressed by Western officials and military analysts and also by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Wagner fighters who do not want to stay in Russia or sign defense contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry will have the option to join Prigozhin in Belarus, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. But while some of the mercenaries might be leaving the battlefield, “where Ukraine’s commanders often praised their effective — albeit brutal — tactics,” Zaluzhny might have to consider a new, additional threat to his northern border if some of the fighters relocate there.

“I have a lot of fears, and Wagner is among them‚” Zaluzhny said. “And they’re not the only ones. If we start talking about it now, my head will spin. … Our task is to prepare for the worst and most possible scenarios. And we will try to minimize the possible consequences of what could be.”

And even as Prigozhin’s revolt was fading, Russia continued shelling civilians in Ukraine. Four children were among 11 people killed in a devastating Russian rocket attack on a packed pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.

Ukraine’s state emergency service said at least 56 people were injured, some critically, when two Iskander missiles slammed into the cafe in the city centre on Tuesday evening, when it was full of diners. The restaurant is popular with civilians and foreign journalists.

As firefighters were combing through the ruins in the hope of finding survivors buried beneath concrete debris, Kramatorsk’s mayor, Oleksandr Goncharenko, said the latest victim was a boy. Writing on Telegram, he said: “Rescuers pulled a boy’s body from the rubble.” (Guardian UK, Attachment Fifteen)

“Each such manifestation of terror proves over and over again to us and the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done – defeat and a tribunal, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” Zelenskiy said.

Of even more menacing aspect, he again claimed Russia may be planning to “simulate an attack” on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, claiming that Russian troops have placed “objects resembling explosives” on the roofs of buildings at the site, GUK also noted (Attachment Sixteen)

Zelenskiy’s warnings echoed comments he previously made at a joint news conference in Kyiv with the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. “There is a serious threat because Russia is technically ready to provoke a local explosion at the station, which could lead to a [radiation] release.”

Speculators have speculated that Ukraine’s position has either been enhanced or worsened by the aborted coup. Citing their interview with Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Newsweek (July Fifth, Attachment Seventeen) promoted the former. "Even if this attempted coup ultimately failed, Putin has suffered a serious loss of authority, with real consequences for the future," Borrell wrote in a blog, adding that the mutiny should not lead Europe to "slow down our support for Ukraine. On the contrary."

Vlad Mykhnenko, an expert in the post-communist transformation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at the University of Oxford, told Newsweek that despite all the rumors about the three cornered deal between Putin, Lukashenko and Prigozhin, the latter’s despised regular army General Sergei Surovikin's arrest, the Kremlin has attempted to squash any suspicion about the mutiny really being a "generals' Putsch", "whilst everyone understands no one was really trying to stop Prigozhin's convoy speeding to Moscow."

"And because the elites really know the reality, Putin's attempt to play 'nicely', rather than putting half a dozen of generals against the wall, is another sign of weakness."

Top Putin ally and Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov weighed in on the mutiny attempt on his radio show Polniy Kontakt (Full Contact) last week, saying that it has revealed information to the "enemy." He branded the rebellion as an act of treason that has caused colossal damage to Russia's reputation.

And Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest at Moscow's war in Ukraine, previously told Newsweek he believes Prigozhin's mutiny attempt will ultimately lead to Sad Vlad’s downfall.

An NPR timeline of last week’s events in Russia (July 3^rd, Attachment Eighteen) noted that the ruble had fallen to its lowest level against the dollar in more than a year as concerns “festered” over Russia's political and economic stability. On the other hand, MSNBC stated that Ukraine’s struggle against oligarchy will still be hard. “Corruption remains entrenched in powerful quarters, including all three branches of the Ukrainian government. The president’s office wields extensive informal power, which some top appointees use to control judicial institutions instead of to cement reform. Though the specialized anti-corruption agencies have been productive during the war, reputable reformers like former infrastructure minister Andriy Pivovarsky are being prosecuted even though they have not engaged in corruption. While Ukraine has improved on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, it is still ranked as the second worst country in Europe, better only than Russia.” (MSNBC, June 26^th, Attachment Nineteen) 

Russian media and the Kremlin appear to be escalating a smear campaign against Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group that led a brief uprising against Moscow last month, in an effort to discredit Prigozhin while praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian state television networks were increasingly critical of Prigozhin over the last week, according to the Washington Post, as some outlets featured leaked photos of Prigozhin’s home, which featured images of wigs, gold bars, a sledgehammer and a weapon stash. (Forbes, July 8^th, Attachment Twenty)

The images were broadcast by the state-run Russia-1 network as an exclusive on Wednesday, according to NBC, as the network’s “60 Minutes” show mocked Prigozhin’s property while host Yevgeny Popov—who also suggested the Russian government was still investigating Wagner’s uprising—labeled Prigozhin a “traitor.”

Russian journalist Eduard Petrov was also critical of Prigozhin on the show, labeling Prigozhin a “fighter for truth with two criminal records” while criticizing Prigozhin’s wealth: “A fighter for justice had 600 million rubles.”

Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of another state-run political talk show, accused Wagner and Prigozhin’s catering company on Sunday of receiving state funding while suggesting Wagner’s victory in Bakhmut—seen as a key city in Ukraine—was not important.

Images of Prigozhin wearing the wigs from his home were leaked by Russia’s security services on social media earlier this week, including photos of Prigozhin wearing fake beards.

“Coups are a tricky thing for an authoritarian. Address the nation too quickly and you are deemed panicked. Wait longer and you come over as indecisive. Putin waited 24 hours.” It is now clear why, contended Politico’s Leon Aron (June 26^th, Attachment Twenty One): Once you call it “treason” and threaten the mutineers with “tough” and “imminent” punishment, you’d better follow through. Putin likely hesitated, Aron surmised (before today’s report of more secret deals wheeling within secret deals) “because he doubted that his forces would follow those kinds of orders and he could look impotent as a result.”

(Or maybe the morning’s reportage that Wagner’s walkthrough included their passage and potential pilferage of Russian nuclear weapons storage depots – an outcome that would lead to... well... )

As disgruntlement spread even to Moscow, Putin... “an avid (and shamelessly mendacious) amateur historian who decries both the end of the Russian Empire and the collapse of the Soviet Union” saw residents of Rostov, instead of deploring the Wagner takeover, appearing in videos welcoming Prigozhin’s “musicians.” Instead of waving portraits of Putin and Russian flags, they brought the insurgents water and candy, so Tricky Vlicky even resorted to defending his regime by quoting Communist sources... echoing the last line in Pushkin’s tragedy Boris Godunov encapsulates a key condition of a successful rebellion: “Narod bezmolvstvuet.” The people are silent.

Which they were not, and may grow louder in disgruntlement.

Perhaps echoing the trials and tribulations of his great admirer, former President Trump, Russia’s near future seems “destined for more witch hunts and rumors, more jostling and infighting as factions and clans ponder how to ensure they don’t become casualties in Putin’s endgame,” predicted Politico’s Jamie Dettmer (July 5^th, Attachment Twenty Two).

So Vlad’s set his spin doctors to spinning grandiose fantasies of winning. Putin has apparently appeared in Dagestan, mingling with an adoring crowd in what Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described as an “astounding demonstration of support and happiness.”And he also delivered a speech in a square inside the Kremlin to 2,500 members of the military, security forces and the National Guard, thanking them for quelling the mutiny and saving Russia from chaos.

“The message being conveyed is that Putin is in control; that he never lost control, he’s loved, and he acted judiciously — allowing talks to conclude the mutiny without more bloodshed and then offering Prigozhin a way out with exile in neighboring Belarus.”

And even Putin’s people are wavering... a statement from the head of Buryatia Alexei Tsydenov being strikingly equivocal: “You know our people are worrying about their loved ones equally … no matter if they are listed in the Armed Forces … or Wagner. We are watching all your ups and downs equally,” he said.

But now, posits Dettmer, “the genie is back in the bottle. Or is it? Questions persist.”

Despite all the trappings of dictatorship, there are elections in Russia... and soon. Sham elections, to be sure, but who knows what malice lurks in the hearts of Russians – worried about their economy, their future, their children – and the litany of complaints is growing.

‘The Door Has Now Been Opened for Anyone to Challenge Putin,’ Yasmeen Serhan wrote for Time, back on June 22^nd, before Prighozin (Attachment Twenty Three), and, as evidence of discontent, she cited the travails of the military “recruiters” in hunting down draft dodgers, and having to use Wagner surrogates in hotspots from Africa to Syria. The regime’s image has been “totally destroyed,” Serhan wrote, Russia is like a prison yard. “It’s all based on brutality and respect. Putin was able to establish himself as the chief criminal in the prison yard by being so ruthless at the very beginning of his presidency, and that ruthlessness and that brutality allowed him to stay in power

“Putin has jailed Vladimir Kara-Murza for 25 years for giving a few speeches about human rights abuses in Russia. To have an actual rebellious traitor and to let him off is completely out of character. Why would Putin be so lenient?” Serhan asked.

There’s two reasons. One is that Prigozhin is the most capable fighter in all of Russia. He’s a killer, he’s ruthless, and he has every capacity to cause unheard-of hardships for Putin and everybody around him. Putin should be just as afraid of Prigozhin as Prigozhin should be of Putin.

The second thing is that Prigozhin continues to be a key man in Russia. Russia is so full of incompetency that the one person who emerged who was competent at military operations was Yevgeny Prigozhin. He was the one person that the Ukrainians respected on the battlefield and he runs 17 other military operations in Africa on behalf of the Kremlin or with his mercenary group. And so Prigozhin is both too ruthless to arrest and also too important to the overall foreign policy of Russia.

“Everyone is talking about Prigozhin needing to worry. I think Putin probably needs to worry more about Prigozhin than vice versa. Prigozhin is a trained, cold-blooded killer. Putin is a guy who hides in his bunker.”

RISING, FALLING and SHOOTING STARS

The object of Priggy’s disaffection, Russia defense chief Sergei Shoigu, has gone missing after what might have been his farewell speech (New York Post, Attachment Twenty Four) commending the “loyalty” of Russia’s armed forces in his first (and perhaps last) known public remarks on the Wagner Group uprising that sought his ouster. “This [was] an attempt to destabilize the situation in Russia on June 23-25,” Shoigu told military leadership on a conference call, according to a translation from Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

“These plans failed primarily because the personnel of the armed forces showed loyalty to the oath and military duty.”

Lukashenko? No comment. Deals? No comment.

A long-time confidant of the Russian strongman, Shoigu has in the past gone on hunting and fishing trips to Siberia with Putin. He belongs to what Hall described as the “shrinking group of loyalists whom Putin still trusts”.

Perhaps Shoigu’s principal asset is that he is part-Tuvan – an ethnic group that is indigenous to Siberia – and thus one of the very few non-ethnic Russians to have made it to a top government post. His background means “he would stand very little chance of becoming president and doesn’t represent a threat to Putin’s power", said Mathers.

Russia’s embattled defence minister, however, “was in the hot seat long before Yevgeny Prigozhin sent his Wagner mercenaries racing to Moscow on a stated mission to oust him,” according to France Twenty Four (Attachment Twenty Five) back during the insurrection. Priggy’s pivot showed that Putin was unwilling to sacrifice his long-time confidant – at least then.

To dispel any notion that Putin might have bowed to Prigozhin’s demands, Russian authorities had released video footage of Shoigu flying in an army helicopter after the “settlement”, examining military maps and holding talks with officers. The undated video led some observers to speculate that Moscow may have recycled old footage to give the impression that the minister was out on the front line. Either way, the French... back then... reported that timing of its release sent out a clear message after the extraordinary drama that unfolded at the weekend.

“It showed to everyone that Putin is behind Shoigu – and still firmly in control,” said Jenny Mathers, a Russia specialist at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales.

“If Putin had fired him, it would have looked like he did so under pressure, which would have been a sign of weakness,” explained Luke March, a Russia expert at the University of Edinburgh.

“The Kremlin is trying to convey the idea of stability and continuity at the helm after the weekend’s events,” added Stephen Hall, a lecturer in Russian and post-Soviet politics at the University of Bath in England.

‘Loyalty trumps competence’ said Hall.

Another reason for Shoigu’s longevity is the lack of suitable alternatives. As Hall put it, “whether or not Shoigu’s star has fallen may be not so relevant, because who would Putin put in charge to replace him?”

But, once the immediate crisis had passed and Russian corpses kept coming back from Ukraine, it seems that competence might be making a comeback.

In recent days, Russian commentators have speculated that Putin could replace Shoigu with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Tula region, south of Moscow, who has held top army and presidential security posts. However, Dyumin has a number of flaws in Putin’s eyes: he is ambitious, still relatively young (50), and considered close to Prigozhin.

So, while Prigozhin’s challenge has petered out, the decision to stand by a minister who has lost the confidence of many in the military threatens to further alienate an institution already demoralised by the lack of progress in Ukraine and now rattled by Wagner’s mutiny, March added.

“Sticking with Shoigu is going to lower morale in the ranks of the generals because it suggests that the criticism voiced by Prigozhin – and shared by part of the military – is not being heard,” he explained.

Instead of firing Shoigu, Putin could choose to get rid of his right-hand man Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the armed forces – though axing the seasoned soldier while sparing the civilian minister would be a risky move.

“In the middle of a war, sacking the one with the military expertise and not the other guy won’t necessarily go down well with the army,” said March. “But Putin may think it could buy him some time.”

The Russian leader needs enough time for public opinion to move on from the shock of Wagner’s uprising. “After which, he will be free to sack his loyal minister – without it looking like he bowed to pressure.”

Could “what looked like a mafia sit-down, seemed briefly to transform into a coup, then ended abruptly the way that a hostage-taking may end, with the terrorist given safe passage, immunity from prosecution, and a bunch of promises,” asked Masha Gesson of the New Yorker (Attachment Twenty Six), have occurred because of those imminent Russian elections – long considered a farce that neither Muscovites, Manhattanites nor the world took seriously?

New Yorker interviewee Joshua Yaffa was one of a contingent of correspondents who alleged that Prigozhin, who said that war in Ukraine had been unleashed under false pretenses, was apparently marching to the capital not to depose Putin “but to enlighten him.”

The “enlightened Prigozhin and his men—many of them convicted felons conscripted from prison colonies, an approach he didn’t invent but was the first to apply during this war—according to Gesson, “alternated between being plaintive and menacing. They threatened to abandon Bakhmut. On social media, they hurled insults at Shoigu, and Gerasimov. In response, the Ministry of Defense, Russia’s official, taxpayer-funded Army, which has been fighting alongside Prigozhin’s private force, apparently moved to limit Prigozhin’s power, further angering the warlord. “For months the Ministry of Defense (had) reportedly been drafting from prison colonies, appropriating Prigozhin’s know-how and presumably cutting off his supply of able-bodied men with nothing to lose.”

In a meeting with with Deputy Minister of Defense, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, and a deputy chief of the general staff, Vladimir Alekseyev, Prigozhin reportedly demanded: We want the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” he said. “Until they are handed over to us, we will stay here and blockade the city.”

“Take them,” Alekseyev was reported to have answered, smiling and spreading his arms wide, as though waving Shoigu and Gerasimov away. He seemed to have as little regard for Shoigu as did Prigozhin. “This is not surprising,” according to Gesson. “Shoigu did not come up through the ranks of the military. In the Soviet Union, he was a Party functionary. In post-Soviet Russia, he became the Minister of Emergency Situations. What primarily qualified him for the job of Minister of Defense, which he has occupied since 2012, was a sort of adventurous friendship with Putin: the two camped together and hiked together and ran the Russian Geographic Society together, Shoigu as president and Putin as chairman of the board.

“Rumors have swirled” that Lukashenka, empowered by Putin, had promised Prigozhin Shoigu’s head on a platter. There is no way to know if this is true, or if Putin had any intention to keep whatever promises Lukashenka doled out, but one of several impossible dilemmas that Putin is facing now is, indeed, what to do with Shoigu. And, who might replace him.

By broadcasting his conversation with the Deputy Minister of Defense and the deputy chief of the general staff, the insurrectionist treated the people to “the first unscripted top-level political conversation that Russians had seen in years. It sounded like two thugs haggling over the terms of their protection racket, but it was a negotiation —it was politics—and it was possibility,” Gesson acknowledged. “Most Russians I know wouldn’t want to live in the country that this exchange portended, but it’s different from the one they live in now.”

Another New Yorker-er, Isaac Chotiner solicited deep thoughts from another Frenchperson... Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center who founded R. Politik, a political-analysis firm... who emphasized the dis-importance of the Muscovian electoral “process”. (Attachment Twenty Seven)

“Putin does not concern himself with his image in the same way leaders in conventional Western democracies do. His understanding of power is not derived from the populace, but rather from a divine source, a sense of historical rectitude, and a sense of justice. Numerous instances have demonstrated how Putin dismisses public opinion and supports unpopular measures, such as the pension reform in 2018 or the mobilization last autumn. During the war, he was dismissive of the outrage from patriots, appointing the hugely unpopular Gerasimov to oversee the “special military operation,” in January, and extolling Minister of Defense Shoigu.

“To Putin, the democratic world’s inclination to avoid embarrassment and humiliation morphs into populist enslavement, which can potentially compromise the interests of the state.”

But now, perhaps he should sit down with his great admirer, Mister Drumpf, and learn a few tricks of the trade on how to survive a real election (what to do, and what not to do).

Despite his reception in Rostov, Stanovaya stated, Prigozhin’s image frightens ordinary (working class) Russians, who prioritize “stability and personal safety over justice in the conduct of war.” For a large portion of the urban middle class, Prigozhin remains an intimidating, unappealing figure; for the élites, “he embodies their worst fears for a post-Putin Russia.

The one attribute already shared by Vlad and Djonald is a thirst for vengeance.

“While Prigozhin might retain some followers,” Stanovaya believes, “their chances of surviving in the aftermath of Putin’s efforts to solidify his regime seem slim.”

But how can you lock up a whole city. Might Rostov be the target of a “false flag” attack by Ukrainian “terrorists”... perhaps even nuclear?

On the other hand, Stanovaya floated, “(a) common sentiment I’ve heard from my contacts in Moscow is that, if Prigozhin had reached Moscow, people wouldn’t have risen up to defend Putin and his regime. The élites would have dispersed, citizens would have rushed to withdraw their money from banks and fled, and those who couldn’t would have adopted a wait-and-see approach...

“But, when Prigozhin unexpectedly decided to perform an eyebrow-raising about-face, mediated by Lukashenko’s bizarre intervention, and with Putin behaving as if nothing had happened, people began to ridicule the situation. What began as a mutiny morphed into a circus.”

If there is a hero... an unanticipated hero, to be sure... in this whole mess, it would have to be Lukashenko.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin not to "wipe out" mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, in response to what the Kremlin cast as a mutiny that pushed Russia towards civil war. (Reuters, June 28^th Attachment Twenty Eight)

"I suggested to Putin not to rush. 'Come on...' Lukashenko told a meeting of his army officials and journalists on Tuesday, according to Belarusian state media, '...(l)et's talk with Prigozhin, with his commanders.' To which he told me: 'Listen, Sasha, it's useless. He doesn't even pick up the phone, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone'."

Putin used the same coarse terminology in 1999 about Chechen militants, vowing to "wipe out them out in the shithouse". (And it worked... instead, the regime there has become his strongest ally!)

The Belarusian leader also (allegedly) said that his own army could benefit from the experience of Wagner troops who, according to a deal struck with the Kremlin, are now free to move to Belarus.

Boasted that Wagner group fighters would be an asset to his own military now that they have taken up residence in Belarus (Fox News, Attachment Twenty Nine),

"This is the most trained unit in the army," BelTA state agency quoted Lukashenko as saying: "This is the most trained unit in the army. Who will argue with this? My military also understand this, and we don't have such people in Belarus."

Why he would want such a rowdy gang of reprobates within his borders is just another of the mysteries of the month.

Nonetheless, Serhan... in another Time-piece (June 26^th, Attachment Thirty) claimed that Luka owes Vlad big time... even to the extent of risking his own regime (and life) to telling unfortunate truths to the Russian strongman.

“In 2020, Lukashenko was on the brink of losing power himself, when, in the aftermath of another rigged election, Belarusians took to the streets in what would become the largest pro-democracy protests in the country’s history. That Lukashenko ultimately managed to stave off the calls for his ouster was in large part thanks to Putin, who provided his Belarusian counterpart with Russian police forces to help quash the demonstrations and a $1.5 billion loan to overcome Western sanctions.”

But now the police... like the army... are down in Ukraine, getting their behinds bumped, and the rouble is sinking to the status of Venezuelan or Ethiopian currency.

“Whatever benefits Lukashenko may have reaped from this crisis may ultimately be short-lived,” according to Serhan, in that the last few days have severely undermined Putin’s image of strength and authority. “That the Russian leader ostensibly chose to let Prigozhin go—despite having done far worse to critics who have done far less—has led some analysts to believe that perhaps the Kremlin had genuine concerns about a wider military mutiny. If the Russian president is seen to be on the verge of losing power, or susceptible to ouster by an armed rebellion, that can’t bode well for Lukashenko. If Putin goes, he’s unlikely to be far behind.”

That’s a rosy scenario for Americans, as advocates of decency and democracy everywhere. A minority, but a pernicious minority in the US of A, might consider another factor – conspiracy.

Q-Annoners, R-Annoners, Z-Annoners and the lone wolf web chefs web have served up a buffet of delicacies Mister Prigozhin would envy.

There are those who share “the seemingly improbable theory that the mutiny was carried out as a distraction to draw away attention from the latest allegations involving the president and his son Hunter Biden,” proposed Peter Suciu on Forbes (June 26^th, Attachment Thirty One).

There was also the competing conspiracy theory floated on social media “that this was a bold plan by Russian President Vladimir Putin to redeploy the Wagner Group to Belarus, where it would be within striking distance of Kyiv. That theory was based on the fact that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has been exiled to Belarus after he led the failed armed uprising on Saturday evening.” There may also be theories and speculations regarding the distribution of nuclear bombs to darling dictator Lukashenko,

Still, others on social media claim the mutiny was a “false flag operation intended to restore confidence in Putin's regime”—even as the Russian leader had been largely absent in recent days, making only brief remarks via a video to the Russian people on Friday.

And, of course, there were those Jewish space lasers, as well as the pizza rats snacking on infants in the pizza parlour basements.

Why not?

New York Times essayist Mikhail Zygar (June 30^th, Attachment Thirty Two) believes that Putin still thinks he’s still in control, but he’s not. Citing the Scarlet Sails festival (one of Russia’s most popular holidays – much belubbed by landlubber Vlad), Zygar found it somewhat surprising that Putin would watch the red sailes in the sunset from the deck of an oligarch’s yacht... being that the festival was on Saturday, June 24 — the day Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group, launched his mutiny. “Despite the shock of the rebellion, which saw Wagner forces march to within 125 miles of Moscow unimpeded, Mr. Putin flew to St. Petersburg. Nothing, not even armed revolt, would deter him from his favorite party.”

This has shaped and formed Mr. Zygar’s opinion that the dictator, rather like Mister Trump, is “divorced from reality.”

Acknowledging that Putin let the situation “get out of hand” in giving Prigozhin the prominence he looted in the cause of insurrection – or at least the toppling of Shoigu, it calls into question his judgment (or indicates that Vlad was having second thoughts about his old fishing buddy, loyalty be damned!). Again, this one-way fealty is another facet of Djonald UnGrateful’s personality – “when Mr. Prigozhin started criticizing the military leadership — often in explicit, expletive-ridden diatribes — the president did nothing to stop it,” and “failed to mediate” between the two, nor did he advise Shoigu not to enroll the mercenaries in his regular army, a grievous insult which many believe to have precipitated the uprising.

Over the weekend, however, another view has surfaced... based on reports that Vlad and Priggy met after the failed revolt, leading insinuators to insinuate that it was all a conspiracy in the first place, with Shoigo (or maybe Lukashenko or somebody else) as the target.

Simon Shuster... not the publisher but a Time reporter... claimed (June 27^th, Attachment Thirty Three) that the winner in this strange affair was not the Belarussian dictator, but General (and Putin’s private bodyguard... see Just Security, Attachment One, above) Victor Zolotov, a “typically grey and sullen figure” who emerged on Tuesday as one of the few apparent winners in the regime’s “near-death experience.”

(Again, the question now arises... nearly dead, or just playing dead?)

Putin is likely to reward Zolotov, who claims that his 300,000 man branch of the armed forces saved the regime, with an arsenal of advanced weaponry, including tanks, to guard against similar threats to Putin’s rule.

“You saved the Motherland from turmoil, and effectively stopped a civil war,” Putin told a gathering of troops and officers, including Zolotov and other senior commanders. It hasn’t hurt his cause, either, that he was the first senior official to blame the mutiny on the U.S. and its European allies, offering a familiar canard for the state propaganda channels to spread: “The rebellion,” Zolotov told them, “was inspired by the West.”

Whereas Prigozhin was a career criminal and hot dog vendor before his ascension, Zolotov worked his way up through the system, repressing threats to Putin with “gusto”. In one of his rare public appearances in 2018, he threatened to pound Russia’s most prominent dissident, Alexei Navalny, into a “juicy slab of meat” (as opposed to one of Yevvy’s shady hotdogs) and has largely avoided leading his troops into the Ukrainian disasters that have tarnished so many officers.

A team of CNN reporters (June 30, Attachment Thirty Four) reported that, on Wednesday, the Russian-language version of the independent Moscow Times cited two anonymous defense sources as saying that Surovikin... himself nicknamed "General Armageddon" by the Russian press for his aggressive tactics in the Syrian conflict, had met his own Armageddon after being arrested in relation to the failed mutiny. CNN has been unable to independently verify that claim.

A popular blogger going by the name Rybar noted on Wednesday that “Surovikin has not been seen since Saturday” and said nobody knew for certain where he was. “There is a version that he is under interrogation,” he added.

Kremlin insiders are divided on whether this is the case – some defending Putin’s loyalty, others seem aligned to the Shoigucide either pending or already committed.

The former Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, raised the risk of real Armageddon - repeatedly warning of the risk of nuclear weapons falling into the mercenary group's hands as the Wagner gang marched north, scooping up what there was to steal, including nukes.

"The history of mankind hasn't yet seen the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons under control by bandits," he said.

"Such a crisis will not be limited by just one country's borders, the world will be put on the brink of destruction."

CHINA PEEKS IN

The prospect has reportedly disturbed China’s President Xi, according to the New York Times (Attachment Thirty Five) and Fortune (Attachment Thirty Six).

Joseph Torigian, an academic specializing in China, wrote in the latter that it would be hard to guess what Beijing really thinks, especially as there has been little in the way of official comment but signs of worry from Beijing lurk beneath its placid survace. In a tweet, later deleted, political commentator Hu Xijin wrote: “[Progozhin’s] armed rebellion has made the Russian political situation cross the tipping point. Regardless of his outcome, Russia cannot return to the country it was before the rebellion anymore.” Similarly, China Daily – a publication run by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party – quoted two concerned Chinese scholars in its reporting on the Wagner Group episode.

Such commentary, Torigian advises, “may be a subtle way for Beijing to suggest to Moscow it needs to get its house in order.”

Amy Hawkins, Senior China Correspondent for Time, believes that Xi now has to “balance continuing support for Putin with hedging for the possibility that his time in the Kremlin could be cut short.” One aspect where this dilemma will be felt most immediately is in intelligence-sharing. Prigozhin’s swift advance on Moscow suggests the tacit support of some figures within Russia’s military and intelligence community. That means China’s contacts with Russia’s secret services are potentially vulnerable. (June 26^th, Attachment Thirty Seven)

Some, however, argue that Xi may be impressed by Putin’s handling of the insurrection. “The way that China might be looking at it is that Putin has proved to elites that he can handle enormous challenges to the country,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who focuses on China-Russia relations. “I don’t think that the Chinese government has jumped to the conclusion that there are big cracks to Putin’s regime,” Korolev said.

But China is increasingly worried about stability in Russia, says Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre. “Their problem is they don’t have real tools to impact it.”

The Russians and Chinese have much in common... principally a belief that strong, larger countries have the right to invade, occupy and enslave smaller nations, and, if resisted, have the right to resort to genocide. But this neo-imperialism could also extend to each other. China, in particular, has a large population and a need for the raw materials to sustain its manufacturing boom, whether for trade or for war. Russia’s oil and gas is an attractive prize – how much better if they could just take it and not pay. Also, the vast regions of Siberia would be a welcome target for a Chinese version of “lebensraum” – especially as climate change would seem to be making it easier to clear the forests and replace them with cropland.

For the present time, official ChiCon sources said the People’s Republic “supports Russia’s actions to maintain national stability,” and Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu met in Beijing with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko: Ma vowing to defend the countries’ common interests in the face of a “complex and grim” international environment. (Phila Siu in Time/Bloomberg, Attachment Thirty Eight)

But the weekend’s events in Russia were covered by Chinese state media, with People’s Daily and China Central Television running stories and Global Times publishing an article by former editor-in-chief Hu Xijin analyzing what scenarios the uprising could lead to, including regime change.

Priggy and Putie have been under the radar awhile... Prigozhin’s knowledge of “fenya”, as jail jargon is known (in 1981, he was convicted of robbery and assault and served nine years in Soviet jails), proved important to the Kremlin’s faltering war effort in Ukraine last year when he toured dozens of Russian prisons to enlist tens of thousands of inmates.

“But the problem with Prigozhin’s profanities – as well as the corrupting influence of fenya and the overtly romanticised lifestyle of career criminals on Russia’s politics, culture and daily life – lies much deeper.” (Al Jazeera, Attachment Thirty Nine, May 31^st)

It was Prigozhin’s boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who started peppering his speech with salty phrases and fenya idioms since the dawn of his rule 23 years ago.

Long before former US President Donald Trump built his political career on jingoistic, misogynistic and intolerant parlance, Putin did something similar in Russia – with much broader consequences.

“We’ll soak ’em in the outhouse,” Putin, a newly appointed prime minister in President Boris Yeltsin’s government, said in 1999 about the Russian bombing of Grozny, the capital of the then de facto separatist chechnya region.]

Back in the USA, few postures are more contemptable, or dangerous, than that of the wannabe gangster. Posers tend to end up like doctor/rapist Larry Nassar... or worse.

As for Putin, he fled Moscow during the mutiny led by Prigozhin, Newsweek has been told. (July 5^th, Attachment Forty)

Self-exiled former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man before he fell foul of Putin, said he was monitoring the movements of the Russian president during Prigozhin's short-lived rebellion on June 24.

He said he learned from one of his contacts that Putin left Moscow by plane during the failed coup, and most likely went to his residence in Valdai in between Russia's Tver and Novgorod regions, located some 250 miles away.

Agentstvo, an independent Russian-language investigative media outlet has disputed Zygar’s claim that Putin spent the day on a yacht owned by his ally and businessman Yury Kovalchuk in St. Petersburg, watching the Scarlet Sails festival (above), saying that there was no visual evidence, nor did the yacht leave any digital footprint on marine tracking tools. It said, however, that transponders on Russian yachts have been turned off in the past.

Other sources have supported Khodorkovsky's version of events. Leonid Nevzlin, a Russian-Israeli businessman and Putin critic who announced weeks into the war that he was renouncing his Russian citizenship, tweeted on June 24 that "Putin is hiding in the bunker of his residence in Valdai."

"His closest friends and associates also flew there. The dictator is in a panic.”

Even toadies like the American ex-President Donald Trump, a “longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” said Putin has been "somewhat weakened" by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for the United States to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

"I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war," Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview. (Attachment Forty One) "You could say that he's (Putin) still there, he's still strong, but he certainly has been I would say somewhat weakened at least in the minds of a lot of people," he said.

If Putin were no longer in power, however, "you don't know what the alternative is. It could be better, but it could be far worse," Trump said.

CHORALES of CONSPIRACY

Some of the nervous eggheads among the writers and readers of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists... to be fair, with what they know, they should be worried... are also sounding out their sources within and without the Kremlin bureaucracy.

One of the “withouts”... Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation who previously worked at the Soviet and Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and participated in the START I and START II negotiations... told the Yanks that he believed “a shakeup at the top of [the Russian Ministry of Defense] seems likely (army may like it, too),” even though the coup failed. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 24^th, Attachment Forty Two)

John Mecklin, an Atomic Scientist (or at least somebody who writes about such things in their trade journal noted much American speculation that Prigozhin’s short-lived insurrection would undermine Putin’s authority over the longer term. Given the unusual and fast-moving series of events, however, it was entirely unclear (but fortunately not nuclear) that, late on Saturday a fortnight ago, how closely the public reporting on the two-day coup matched the underlying reality.

Does this augur a time when Cad Vlad no longer holds Russia down with his boot on their throats. Perhaps.

Among the Post Peanuts in their Gallery, one “P” hauled the conspiracy out into the light. “Putin has wanted to nuke Ukraine for over a year, “P” postulated, “but was afraid he would be nuked. So, he and Prigozhin planned everything that happened yesterday months ago.  It was a fake coup attempt. Belarus is a Russian state. If it had been a real coup attempt Prigozhin would not go there because he would be killed instantly.”

Amd “MJ” found it scary to think “such instability exists in a country that has enough nuclear weapons to lay waste in radioactive ash every major city on earth a few times over and still have plenty to spare,” calling the insurrection “another good motivation for everyone (with no exclusions) to sign the TPNW. You never know who’s hands will end up on the nuclear button.”

Scary is as scary does when the topic is of personal security to Prigozhin, and it is likely that the punters in London and Vegas and Monte Carlo are forming up “deadpools” to cash in on their intuitions regarding his incarceration or assassination. "In Putin's vocabulary, treason is a crime punishable by death," says Yuri Felshtinsky, a Russian security services expert and author of Blowing Up Russia, which he co-wrote with Litvinenko about Putin's rise to power. "For him to say that means that he is going to kill him."

Felshtinsky told Newsweek. "If Prigozhin is killed tomorrow, no one is going to be surprised." (7/4, Attachment Forty Two) "Let's say Prigozhin is killed tomorrow whatever by sniper, his plane is shot down, or poisoning, they (Russia) will say it was done by Ukraine."

"Probably many people would think that it was done by Putin but no one is going to cry over [Prigozhin's] death because he he was irritating many people in Russia," added Felshtinsky.

"I don't believe that such [assasination] attempts will be made while Prigozhin is in Belarus because there were public guarantees on behalf of both Putin and Lukashenko," Ilya Ponomarev, a Russian deputy until 2016, told Newsweek.

"That's against the rules. They are mafia people, so for them to violate their own public promise, I don't think it's possible. I think that while in Belarus, the guy is absolutely safe," he told Newsweek.

"But when the guy goes to Africa, or some other places, anything may happen," he said.

Followers of foreign policy (the craft as well as the publication named for it) have been directed back Syria, where Prigozhin’s army is still based. An anonymous source within the Syrian Democratic Council, an Arab-majority militia of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, spoke to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity and said Russian forces beefed up security at their bases in Deir Ezzor, the most oil-rich region of the country. “Wagner and Russian forces are indistinguishable here,” he said, “but we noticed that their base was put on high alert.” (Anchek Vohra - July 5^th, Attachment Forty Three)

Further west, Wagner was deployed in Libya – ostensivly to further Russia’s foreign-policy agenda “but with an eye on conflict-ridden and democratically weak but resource-rich African countries. In 2020, the group supported warlord Khalifa Haftar in his military offensive to capture Tripoli from the internationally recognized Government of National Accord. Even though that campaign failed, Wagner continued to operate several air bases in the country not only to buttress Khalifa’s defenses but also as a springboard to operate elsewhere in Africa, such as in neighboring Sudan.”

They also backed a military faction mining and smugling gold through a shell company. “They smuggle gold out of Sudan through Libya into the UAE to the tune of billions of dollars,” alleges Anas El Gomati, the founder and current director-general of the Tripoli-based Sadeq Institute. “Wagner can survive without Prigozhin,” he said, albeit veering more towards an orthodox criminal conspiracy.

Another of Prigozhin’s shell companies hast purchased gold and diamonds from the Central African Republic. Sources at the U.S. Treasury said Diamville “shipped diamonds mined in the CAR to buyers in the UAE.” 

(A companion piece, penned for FP by Lucian Staiano-Daniels three days earlier (Attachment Forty Four) recommended the life, times and tactics of enforcer for the Holy Roman Empire Albrecht von Wallenstain, “Europe’s Greatest Mercenary” to both Priggy (as a model) and to Putin (as a caveat).

If baffling his enemies about his whereabouts is an enviable and dupliciatable tactic, Prigozhin is well on his way to renown. The warlord has not been photographed in Belarus, and Prigozhin’s jet has flown between Belarus and Moscow and St Petersburg several times, fuelling speculation about the warlord’s whereabouts – raising questions about whether Prigozhin was sticking to the terms of the deal.

By last Wednesday, the Guardian UK cited Lukashenko’s contention that the rogue mercenary master was hiding out back in St. Petersburg. (Attachment Forty Five) The dictator also said that Putin would not “wipe out” Prigozhin because the Russian president was not “malevolent and vindictive,” – a contention that earned him much ribaldry from the international press corps.

In a separate report (Attachment Forty Four) GUK’s Jason Burke interviewed Nathalia Dukhan, the author of a recent report on Wagner’s operations in Central African Republic (CAR) published by The Sentry, a US-based investigative organization from Prigozhin’s financial contacts who compared Wagner’s business dealings in Africa (mainly wealth extraction – like blood diamonds and gold from the “vast” Ndassima goldmine, which has been taken over by Wagner) to a “virus”.

“It is like a virus that spreads. They do not appear to be planning to leave. They are planning to continue.”

In an interview with Russia Today, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has reportedly promised that “instructors” and “private military contractors” would remain in CAR and Mali, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Wagner has the biggest presence.

“The resilience of Wagner’s commercial operations despite the turmoil in Russia strongly suggests Vladimir Putin’s regime will seek to appropriate and exploit the lucrative web of hundreds of companies that Prigozhin built, rather than shut it down,” other experts speaking to GUKs believe.

Wagner is thinking expansion, not extinction. “Two other targets for the Kremlin are believed to be Burkina Faso and Chad, but the biggest prize would be the vast and resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),” Burke noted.

Time/AP’s Anna Frants also reported on Lukashenko’s contention that, while his armies are wandering Russia and his money is multiplying in Africa, Prigozhin has flown the coop in Minsk and could be anywhere... even Moscow, St. Petersburg or six feet under.

After saying last week that Prigozhin was in Belarus, Lukashenko told international reporters on Thursday, July 6th that the mercenary leader was in St. Petersburg and Wagner’s troops still were at their camps. (Attachment Forty Six)

And Reuters, also on Thursday, reported that the “mutinous chief” of Russia's Wagner group was still in Russia with thousands of fighters. (Guy Faulconbridge: Attachment Forty Seven)

"We, Putin and Lukashenko, allowed the situation to get out of hand - we thought it would all solve itself - but it didn't," Lukashenko said.

He said he had told Prigozhin, using the diminutive of his first name, Zhenya, that "Putin and I will defend Moscow".

Russian state TV on Wednesday launched a fierce attack on Prigozhin and said an investigation was still being pursued.

A business jet linked to Prigozhin left St Petersburg for Moscow on Wednesday and headed to southern Russia on Thursday, according to flight tracking data, but it was not clear if he had been on board. It was later tracked flying north again.

Lukashenko was said to be “evasive” about Russia’s contribution of weapons, including nukes, to the Belarus arsenal – maintaining that he did not see a Wagner presence as a risk, “but that his army could benefit from Wagner's expertise.”

Business Insider even raised the prospect that Prigozhin may have used not only wigs but a “body double”. Clones? Priggy was here, there and everywhere and, Kelsey Vlamis marvelled (July 6^th, Attachment Forty Eight) that “things got even weirder with the suggestion that perhaps Prigozhin never went to Belarus.

“For years conspiracy theories that Putin deployed people who looked like him for security reasons have popped up online, prompting the Kremlin to dismiss them.”

New York Times reporter Valerie Hopkins Valerie Hopkins attended a three-hour news briefing with President Aleksandr Lukashenko at the Independence Palace in Minsk, Belarus, and there was told that the mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin is in Russia and is a “free man”.

If Mr. Prigozhin — vilified as a traitor in state media — is, in fact, free and in Russia less than two weeks after staging what the Kremlin called an attempted coup, Hopkins noted, “it would be one of the more perplexing twists in a story full of them.” (Attachment Forty Nine) This occurred on the heels of a broadcast video of that police search of his opulent mansion in St. Petersburg, where it said large amounts of cash, firearms, passports, wigs and drugs had been found. A spokesman for Mr. Prigozhin denied that the house was his.

Mr. Lukashenko mostly dodged the tougher questions from foreign journalists, like whether he regretted allowing Russia to invade from Belarus. Instead, he placed the blame for the invasion on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Instead, wrote Hopkins, “he also ridiculed journalists who asked about domestic repression, particularly in recent years. Viasna, a human rights organization whose Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder, Ales Bialatski, is behind bars in Belarus, has counted almost 1,500 political prisoners.

“Despite its small population, Belarus ranks fifth in the world in the number of jailed journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Association of Belarusian Journalists, itself banned as an “extremist” organization, counts 33 journalists being held.”

Early Friday morning, according to CNNs Jill Dougherty, the bizarre tale of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former pal-turned-mutineer, “just got a whole lot weirder.” (2:49 AM, Attachment Fifty)

When, during the mercenary leader’s peregrinations... Ukraine to Rostov to Belarus (maybe) to St. Petersburg, Moscow or to any of the Wagner Group’s contractors... Lukashenko admitted that Prigozhin “wasn’t where he was supposed to be,” Dougherty’s hide and seek expedition took her to Wagner camps Lukashenko’s government apparently had set aside for them in Belarus – thus raising questions about the fate of the Wagner boss.

Before falling out of favor with Fad Vlad, she added, Prigozhin was “a social media rock star. He was a tough guy strutting about in camouflage, whose fighters could win battles in Ukraine that the regular Russian military couldn’t handle. He swore at military leaders and other elite government officials but crossed a red line when he accused them of lining their pockets and misleading Putin into launching an invasion of Ukraine when there was no real threat.”

Prigozhin’s ultimate fate is still unclear. Will he end up in prison? Or in a coffin? “The only thing that seems even remotely clear,” is that Putin will have to settle this “razborka,” a word Russian mobsters use to describe their internal squabbles. And that portends more repression, more “settling scores,” and more fighting behind the scenes in Putin’s Russia.

“But he is only one of Putin’s problems,’ Dougherty concluded. What Mad Vlad does about Prigozhin’s valuable companies is another.

Don Jones may well be scratching his head: Millions? Billions? (In roubles...) Trillions! He should have such problems! Perhaps the dictator is bolstering his cash assets against the day that the Revolution starts and he has to flee to some tiny, lush island in the Caribbean... or the Arabian Sea.

On the heels of the missing millions from Mar-a-Lago, the Prigozhin plunger is attracting pirates from London to Damascus to Tripoli to Wall Street, New York During his press conference, Lukashenko “...mostly dodged far tougher questions from foreign journalists, like whether he regretted allowing Russia to invade from Belarus.” Instead, he placed the blame for the invasion on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

He also ridiculed journalists who asked about domestic repression, particularly in recent years. Viasna, a human rights organization whose Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder, Ales Bialatski, is behind bars in Belarus, has counted almost 1,500 political prisoners.

Despite its small population, Belarus ranks fifth in the world in the number of jailed journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Association of Belarusian Journalists, itself banned as an “extremist” organization, counts 33 journalists being held.

NATO is “closely following the movement of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force as well as their boss,” the Western military alliance’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said. (Al Jazeera, July 7^th, 2023, Attachment Fifty One – see also Attachment Eleven).

NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg made his comments on Thursday amid reports that Prigozhin was back in Russia and had not taken up the offer of exile in Belarus. Stoltenberg said that NATO had tracked the Wagner leader’s recent travels, which he described as “moving a bit around”.

Asked of the whereabouts of Prigozhin on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged off the question, saying that Moscow had neither the desire nor the means to track his movements. Washington DC-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) described Peskov’s statement on Prigozhin as “absurd”, noting that the Russian security services “have the ability to detain Prigozhin or restrict his movements in Russia” if they so wished.

Lukashenko appears to be attempting to distance himself from the exile deal, and, according to the Jazzies is “pinning the responsibility on the Kremlin to enforce the deal.” And, while Russian state TVprosecutes its fierce attack on the Wagner chief on Wednesday, it’s also saying that a criminal investigation of mutiny against Russia’s military leadership was still under way.

Deception, contended Yulia Latynina of The Hill (July 7^th, Attachment Fifty Two), was a part and parcel of Priggy’s plan.

She cites Vladimir Osechkin of Gulagu.net, “a specialist in all things Wagner” who claims that the mercenaries were told they were marching “to help Putin,” who wanted to fire the minister of defense but needed some clout.

To an outsider, Latynina opined, this level of deception “may seem psychotic, but anybody who studied Prigozhin’s troll farms will recognize his signature style.”

It appears that Prigozhin’s first goal was to capture the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu in his Rostov headquarters. But Shoigu fled. The two men left behind to parlay with Prigozhin included Russian military intelligence (GRU) General Vladimir Alekseev.

Alekseev, a native of Ukraine, is one of the masterminds of this war. According to Latynina, he is rumored to be “the top spy overseeing Russian intelligence operations in the West, including the Skripal poisoning in the U.K., and to have been the mastermind who created Wagner (whose current military commander, the Hitler worshipping Dmitry Utkin, is his personal friend). Alekseev seems to be the emissary of Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council and the man who was left by Putin to fight the rebels, while Putin ran off to Saint Petersburg to watch his favorite water festival from the board of a new yacht. (See, also, Attachment Thirty Two)

But the deceiver was also deceived... hoping for support from the Federal Security Service (FSB). Patrushev, however, double-crossed Prigozhin by preparing an ambush 70 miles from Moscow (which, Latynina wrote “would have been a bloodbath” and was also probably plotting to triple-cross Vlad inasmuch as a massacre “would have demonstrated the utter cluelessness of President Putin and made Patrushev the biggest guy in the city.”

But Putin escaped the trap set by Patrushev (a deep conspiracy theorist obsessed with George Soros and rumored head of “the deep KGB) because of the interjection of Alexei Dyumin, the governor of the Tula region and an ally to Yury Kovalchuk, a billionaire fellow and rival conspiracy theorist (his obsession being that Western elites are currently engaged in creating genetically modified “serving people” and suppressing Western countries’ birthrates through “gay propaganda”). Dyumin, Putin’s former bodyguard, counseled Vlad to take the counsel of Lukashenko and abort the massacre of his own former chef.

Wag the dog!

The good news, Latynina concludes, is that Prigozhin and Putin both lost. “The bad news is that the people who benefited the most and stand to control post-Putin Russia are, frankly, nuts.”

The better news, according to theories propounded by Avraham Shama in The Hill (also 7/7, Attachment Fifty Three) is that “Vladimir Putin is likely on his way out as Russia’s president. He will be followed by autocrats governing countries such as Hungary, Turkey and Israel — to name a few. Though this process will take some time, it is a clear triumph of the innovative democratic principles upon which the United States was founded in 1776.”

Wouldn’t that be nice!

Shama’s list of losers... Hungary’s Orban (due to a Western leaning population fed up with his authoritarian inclinations), Turkey’s Erdogan (same electoral dismalicity - despite his deal with President Joe for fighter jets in case the rabble chooses to resist his election fixing) and Israels Netanyahu, also under siege from his subjects weary of West Bank warmongering and ongoing Trumpish criminality.

And maybe, he adds, China’s Xi and the already canctioned Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil,

Concluding that: “More and more people seem to prefer life where they are “we the people” than where they are “we the subjects,” he declares, cheerfully: “Our forefathers established such a novel preference in 1776. Now more countries and people are fighting for it.”

On Saturday, Russia reverted to a Soviet-era tactic of making Yevvy, like Bruno, an ‘unperson’ whose name shall not be spoken.

“Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin, whose popularity rating soared before his short-lived rebellion, is threatened with political erasure, the modern-day equivalent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s purging of enemies from official photographs,” according to Robyn Dixon of the WashPost (Attachment Fifty Four).

State television and pro-Kremlin Telegram channels this week went all out to savage Prigozhin, portraying him as a “thuggish, greedy crook”, airing “images of his luxurious home, showing his guns, piles of cash, gold bars, a personal helicopter, fake passports, and wigs for disguises, all of which were exposed during a raid on his properties in St. Petersburg by Interior Ministry police.”

Verboten was his reputation as “the one leading participant in Russia’s war on Ukraine who was willing to tell the truth about casualties and Defense Ministry failures.”

The week before the June 24 rebellion, Prigozhin’s approval rating soared to 58 percent, according to independent pollster Levada. The agency reported that 19 percent of Russians said they would have voted for him in presidential elections, an astonishing score for the once-secretive mercenary leader known for his blunt, often obscene language and bloodthirsty humor.

Putin’s approval rating which had been 80 percent or higher, according to Latvia-based Russian news agency Meduza (already suspect – anybody expressing reservations about Fearless Leader to a Russo-pollster better have his bags packed) - and confidential polling for the Kremlin “found his rating fell by up to 14 percentage points in some regions after the rebellion.”

A spokesman for Rosneft, Mikhail Leontiev, was blunter, comparing Prigozhin to Hitler. “They say, Prigozhin was telling the truth. So what? These are obvious things, about corruption, and so on,” Leontiev said. Eighty percent of what the Nazi leader said after invading the U.S.S.R. was true, “but that doesn’t stop him from being Hitler.”

Maria Lipman, a Russia analyst at George Washington University, told the Post that Russians were attracted to Prigozhin’s media-savvy, anti-elite populism — a stark contrast to the deadening succession of cautious officials pledging allegiance to Putin and repeating hollow propaganda lines.

“Against this background, he looked fresh, he looked genuine and he looked sincere, and people appreciated this about him," Lipman said. “He was somehow a patriot without the lies."

And his brutality was viewed, by most, as a virtue.

(By contrast, recent polls say that 60% of Americans despise Donald Trump, and 70% dismiss President Joe as too old, too week or too ineffective.)

His approval rating fell sharply after the rebellion,” Dixon updated, “but it was still at a relatively impressive 29 percent — far too high for a regime that tolerates no dissent.”

“Prigozhin’s ultimate fate is still unclear,” Dougherty, above, asked, “but he is only one of Putin’s problems. What he does about Prigozhin’s valuable companies is another.”

Perhaps dismantling, or reassigning at least some of his overseas operations. “Hundreds of troops in the Wagner paramilitary organization have been seen flying out of the Central African Republic in recent days, prompting questions about whether Moscow is purging the group after its mutiny in Russia last month,” reported NBC (7/8, Attachment Fifty Five) Without the enforcers, Wagner’s profitable mining deals and steals have been impacted... but Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said it was unclear if Wagner was facing a major shake-up in the African nation.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby maintains that there has been “no indication that Wagner is decreasing its intent to exploit African countries.”

The Kremlin likely will change Wagner’s name and oust some figures deemed too close to Prigozhin, said Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center, a nonprofit research center focusing on global security issues.

But even with a “rebranding,” Russia is unlikely to withdraw from Wagner’s security contracts, disinformation operations and mining ventures that have boosted Moscow’s reach in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, Clarke and other experts said.

“The services that Wagner provides for the Russians in Africa are essential,” Clarke said. “That’s not going to go away. They need it.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a recent interview with Russia Today that Prigozhin’s revolt would not affect Moscow’s relations with “partners and friends,” and that Wagner operatives would remain in the Central African Republic, Mali and other African countries.

Another Russian insider, former Putin puppet President Dmitry Medvedev sat on the dictator’s knee and threw his master’s voice out into the blogosphere – posting on his Tlegram account that President Joe was a "senile" and "desperate grandpa" after the U.S. president announced his candidacy for re-election in 2024 and doubling down in advance of the NATO summit that "sleepy senile Biden" cravenly rejected Ukraine’s plea for help, the way he had "shamefully fled from Afghanistan" but also greenlighted the use of cluster munitions. (Newsweek, Saturday, Attachment Fifty Six)

"You could also say that he is a sick old man with severe dementia." Or, perhaps, as a "dying grandfather" he had "decided to leave gracefully" and so was "provoking nuclear Armageddon and taking half of humanity with him to the next world."

The diatribe drew an extensive reply from the Newsweek peanut gallery... many on the topic of apocalypse, expressing fear and bravado...

“Why doesn't Russia simply stop murdering people in Ukraine, withdraw their troops, pay reparations and apologize for lying so much?”

Or... “You don't threaten to use nukes, you use them.”

“The day Putin invaded Ukraine the threat of destroying the human race went up dramatically. I'm still surprised we made it out of the 70s and 80s. You could argue the fact the human race is still alive is proof extraterrestrials exist and are stopping us from killing ourselves.”

One nut even had the temerity to disrespect the forum itself, sneering: “Newsweek is good at click-bait headlines.”

And early this morning (Moscow time) the Moscow Times reported on Putin’s secret meet and greet with “Prigozhin and 34 Wagner commanders at the Kremlin on June 29.” (Attachment Fifty Seven)

Everybody traded complimentary platitudes and, presumably, sipped tea.

The sitdown was seconded by the Financial Times (Attachment Fifty Eight) which described the tenor of the three hour meeting as “a civil discussion took place, with both sides giving their version of recent events, rather than Putin giving the Wagner leader a severe reprimand over the failed revolt.”

Calling the affair “tangled” (instead of a “hoax”), the FT cited a few statements by Lukashenko that Hungry Vlad still appreciated Prigozhin’s cooking.

A peanut from that gallery resuscitated the meme of “whataboutism” in reference to NATO’s wishful thinking that the problem, and the Russians, would simply go away... perhaps in the manner that “Frasier’s” Lilith dismissed Eddie the dog on an episode back in another time.

And another noted that Putin and Russia are “on the ropes”... the “millions of young technically smart Russians that left are proof!”

Yesterday, the conservatives at the National Review noted Putin’s “strange leniency”... attributing it to the Financial Times’ concept of a mutual understanding that “the warlord has been given space to deal with his business empire in Russia and tie up loose ends” according to “analysts and members of the country’s elite.”

What will happen next is anyone’s guess, the never Trumpers (thus never Putins) at the NR guessed, (Attachment Fifty Nine) “but this does not look like a show of strength on Putin’s part, which may be . . . unwise?

There are “no optimistic scenarios for the Kremlin” Al Jazeera concluded, despite the retreat of the revolters (Sunday, Attachment Sixty). Comparing the aftermath to the ongoing process of the One Six rebellion, the Jazzies stated that any further action that will be taken “will likely happen behind the scenes, so observers will have to wait and see what the immediate repercussions will be at the political level.”

Given all the aspirants hoping to crawl up Putin’s leg and, perhaps, go for his nuts, the Kremlin will also “make sure to avoid the rise of another Prigozhin – an autonomous military operator who can act with entitlement and control military forces outside the command of the defence ministry.” Implementing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s June 11 directive to bring all private formations under his ministry will be the first step – in that Shoigu’s loyalty to (or intimidation by) the President has already been noted (above).

It is believed that Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s Akhmat forces will “behave”, that disgruntlement in the Caucasus can be plugged and military reforms will be instituted – but the army’s inability to win the war in Ukraine “are inevitably growing in Russian society and among the elites. It is becoming increasingly evident that Russian forces are not going to become more effective at the front and the only options left – to launch a nuclear strike or to cause damage to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant – do not represent an acceptable way out of the war.”

Assuming that Putin is not quite so crazy – nor his likely replacements are only slightly crazier (see Attachment Fifty Two, above).

Russia has not yet reached the proverbial “bottom”, contends AJ’s Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, but it is certainly experiencing the boomerang effect of the aggressive war the Kremlin recklessly decided to launch.

And overnight, the Guardian UK launched a list of timelines and takeaways centering around the start of the NATO summit (compiled 13.56 EDT, Attachment Sixty One) and featuring many comments and proclamations by NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg – including one to the effect that he is is “absolutely certain” that by the end of the week the alliance will have “unity and a strong message” on the future membership of Ukraine; that he would recommend Turkey’s admission to the EU in return for their dropping their opposition to Swedish membership in NATO (a deal subsequently said and done) and that “as far as he was concerned Sweden had delivered on the deal.”

There were numerous other squibs, squiblets and speeches from NATO-ites, sympathetic outsiders like Australia and unsympathetic other (Russia and China).

Humanitarian and military aid were promised to Ukraine, and NATO membership would be back on the table “as soon as the war is over,” said President Joe.

While the Western enemy was summitting in Liuania, back in the USSR, Kremlin spokesperson confirmed the Putin-Prigozhin summit of June 29^th, with a bipartisan assurance that both would “continue fighting for the motherland.” (Moscow Times, Attachment Sixty Two). The Financial Times (cited above) also noted that Priggy and Putie had, for the time being, buried their hatchets... hopefully in the backs of the Ukrainians, though the confusion of the past month had somewhat impacted Russia’s campaign.

With Wagner sidelined, for the time being, the dirty work has fallen to Chechen Akhmat special forces, who have picked up Prigozhian’s tactics of terrorizing civilians, looting what little there is left to loot and trying to rally the dispirited Russian regulars.

And the war rages on.

AND, ALSO...

Last week, we established a timeline for the march, the deal and the fizzle taking us up to publication of the Index on Monday afternoon. Subsequently... through the July Fourth holiday, the withering summer heat and even a Blood Moon in the sky... we’ve created another, more condensed, timeline covering the two weeks since the ostensible closing of the crisis window, highlighting only the demonstrable (or semi-demonstrable) facts.

After that, the falsity and the furiousness and some outright fiction... inasmuch as one of the lesser-publicized legal rulings of a lesser judicial branch found that Biden has violated the sanctity of Americans’ (and others) First Amendment rights and prohibits the squelching of even the most flagrant mis- and dis-information circulating on social media since the emergence of masking and vaxxing conspiracies during the Covid emergency.

Our buzzards flap backwards into time to Saturday, June 24th, then take flight at dawn on Monday morning, June 26th landing in the road to dine on Russian roadkill.

Monday, June 26^th:

Wagner’s wanderings having ended Saturday night, the communications coroners have unpacked their scalpels and spyglass, picking and probing and pronouncing… as they must… their various theories as to what has happened, what is still occurring behind the Kremlin’s veil, and what is to come. Of course, none correspond exactly, but partisan camps are already being established… Putin is strong, Putin is weak; Prigozhin’s deal was humanitarian, or the only alternative to a massacre; Lukashenko is now powerful, or maybe he’s still just a Russian toady.

It would be an iconic recursal to form were Priggy to be found back at his old day job on the streets of St. Petersburg, selling mystery meat hotdogs off a cart to passing potentates.

	Our Lesson: July Third through Ninth, 2023
Monday, July 3, 2023 Dow: 33,714.71	It’s National Ice Cream month. Just in time – torrid temperatures bake the southern tier of America from Califoria to Florida. Climatologists are calling it the hottest week in the world – ever! (Or ever since the temperature takers began taking temperatures.) Death Valley records 126° - but it’s a dry heat. The wet is in Chicago, nine inches of rain in a day. The usual suspects are blamed... climate change and El Nińo. Some TV weatherpeople are calling this “the new normal”. Also setting records are the American mass shootings... 21,497 in 2023 to date... more than the entire year of 2019. Coincidence? The Mayor of Baltimore attributes the murders in his city to “basic conflicts.” It’s global too. French riots, arsons and lootings are beginning to ease, but Israel conducts deadliest strikes in 20 years upon the West Bank city of Jenin (where Doctors Without Borders) say Jewish hospitals are denying care and treatment to dying Palestinians. Islamists retaliate with car ramming and bombings in Tel Aviv. And, as ever, there is Ukraine. CIAgent-in-Chief Burns (see above) meets with President Zelenskyy who... no surprises here... asks for more money and weapons as Russia continues bombing and strafing civilians. And an “unknown white powder” is found in the White House. Terror?
Tuesday, July 4, 2023 Dow: Closed	It’s the Fourth of July. America is 247 years old and looking every day of it. A day for fireworks, fires in town and country, fiery political speeches (Pro-this, Con-that) and firing guns... both into the air (thereby proving “what comes up must come down”), and with intent to kill in Philadelphia, Dallas and Shreveport... attributed to “bad actors”. On the positive side, there are plenty of holiday sales in stores where you can find them (Walgreens is closing 150 underperforming retailers) and another birthday: Key West, Florida celebrates its 200^th with a gigantic and tasty Key Lime Pie. Millions enjoy the thrill of the grill and, on Coney Island, Joey Chestnut retains his Hot Dog Eating title by downing 62 franks. (He misses his own personal record by ten and blames the rain.) Animals are celebrating too... dozens of sharks hit the beaches from Long Island down to Florida and there are five incidents of snacking on people. An alligator in Hilton Head, SC devours an elderly lady, another attacks, but fails to kill, a pedestrian and her dogs. Humans retaliate by tracking the Great Whites with drones, but oceanographers are calling the hangry sea beasts, yes, the “new normal.” “It’s never, ever been a good bet to bet against America — never,” President Joe exclaims on the White House South Lawn. “We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and the people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing,” Donald Trump memorialized American independence. And Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo) either quoted or misquoted Patrick Henry in declaring: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Wednesday, July 5, 2023 Dow: 34,288.64	It’s going home day – roads and turnpikes are clogged and air travelers experience delays and cancellations, some attributable to the airlines personnel shortages, others to the weather. Deadly fireworks explosions occur in Texas and Michigan and mass murders continue in DC and Maryland. Police describe yesterday’s Philadelphia gunman as a (black!) MAGAman who was devoted to loving guns, fighting liberals and “evil spirits”. It’s also back to work day – or not. Add to striking entertainment writers and actors some disgruntled retail workers, Los Angeles hospital staffers and... soon now... thousands of UPS drivers. The killer sharks, gators and bears are joined by little winged bugs and creepy crawlies. The mosquito-borne Easter Virus is deadlier than West Nile, with a 30% mortality rate, and malaria is back. Struggling Twitter and its quixotic new boss, Elon Musk, face challenges from Mark Zuckerberg, who launches a competing “Threads” social media site. Musk challenges Zuck to a cage match.
Thursday, July 6, 2023 Dow: 33,922.26	State and local prosecutors ramp up their war against “ghost guns” that are not registerd and sometimes configured to avoid metal detectors. Environmentalists blame the flooding of coastal swamps and beaches with salt water for the creation of “ghost forests” where all the trees are dead or dying. Threads rack up five million users Thursday morning, thirty million by the end of the day. President Joe announces that he will go to the NATO summit in Lithuania, there to address Russian aggression in Ukraine. Other topics include the always inscrutable Chinese and Iranian military waging war upon oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz. Biden is out of town when police, Secret Service and the testing testers announce that the mysterious White House white powder is, indeed, cocaine! But where’s Hunter?
Friday, July 7, 2023 Dow: 33,734.88	Fourth straight day of record world temperatures. Domestically, there are tornadoes in Colorado, flooding in Florida and the mercury hits 118° in Phoenix... the seventh straight day of triple digits. Presudent Joe decides he will send cluster bombs (banned in 120 nations, at least officially) to Ukraine and the whiny whiny white wimps in the EU whine some more. (Even though the Russians have been using them since Day Six of the beginning of the war!) And then, to double down on macho, he declares war on junk insurance policies that are written only to the cream of the elderly crop. While Janet Yellin’s off in Beijing, yellin’ at the intellectual property stealing Chinese, America’s economy shows a drop in June’s new jobs from 300 in May to a predicted new 240K and an actual addition of 209K. A mom with 800 tattoos says she can’t get a job. Still, it’s sufficient to drop the unemployment rate a tenth of a point and, with wages up too, the odds of an interest rate hike next month. The hottest e-con-me sectors are the ticket brokers for sports and entertainment venues and the resulting scammers e-conning you. A sick child is conned out of her family’s last thousand dollars on a busted bucket list but Good Samaritans rush in and make up the loss.
Saturday, July 8th, 2023 Dow: (Closed)	Bad Samaritan Russians are rushing out of some contested rubble piles on this, the 500^th day of the war. President Z. thanks President Joe for his promises, hints he’d like the cluster bombs sooner than later. Also conventional missiles, ammo, tanks, medical and economic support, etc etc. and... oi!. by the way... how about that NATO membership Let’s hold off on that til’ we get Sweden in says Biden. A few evil Republicans gripe and grind their teeth. Record heat keeps hotter-er-ing and the wind drafts in Amarillo gust up to 96 mph. In Vegas, Britney Spears is accused of touching NBA’s first round draft pick Victor Wembanyama and then is either slapped by his bodyguard or slaps herself before being hauled out of the arena and into court where she’s found not guilty. Oops, she did it again! Fans aren’t exactly racing out to touch the Britster, but they are flocking to concert tours by Taylor and Beyonce and Elton John gives his farewell performace in Sweden. Also hanging up the guitars... the Eagles. And Megan Rapinoe says this will be her last World Cup soccer match.
Sunday, July 9^th, 2023 Dow: (Closed)	President Joe is off to Lithuania for a NATO meeting, centering on Ukraine with chatter on climate change. While he stops over to visit King Charles, President Zelenskyy tells Martha Raddatz that he appreciates more Western weapons, what he really wants is NATO membership. Biden repeatedly says No because doing so would obligate NATO to get into a nuclear war with the Russians. In other Sunday talkshows, political analysts predict (and dread) that 2024 will be a 2020 rematch. The only credible alternative challenger to Trump, DeSantis, is an “Edgelord” - moving fringier and fringier to the far right – but the MAGAbase still wants it’s hero, not a wannabe with the first debates now set for August. TV Colonel Ganyard says US and China are not yet “at war” but “in conflict” as SecTreas Yellin returns from Beijing with no new developments. But the military has something to be happy about – American drones kill yet another ISIS leader in Syria after fighting off the Russian fighter jets trying to down them. And there are plenty of weekend shootings amidst cops and robbers, but the one drawing the most protests is the execution of the family dog Dixie in Ohio.

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

See a further explanation of categories here…

ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

CATEGORY	VALUE	BASE	RESULTS			SCORE		OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS
INCOME	(24%)	6/17/13 & 1/1/22	LAST	CHANGE	NEXT	LAST WEEK	THIS WEEK
Wages (hrly. Per cap)	9%	1350 points	6/19/23	+0.28%	8/23	1,440.96	1,444.97	https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   28.75 nc 8.83
Median Inc. (yearly)	4%	600	6/26/23	+0.025%	7/17/23	608.69	609.14	http://www.usdebtclock.org/   35,911 920 931
Unempl. (BLS – in mi)	4%	600	5/8/23	- 2.78%	8/23	616.52	633.65	http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/  3.7 3.6
Official (DC – in mi)	2%	300	6/26/23	+0.032%	7/17/23	257.83	257.75	http://www.usdebtclock.org/      6,176 178 181
Unofficl. (DC – in mi)	2%	300	6/26/23	- 0.057%	7/17/23	305.93	306.75	http://www.usdebtclock.org/     10,455 449 442
Workforce Particip. Number Percent	2%	300	6/26/23	+0.025%+0.006%	7/17/23	304.25	304.27	In 162,344 385 438 Out 100,068 075 084 Total: 262,412 460 http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 61.866
WP % (ycharts)*	1%	150	2/27/23	nc (3 mos.)	5/23	151.19	151.19	https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.60 nc
OUTGO	15%	Biggest jump: used cars
Total Inflation	7%	1050	5/22/23	+0.1%	7/23	990.91	990.91	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.1 .2
Food	2%	300	5/22/23	+0.2%	7/23	278.22	278.22	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.2 .1
Gasoline	2%	300	5/22/23	-5.6%	7/23	260.59	260.59	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm    -5.6 +1.0
Medical Costs	2%	300	5/22/23	-0.1%	7/23	296.97	296.97	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     -0.1 nc
Shelter	2%	300	5/22/23	+0.6%	7/23	276.58	276.58	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.6 0.4
WEALTH	6%
Dow Jones Index	2%	300	6/26/23	-1.96%	7/17/23	281.11	275.61	https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 33,734.88
Home (Sales) (Valuation)	1% 1%	150 150	5/1/23	-3.60% +2.59%	7/23	134.58 290.74	134.58 290.74	https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M):  4.30 Valuations (K):  396.1
Debt (Personal)	2%	300	6/26/23	+0.03%	7/17/23	276.93	276.84	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    73,563 596
NATIONAL	(10%)
Revenue (trilns.)	2%	300	6/26/23	+0.04%	7/17/23	393.89	394.05	debtclock.org/       4,699 701 704
Expenditures (tr.)	2%	300	6/26/23	+0.08%	7/17/23	330.90	330.63	debtclock.org/       6,212 217 224
National Debt tr.)	3%	450	6/26/23	+0.46%	7/17/23	417.48	415.58	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    32,327 475 552 (The debt ceiling... now kicked forward to 1/1/25... had been 31.4)
Aggregate Debt (tr.)	3%	450	6/26/23	+0.14%	7/17/23	399.81	398.74	http://www.usdebtclock.org/    100,915 1,060 1,252
GLOBAL	(5%)
Foreign Debt (tr.)	2%	300	6/26/23	+0.055%	7/17/23	345.25	345.44	http://www.usdebtclock.org/   7,253 249 244
Exports (in billions)	1%	150	5/22/23	-0.76%	8/23	154.66	153.48	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 249.0 247.1
Imports (bl.)	1%	150	5/22/23	+7.985%	8/23	159.02	171.72	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 343.5* 318.1
Trade Deficit (bl.)	1%	150	5/22/23	+8.12% 37.1	8/23	265.59	287.16 364.13	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 74.6 69.0
SOCIAL INDICES (40%)
ACTS of MAN	12%
World Affairs	3%	450	6/26/23	+0.1%	7/17/23	452.62	453.07	President Joe off to Lituania to attend NATO summit (and deal with admission of Sweden and, maybe, Ukraine). French riots and Israeli missile strikes peak, then fade out. Aggressive Russia, China and Iran attack US drones, shipping & allies on land, sea and in the air...
Terrorism	2%	300	6/26/23	+0.3%	7/17/23	290.15	291.02	...but the surviving drones in Syria kill an ISIS terrorist. The US, sick and tired of seeming sick and tired, will provide cluster bombs to Ukraine as Russian coup intrigue roils and boils (above).
Politics	3%	450	6/26/23	+0.1%	7/17/23	480.98	481.46	The candidates are off to Iowa, where Donald UnPicked calls himself a friend of the farmers as his aide Walt Nauta is indicted in documents probe. Jimmy and Roslyn Carter celebrate their 77^th wedding anniversary.
Economics	3%	450	6/26/23	+0.1%	7/17/23	428.33	428.76	Biden and Dems promote bill that would include rent payments in credit scores. Teamster-promoted UPS strike would be the largest in US history. Twitter vs. Threads tweeting war prompts Musk to challenge Zuck to a cage match.
Crime	1%	150	6/26/23	-0.4%	7/17/23	255.30	254.28	Mass murders proliferate (above). Afghani interpreter for failed US occupiers escapes Taliban, come to Washington and is killed in a carjacking. Corpses are found in a garment bag, 9 shot in Cleveland, NY motorcycle madman guns down five, and five fnnky teens set off fireworks in WalMart and start a fire. Killer prison escapee (in Crocs!) on the run in Pennsylvania, perhaps looking for the one-armed man?
ACTS of GOD	(6%)
Environment/Weather	3%	450	6/26/23	-0.5%	7/17/23	408.98	405.94	Did we say it’s... uh... hot? Record temperatures for Independence Day. Miami commandeers city buses to serve as cooling stations and labor disputes arise as workers call for water breaks. And water. Giant seaweeds are headed to Florida, but Trump scoffs - saying climate change means more beachfront property.
Disasters	3%	450	6/26/23	-0.3%	7/17/23	437.22	435.91	Trainwrecks (Yellowstone), two plane crashes at the same SoCal airport and record goin’ home traffic jams bedevil Don Jones. Roller coaster accidents in North Carolina and Wisconsin, too... everybody rescued. But 2 firefighters die as NJ cargo ship fire burns up 5,000 new cars. Summer’s jumping-off-the-boat TikTok challenge rids the world of four assholes.
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX			(15%)
Science, Tech, Educ.	4%	600	6/26/23	nc	7/17/23	630.98	630.98	Elon Musk squawks and Twitters that Zuckerberg’s new competitor “Threads” steals his proprietary secrets (and members) so, instead of a cage match, both send in the clowns (and the lawyers).
Equality (econ/social)	4%	600	6/26/23	+0.1%	7/17/23	616.70	617.32	Following affirmative action repeal, blacktivists fight university legacy priviliges for rich, white applicants.
Health	4%	600	6/26/23	+0.3%	7/17/23	468.74	470.15	TV docs advise special care for pets and vets with PTSD during fireworks season. FDA greenlights Lequembi Alzheimers’ drug; TV Doc LaPook takes to the airwaves to envision a “cocktail of drugs” to figh dementia, but does admit that there could be side effects like brain bleeding.
Freedom and Justice	3%	450	6/26/23	+0.2%	7/17/23	469.17	470.11	IPSOS poll: 53% believe SCOTUS is biased, but a majority also likes their decisions. Fireworks law varies widely by state, but most prohibit children, drunks and gas station workers from celebrating, firing guns into the air also discouraged. Police and courts wrap up holiday weekend murders by indicting perps and sentencing El Paso’s racist gunman to 90 life sentences. Trump-appointed judge rules Preident Joe’s war on social media disinformation violates the First Amendment.
MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX					(7%)
Cultural incidents	3%	450	6/26/23	+0.1%	7/17/23	498.79	499.29	Insidious Five takes down Indy Four while Mission Impossible Seven’s Tom Cruise also beats up Harrison Ford in reviews and box office predictions... but watch out for Barbie! 50 year old Eagles announce their Long Goodbye tour, also quitting their games are Elton John and Megan Rapinoe. But, first, the fanthings have her last World Cup to cheer upon (beginning July 20^th) and August will bring the start of the NFL preseason. And it’ll be back to school in just over a month! RIP composer/conductor Peter Nero.
Misc. incidents	4%	450	6/26/23	+0.2%	7/17/23	480.91	481.87	Gun controllers say nothing has changed since Columbine massacre of 1998, but celebrities, politicians and millions of Don Joneses celebrate the Fourth anyway – some with gunfire, some not. Lotto fever soars with Mega Millions/Powerball combined prizes over $1B (odds against winning both are 88 quadrillion to one).

The Don Jones Index for the week of July 3^rd through July 9^th, 2023 was UP 48.27 points

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

ATTACHMENT ONE – From Just Security

HOW DOES PUTIN’S RESPONSE TO PRIGOZHIN’S MUTINY CHANGE THE THREAT FROM RUSSIA?

by Douglas London, July 5, 2023

The U.S. Intelligence Community has no doubt been constantly assessing the most important question for national security decision-makers in the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s June 24 attempted mutiny against the Russian military — namely, how will the fallout from the revolt, however temporary, change Russia’s threat to the West? Is it greater or less?

The determining factors in approaching that question include the U.S. government’s ability to forecast Russia’s stability and predictability, which clearly is diminished coming out of this episode, owing to President Vladimir Putin’s weakened position. Most importantly, Putin’s image of being all-knowing and all-powerful, which facilitates his more than two decades of one-man rule, has been compromised. He is likely to have sustained a loss in confidence — and fear — among those within the institutions on which he depends: the military, the intelligence apparatus, and the security services. He can’t spin this to regain the status quo of the conditions with which he once ruled — absolute and unquestioned authority based on the expected repercussions of doing otherwise.

Putin now has choices to make, and for the moment, he appears to be seeking an illusory middle ground with half measures. He waited too long to address Prigozhin’s threat, in part probably because he believed the Wagner leader’s behavior and contributions served his own interests, and in part because he might have feared too heavy-handed an approach could backfire.

The result will be less-reliable Russian national security institutions, regardless of what Putin does now. And that atmosphere will make him — and Russia — less predictable, and complicate the task of anticipating near-term, over-the-horizon, and wild-card threats. Those threats might come from among the desperate, motivated by fear, or from the opportunists who see his vulnerability, and/or it may come from the dangers in how Putin responds to either. Insiders might have reevaluated their greater odds to succeed — or at least their survivability — by moving, or joining a move, against him.

Undermining Putin’s Narrative

Prigozhin’s mutiny might not mean that Putin is holding on by a thin thread, but it undermined the Russian leader’s narrative of invincibility and fearlessness which poses significant consequences over time. Perception is reality, at least in Russian politics. Putin’s popularity, despite – and in some ways because of — his many years of kleptocratic rule, had much to do with his strongman image. He appealed to Russians who sought stability as the country emerged from the 1998 financial crisis and the restoration of their pride as a world power.  And he likewise appealed to those in the West, particularly Europe, where Russia’s economic integration and Putin’s longevity suggested continuity, and predictability. The war in Ukraine and Prigozhin’s revolt has undone all of that, though clearly not entirely … yet.

CIA Director William Burns spoke about the Ukraine war’s corrosive effect on Russian leadership in remarks to the Ditchley Foundation in England on July 1. “Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression,” Burns observed. Consider how Prigozhin’s revolt might impact Russian thinking in the context of the CIA’s recent appeal to Russians for clandestine cooperation. The video guiding Russians who have sensitive information how they can securely contact the Agency garnered 2.5 million views in its first week, according to Burns, albeit absent details on how many originated from Russia. “That disaffection,” Burns said, “creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us at CIA.”

Burns likely knows that history supports his point. I spent 34 years as a CIA Operations officer, spoke Russian, and served one of my three Chief of Station assignments in a former Soviet republic under the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)’s intrusive monitoring. I recall well the opportunities resulting after China’s 1989’s crackdown on protestors at Tiananmen Square and those from the reverberations following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse. I expect that today’s opportunities are even bigger.

Putin waited too long to act even before the mutiny, and he did so again during the day it unfolded, compromising his all-knowing, all-powerful image. It was clear long before that day that Putin had sustained damage already from his reluctance to repudiate or harness the mercenary leader, and that foreshadowed an inevitable showdown with potentially volatile consequences. And so it is that Putin faces not only the loss of confidence among Russia’s elite and across his military, intelligence, and security services, but perhaps more importantly, some loss of their fear.

Whether it was Putin’s deliberate calculation to use Prigozhin as a lightning rod or counterpoint to the formal military leadership, or that he was concerned about potential blowback based on Prigozhin’s increasing public popularity or capacity to retaliate, the Russian president ultimately chose to degrade the Wagner mercenary leader’s power obliquely, via one of his henchmen whom Prigozhin already had targeted for vociferous criticism — Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. On June 10, Shoigu ordered all Russian private military companies and their fighters to sign formal contracts placing them and their arms under his direct control by July 1.

U.S. intelligence reportedly had gathered “an extremely detailed and accurate picture” of Prigozhin’s plans to strike, “including where and how Wagner was planning to advance,” according to CNN. Prigozhin said in a June 26 recording that he moved up his plans following Shoigu’s announcement, asserting that his hand had been forced by Shoigu’s plan, which he claimed his fighters had uniformly rejected. Prigozhin also described his actions as a protest, rather than a coup.

The Kremlin’s Spin

The Kremlin will struggle to credibly spin this episode; though that hasn’t stopped it from trying to regain for Putin the status quo of absolute and unquestioned authority and depict a sense of normalcy. Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov asserted at a news conference, that Russia would emerge “stronger and more resilient,” and dismissed the rebellion as insignificant.

Meanwhile, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s June 26 account and his press service’s earlier description of his role bringing an end to Prigozhin’s mutiny suggests unsurprisingly that negotiations might have actually been managed by Putin’s de facto deputy, Russian National Security Council President and former FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev as well as current FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov. It was the FSB that owned the original relationship with Prigozhin, who started out as a St. Petersburg hoodlum and spent 10 years in prison. It was the FSB that partnered with Prigozhin and brought him into Putin’s camp. And it was FSB Director Bortnikov, Lukashenko said, whose assurances Prigozhin sought before accepting the deal.

Yet curiously undermining the Kremlin’s own spin, during a theatrically choreographed June 27 speech in a Kremlin courtyard surrounded by Russian service members, Putin appeared to have revealed the seriousness with which he viewed the threat. He thanked the army and Russia’s security services for saving “our Motherland from upheaval” and stopping “a civil war.” It’s more characteristic for Putin to minimize rather than magnify threats that might cast him as weak, making his choice of words surprising, if not revealing to those watching from outside.

Putin now has choices to make to assure his survival: a wholesale cleansing of the country’s military, security, and intelligence institutions; or the piecemeal removal of expendable scapegoats. The latter would suggest the need to likewise offer a wider circle of stakeholders greater influence and authority to maintain their support and cohesion.

Either option leaves Putin less control over his own fate. A purge leaves Russia’s institutions less robust in prosecuting his war in Ukraine, repressing dissent, and ferreting out threats. Such harsh measures could boomerang and push some thinking their number might be coming up to act. And concessions would come at the expense of Putin’s own power and authority.

A Role for Russia’s National Guard?

The middle ground is limited and could come with diminishing returns. Putin can harden his and the government’s defenses by strengthening the Rosgvardiya, the National Guard that reports directly to him. The Rosgvardiya is organized and equipped to crush unarmed civilian protestors. Yet they demonstrated little inclination to engage Wagner’s forces, let alone fight them to the death, which seemed to be confirmed by General Viktor Zolotov, Putin’s former bodyguard and current National Guard chief, several days after the Wagner “march” toward Moscow. Zolotov suggested he expected to receive the tanks, artillery, and advanced weaponry that might be necessary to fend off a serious challenge in the future.

But any material gains for the Rosgvardiya, including equipment the military might seize from Wagner or Russian military inventory, would necessarily come at the conventional army’s expense. What Zolotov receives, the army loses towards its war in Ukraine, considering its reportedly catastrophic material losses. Reporting in late May 2023 of the most recent data from the open source intelligence website Oryx noted that tank losses alone exceeded 2,000.

Of even greater political significance, however, might be how such augmentation could make the Rosgvardiya an alternative center of power and Zolotov a more credible, if not well-armed, potential Putin successor. Citing the Russian outlet Vedomosti reporting on July 3 from internal law enforcement sources, the Institute for the Study of War indicated that Russian law enforcement authorities were “considering reassigning the `Grom’ special units of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) to Rosgvardiya” following Putin’s June 26 meeting with heads of Russian law enforcement. But bigger is not necessarily better, as Vedomosti’s sources included those who criticized the move owing to the poor quality of the equipment, training, and leadership.

Putin’s Isolation

Putin may choose to further isolate himself from his subordinates as well as the public, or end up doing so by his actions. Gleb Karakulov, who served as a captain in the Federal Protection Service that provides personal security for Putin and other high-ranking Russian officials and who defected in late 2022, described the Russian president as “pathologically afraid for his life.” Karakulov confirmed details of an armored train network that the president uses for travel, Putin’s aversion to flying, identical offices in different cities, the Russian president’s strict personal quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic and even since then, and his escalating security protocols.

Yet following the mutiny, Putin has been unusually visible. His highly publicized visit to Dagestan, ostensibly to chair a meeting on domestic tourism, featured images of him kissing children, hugging women, shaking hands and posing for photos among adoring crowds. And a virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was another example of Putin trying to restore his image and the narrative that he has strong external backing. The carefully controlled and calculated exposure suggests an effort to show he is confident, fully in control, with the support of his people, Russia’s institutions, and key international partners.

Yet the reality remains that of an isolated and paranoid leader who allows but a few chosen voices whose skewed input arguably contributes to his detachment from reality. Russian institutions are systemically stove-piped and dysfunctional, and feed Putin with news and intelligence that aligns with his predisposed views and paranoia. Moreover, descriptions of Putin’s leadership style — alternatively micromanaging and absent — are manifested in the self-aggrandizement, corruption, and ineptitude among major institutions such as the FSB, the Defense Ministry, and the Finance Ministry that manage governance, security, the economy and the war.

The ensuing inertia and apathy create vulnerability to surprises and can enable catastrophic misunderstanding and overreaction, such as might have led to Putin’s flawed decision-making concerning Ukraine. Even if one believes Rosgvardiya’s Zolotov that the FSB had some two days advanced knowledge of Prigozhin’s plan, the security services then were either too late, ill-equipped to do anything about it, or unable to stir Putin into action.

Observable events suggest Putin is pursuing that illusory middle ground. General Sergei Surovikin, known as “General Armageddon” by the Russian press for his ruthlessness as Russia’s overall commander in Syria and then Ukraine for a brief period, now rumored to have been detained on suspicion of being in league with Prigozhin, might be the first military domino to fall. But he’s not likely the last senior Russian officer destined for the proverbial-or actual, gallows. Russia’s costly prosecution of the war suggests that the military’s dysfunction and questionable loyalties go far deeper than Surovikin. Still, rather than a purge, a more selective disappearance of senior officials has been complemented by what would appear to be a carrot. An official government decree granted a 10.5 percent raise to soldiers, police officers and other security agency employees.

Prigozhin Threat Not Necessarily Over

The threat from Prigozhin, too, is not necessarily over. Former CIA Director and Army General David Petraeus told CNN that Prigozhin had “lost his nerve” once his revolt “didn’t appear to be generating the kind of support that he had hoped it would” and should henceforth “be careful around open windows.” But whatever Prigozhin might have been thinking when he decided to turn that convoy around, it seems unlikely that he would have surrendered his personal and financial security without reliable guarantees, and it seems particularly unwise had he trusted any assurances offered in Lukashenka’s “deal.”

It is curious then, that Prigozhin would accede to the status quo by standing down without more than an ostensible – and likely unreliable — get-out-of-jail free card. Allowing that Prigozhin may have exaggerated the 25,000 troops he claimed under his command (though estimates have varied, and a U.K. figure in December suggested 20,000 in Russia and Ukraine alone based on population drops in prisons, where Wagner had been recruiting), the Wagner leader still could have held Russia’s southern military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, where it met no resistance, and laid siege to Moscow at least temporarily without challenging its defenses in order to exact more substantial concessions. Doing so also would have provided him time and exposure to secure greater support from the Russian public and the armed forces, elements of which he no doubt envisioned rising to join his anti-corruption crusade.

Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian human rights activist living in Paris who facilitated a number of defections from Russia’s military, intelligence, and security services, suggested Prigozhin is holding “kompromat” over Putin.  But while further revelations might be embarrassing, it’s unlikely any would be surprising or sufficiently shocking to undermine his domestic support.

Prigozhin’s own security might simply lie with the manpower, tanks, artillery, ammunition, and man-portable anti-armor and air defense weapons he retains, including some Western weapons likely captured in Ukraine. Wagner was required to return its equipment, and many of their fighters were still required to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry by July 1. The Russian army would rather not have to secure these weapons by force, a move that could spark further volatility, and Putin would suffer from the optics of fratricide and upheaval for  such fighting, after he claimed credit for how his decisions negotiating and ultimately dropping charges against Prigozhin and his fighters were taken to avoid such an outcome. And doing so would also mean diverting and possibly bloodying Putin’s best military assets in Ukraine, from which he would draw for the Wagner weapons seizure.

It’s hard to tell whether Prigozhin is taking up Lukashenko’s offer to relocate his forces and their wares into Belarus or whether he hopes to continue running his worldwide operation from there. And while Lukashenka claimed on June 27 that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus, there has been no first-hand confirmation of that, and Prigozhin didn’t say in his post-mutiny audio statement the previous day where he was located.

The New York Times reported, however, that commercial satellite imagery taken June 26 by Planet Labs, a private company with a network of shoebox-size satellites, “shows that Belarus is rapidly building what appear to be temporary structures at a deserted military base, revealing a possible location for Wagner fighters.” And a BBC investigation suggests that as of at least June 29, Wagner offices across Russia were still actively recruiting fighters for service in Ukraine and elsewhere.

And Russian bloggers were red with envy on St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka’s claim from internal sources that Russian authorities returned more than 10 billion rubles (roughly $111 million) in cash, five gold bars, and hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars in cash to Prigozhin on July 2 that authorities had seized from Prigozhin-affiliated facilities in St. Petersburg on June 24. That the FSB would likely have been the agency which effected the seizure, it might be telling of its role and relationship with Prigozhin in supporting the assets’ return.

Wagner’s Future

If Prigozhin is in Belarus and stays there, he would be surrounded by loyal fighters who may be motivated because they understand their vulnerability to reprisals should they leave Wagner, regardless of ostensible assurances in Lukashenka’s “deal.” And time will tell if the Kremlin can secure greater control over Prigozhin’s global enterprises. FSB and Russian law enforcement agency raids against Wagner offices across Russia are seizing assets and securing evidence, and Kremlin officials have been dispatched to Africa to reassure counterterrorism client states there that Wagner forces, which depend heavily on the Russian government for weapons, supplies, and agreements to operate in those countries, will continue their work.

Wagner’s international presence has included deployments to Syria, Mali, the Central African Republic, and Sudan. According to Western, Arab and African officials speaking with the Wall Street Journal, many of the lucrative deals Wagner-linked companies struck with these governments were informal, reliant on smuggling and illicit transfers and personally negotiated by Prigozhin himself, complicating Moscow’s desire to insert itself.

While Putin still appears focused on the symptoms rather than the self-inflicted wounds that threaten his rule, Prigozhin is unlikely to go away quietly. But should Prigozhin mysteriously fall out of a window or succumb to a suspiciously delivered nerve agent, the infection he seeded into Putin’s political body is likely to fester and encourage — rather than scare off — future provocateurs.

IMAGE: Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a speech in Moscow on June 27, 2023, to hundreds of officers of the Russian military and secret services whom he said prevented a larger crisis when the Wagner Group was marching toward the Russian capital on June 24. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

ATTACHMENT TWO – From Guardian UK

COULD YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN’S ‘REBELLION’ AGAINST RUSSIA BE JUST AN ILLUSION?

Anthony Walbran suspects a sleight of hand by Vladimir Putin, while Sue Joiner wonders if it was a feint to get troops into position in Belarus

Mon 3 Jul 2023 12.50 EDT

Maybe China’s view that current divisions in Russia are an “illusion” is right (China downplays Wagner rebellion as Russia’s ‘internal affairs’, 26 July). Could we have just witnessed an incredible sleight of hand by the Russian president? What if Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup was not intended for Russia, but Belarus?

Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his desire to reunify the old USSR. Former member Belarus shares long land borders with other former USSR states, specifically Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine. And while Belarus has shown itself to be a reliable Russian ally, Alexander Lukashenko is weak and Belarusian people have shown a preference for closer ties to Europe rather than Russia. With this in mind, it would be no surprise if Putin views the country as unreliable.

However, even if Russia’s forces were not already fully engaged, the invasion of a staunch ally would be hard to justify. So maybe Putin decided that Belarus needed to be brought under Russian control from within. And what better way than to install someone with a private army of at least 25,000 battle-hardened troops, and complete loyalty, into Belarus, ready to take over the country on command?

Having created the fiction that Prigozhin is acting independently and against elements of the Russian establishment and then duping the Belarusian leader into taking him in (Trojan Horse-style), the setup would be complete, with the added beauty that Putin has full deniability in the case of a failure in execution. It would also cast the earlier stationing of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus in a new light.
Anthony Walbran
Dee Why, New South Wales, Australia

 Before we crow too loudly over Putin’s supposed difficulties with the Prigozhin “rebellion”, shouldn’t we at least be alert to the possibility that this whole episode has been a feint to get him and his troops into position in Belarus so that they can attack Kiev from the north, catching Ukraine in a pincer movement? We’ve been caught off-guard before.
Sue Joiner
London

ATTACHMENT THREE – From The Conversation

PRIGOZHIN REVOLT RAISED FEARS OF PUTIN’S TOPPLING – AND A NUCLEAR RUSSIA IN CHAOS

Published: July 5, 2023 8.23am EDT

By Gregory F. Treverton, Professor of Practice in International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Security scholar Gregory F. Treverton says, the brief mutiny mounted by Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, may be over, but the dramatic events sparked by that mutiny are “still unfolding.” In this interview with The Conversation U.S. democracy editor Naomi Schalit, Treverton, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the Obama administration, points out that the U.S. response to the incident was superficially simple – essentially “We have nothing to do with this” – but fundamentally more complex.

What did you think at first when you heard about this action taken by Prigozhin and his Wagner Group mercenary soldiers?

My first thought was, “Why is Prigozhin taking this huge risk?” We knew that he’d been critical of the Russian military and was getting away with it in ways that none of us quite expected. But to go this far, take the next step, even if he said that this was not aimed at Putin but only aimed at the generals – is this ambition run amok? Or was it fear? Desperation?

When Prigozhin agreed to go to Belarus and his soldiers backed off, did you think that was the end of it?

My response was, “That can’t be the end.” Maybe it means the demobilization of Wagner. And maybe the end of Wagner. If you’re looking at this from Putin’s perspective, you’d say, well, this guy Progozhin got too big for his boots. He was helpful to Russia – not just in Ukraine, but in Africa. He’s now overstepped the line and therefore needs to be disciplined. But this is still a play unfolding. And, you know, if I were Progozhin, I’d be scared to death about possible attacks on my life.

What’s the US attitude been toward Putin?

Putin was the first world leader to call George W. Bush on 9/11. And there was a period in the late 1990s when the two countries were still working together to denuclearize the Soviet republics. That sort of cooperation existed until about 2000. By 2007, Putin was already talking about how NATO was trying to encircle Russia and was a threat to Russia.

When I was in the Obama administration, many of my senior colleagues were palpably negative about Putin. I kept having to gently remind them, “Yes, he may be a liar, a thief and a cheat. But we dealt with those kinds of people earlier, in the Soviet Union, and didn’t blow up the world. So no matter what he is, we need to deal with it.”

What struck me when I was running the National Intelligence Council was how isolated Putin was. He hardly ever came to the Kremlin, stayed in one of his dachas outside Moscow. He had a lifestyle that most of us would envy. He didn’t do anything much besides exercise and read till 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Then he’d see a few people.

But he was very isolated in the pandemic, and more and more isolated by now. The U.S. now finds itself in circumstances where basically everybody around Putin owes their career to him. And that makes you worry about the advice he gets – that’s not someone to whom you can deliver bad news.

So he was initially someone the U.S. could work with. He then got more difficult as he worried that the U.S. was trying to back him into a corner with NATO. And now, we’re not even sure if the information on which he bases his actions is reliable. That sounds like someone that the U.S. would worry about and not want to have in power.

Somebody who’s that isolated, perhaps that detached from reality – that’s very dangerous in this world of nuclear weapons. Ideally, the U.S. would like somebody else.

For the past 20 years, Putin’s made his power more absolute. In the process, he has not done the thing the U.S. hoped he would do, which was begin to renovate the Russian economy, which is still in terrible shape. It plugs along only because oil prices have been pretty high. This isn’t where the U.S. hoped it would be with Russia at this point in history.

During that three-day period that Putin called a “mutiny” by Prigozhin and his troops, I would imagine that there was a strange situation in terms of how the U.S. was thinking about Putin: We don’t like him. He really does have to go, but we don’t want him to go this way, because it’s too scary.

On the one hand, having Putin remain in power through this Prigozhin affair was probably better than the chaos that might have ensued if Putin had been ousted. On the other hand, in the long run, the U.S. seems to have moved to the position over the Ukraine war where we basically say, Putin can’t win. It has to be clear that Putin did not win, that he lost. And in some sense, without saying it, this means Putin has to go.

The administration made clear that the U.S. government had nothing to do this. This was entirely a Russian affair. We weren’t seeking to benefit from it. We weren’t trying to foment it. Indeed, there seem to have been back-channel communications with Russia, reassuring them that we weren’t involved, that we weren’t seeking regime change or the country’s destruction.

What was the fear here in the U.S. if Putin were to have been deposed?

If Russia is ever going to make peace in the Ukraine war, it isn’t going to be Putin who does it – he is so dug in with his objectives. There is no way he could make an agreement. So on the one hand, if Prigozhin had been successful, maybe there would have been some way to think about this war being wound down, some armistice, some freezing of conflict at least, maybe even an agreement on a cease-fire. So that would have been positive.

The concern obviously was, you’ve got real chaos in Russia. Is that something the U.S. would really want? The U.S. would like Putin and Russia to behave better. On the other hand, we don’t want Russia to become a kind of lawless space to the east of Europe with nuclear weapons. The idea that you have a country coming apart, with the lawlessness of warlords, and all that in the presence of nuclear weapons – that seems to me to be one that does keep you up at night.

I’ve thought for a long time that this war is going to be bad for Russia, no matter how it ends.

Their military manpower is depleted, and if the Wagner group disbands, that will build still more pressure to conscript. Not only has Russia lost people on the battlefield and used up supplies it can’t easily replace, lots of talented people have emigrated, and their economy has been sanctioned. So this has been a pretty bad period for the country. And it’s not going to get any better.

ATTACHMENT FOUR – From Newsmax

BLAINE HOLT TO NEWSMAX: PUTIN MAY BE RENEGING ON PRIGOZHIN1

By Sandy Fitzgerald    |   Wednesday, 28 June 2023 09:19 AM EDT

Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin may be "sitting comfortably" in Belarus for now, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing signs that he may be reneging on his deal with the mercenary chief after his short-lived revolt and march toward Moscow last weekend, retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt tells Newsmax.

"Putin's got to be looking over his shoulder, but what we can see this morning in Moscow is he's already started the investigatory trail to find out where all the loose ends are," Holt told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" on Wednesday.

Prigozhin is likely to be investigated for money fraud and other elements of his interactions with the Wagner group, including reports that he is making an "interesting amount of money," with an audit showing the Russian government had paid him $2 billion in a year, said Holt.

The Russians will also be trying to determine who knew about Prigozhin's actions, including taking a look at the Russian general staff who were aware but did not report the situation to the government, said Holt.

"There is no loss of zeal for finding out where the origins of this came from," he added.

Meanwhile, Holt said it's concerning that Prigozhin is in Belarus, where Putin has been shipping tactical nuclear weapons, but at the same time, he thinks the Wagner leader has "probably played out his course like a streaking comet across the sky."

"There are so many that they can put in charge of the Wagner group or reconstitute it," said Holt. "What we know is this. We know there are former prisoners, hardened combat personnel, sitting inside Belarus right now near tactical nuclear weapons that Russia has put there."

NATO, he added, "is right to be concerned about it," but "over dialing into this guy Prigozhin is not going to get us anywhere."

Instead, Russia's intent for its tactical weapons must be examined, said Holt.

"Are they building a strike force to get at Kyiv?" said Holt. "What is their intent with the tactical weapons, should Ukraine have a big breakthrough in its counteroffensive?"

Ukraine's fight is also coming at a "tremendous cost," and the United States must watch its own readiness stocks, he said.

"NATO has got to be making some decisions," including working for a diplomatic stance on the war, and an international solution must be reached on the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, said Holt.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is still suffering from a lack of air power, which is necessary to make efficient use of the ground weapons it is receiving from the United States and other countries, said Holt.

"They're fighting with what they can, but without the air cover, they're going to chew up ammunition, and unfortunately, people too, at an alarming rate," he said. "Where does this lead? Remember, we have other adversaries in this world that we've got to account for."

PRIGOZHIN in DANGER... PUTIN in DANGER... BOTH in DANGER!

ATTACHMENT FIVE – From Time

How Long Can Wagner Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin Survive?

Yevgeny Prigozhin is seen during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum SPIEF2016 on June 17, 2016 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

 BY ASTHA RAJVANSHI  JUNE 26, 2023 6:01 PM EDT

The armed uprising against Russia’s military command was called off just as quickly as it first began, but the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin—the leader of the Wagner mercenary group who led the mutiny and incurred the enmity of Russian President Vladimir Putin—is now uncertain.

On Saturday, Prigozhin reportedly agreed to leave Russia for an “early retirement” in Belarus after withdrawing his troops from marching on Moscow in a deal mediated by the neighboring country’s autocratic leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin’s.

00:12 / 00:30

“Realizing 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,” Prigozhin said in an audio broadcast on Telegram.

The paramilitary leader then left the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don that evening. In video footage, Prigozhin was seen smiling and shaking hands with his supporters who flocked to his car to cheer him on.

His current whereabouts are unknown, but on Monday, Prigozhin posted an 11-minute audio message on Telegram. Referring to previous orders from the Russian ministry of defense asking his commanders to sign government contracts, Prigozhin said the Wagner group was “categorically against the decision to close Wagner on 1 July 2023 and to incorporate it into the defense ministry.”

The sudden turn of events has raised questions over whether Prigozhin will continue to pose a threat to Russian leadership, and whether he can survive in exile in Belarus given Putin’s long history of retaliation against his critics and opponents.

One political commentator even likened Prigozhin’s fate to that of Julius Caesar’s assassins, who were initially pardoned for their crimes. “The assassins went into voluntary exile. Caesar’s supporters promptly reneged, revoked the amnesty – and hunted the assassins to death,” David Frum posted on Twitter.

The Kremlin’s unkept promise

Under the deal brokered by Lukashenko, the Kremlin agreed not to prosecute Prigozhin or other members of the Wagner group for launching an armed rebellion if Prigozhin departed to Belarus, Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said Saturday.

On Monday, however, Russian media outlets reported the criminal charges against Prigozhin had not been dropped and the Russian Federal Security Service was continuing its investigation against the Wagner chief. The reports came via Kommersant, a Russian newspaper, and the country’s three main Kremlin-run news agencies—Tass, RIA, and Interfax—citing anonymous sources. Though the reports could not be independently verified, they suggest that if the proceedings do continue, Prigozhin—who has been accused of “betrayal” and “treason” by Putin and Russian officials—potentially faces up to 20 years in prison.

“Whatever agreement they made over the weekend, Putin has now dropped it,” says Martin Kragh, the deputy director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies. A reversal is also predictable on Putin’s part, Kragh continues, given that 15 Russian servicemen were killed during the uprising by Wagner.

“It’s one thing to allow [Prigozhin] to leave the country and never show his face; it’s another thing to say that Putin is going to forget about this,” he says.

In the “pure logic” of a KGB leader, Putin now needs to “punish his enemies and traitors” to demonstrate his strong leadership, adds Sergej Sumlenny, the founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center in Berlin. “The question is, does he have the required resources to do so?”

Putin’s long history of retaliation

Putin’s regime has long been defined by his efforts to crush dissent and political opposition. In 2003, he put Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, behind bars for a decade for criticizing state corruption before he was released and exiled to Zurich.

In January 2021, he arrested the country’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, sparking some of the biggest protests that the country had seen in years. The authorities met pro-Navalny protestors with violence, and since then, Putin has intensified his tactics by eliminating opposition politicians, weaponizing the justice system, and labeling critical journalists as “foreign agents.”

Read More: The Man Putin Fears

“All the prominent figures who challenged Putin in the past are either in exile or have been persecuted or killed,” says Tymofiy Mylovanov, the President of the Kyiv School of Economics and an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine.

Not every Putin critic dies under mysterious or suspicious circumstances, but there is a long history of Kremlin foes who have indeed died this way. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent and vocal critic of the Russian Federal Security Service, died in a London hotel after drinking a cup of tea laced with deadly polonium-210. A British inquiry found that Litvinenko was poisoned by Russian agents who were acting on orders that had “probably been approved” by Putin.

Similarly, Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader and Putin critic, was killed in Moscow in 2015 after he was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. The attack occurred just hours after Nemtsov urged the public to join a march against Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine.

And in 2016, Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian Communist Party member who began sharply criticizing Putin after fleeing Russia, was shot in Kyiv in what former Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko called an “act of state terrorism by Russia.”

Still, the weekend’s events were “qualitatively different from anything else we have seen before,” Kragh says, because while those who previously challenged the Russian president were “primarily outside of the political system,” Prigozhin owes much of his rise in the political and military ranks to Putin.

Since forming the Wagner mercenary group in 2014, Prigozhin has been a key tool of Putin’s overseas adventurism, from propping up his ally Bashar Al-Assad in Syria to helping replace French influence in Mali. Experts have noted how the Wagner group operated at an arms-length from the Kremlin and therefore allowed Putin to deny Russian involvement, which in turn made Prigozhin popular with the Kremlin and enabled him to build up his own power base.

As a result, there are still questions about what happened over the weekend, Kragh says. “We still don’t know to what extent the Russian intelligence agencies were aware of a potential uprising, and why they failed to react,” he says.

What happens next?

For now, experts say the future of the Wagner chief remains unknown, in part because Prigozhin’s main objective was calling Putin’s attention to the imminent breakup of Prigozhin’s mercenary army. “These weren’t demands for a governmental overthrow; they were a desperate bid to save the enterprise,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, posted on Twitter.

She continued, “Now it appears that these merits helped Prigozhin to get out of this crisis alive, but without a political future in Russia (at least while Putin is in power).”

Cutting a deal with Putin may have left Prigozhin in a fraught situation with the estimated 25,000 Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion and will now have to disband. As they face the choice of either signing contracts with the defense ministry or dispersing into Russian society under the watchful eyes of the Kremlin, they are likely to resent Prigozhin for putting them in their bind.

“Prigozhin’s life is in danger from both Putin and his own guys because he set them up,” says Mylovanov.

It’s likely that Putin will react by becoming “more paranoid, and even more repressive than in the past,” surmises another Time source, Martin Kragh, the deputy director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies Kragh guesses. Comparing the weekend’s events with the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016, which resulted in the detention of more than 160,000, he says something similar could unfold in Russia with Putin targeting the opposition, civil society, and the media more aggressively.

“If that is the case, then of course, Russia will move in a direction that is even more resembling a traditional dictatorship than anything else,” says Kragh.

If Putin cracks down even further, experts say he’ll likely rethink allowing Prigozhin to live in quiet exile in Belarus— especially after he openly challenged the Russian leader in the public eye.

ATTACHMENT SIX– also from Time

VLADIMIR PUTIN SURVIVED THE WAGNER GROUP REBELLION. HISTORY SHOWS THAT DOESN’T MEAN HE’S SAFE

Surviving a rebellion is not the same as winning one, be it in Moscow, Washington, London, or even Londonderry, N.H.

BY PHILIP ELLIOTT

It’s a tough lesson from history that is worth considering days after Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have weathered the most serious test of his leadership to date, repelling a mutiny that, at least for a few hours over the weekend, seemed as perilous as any stretch of Putin’s two-plus decades ruling Russia. By Monday, the Wagner Group’s revolt seemed to have petered out, sending its architect into exile and giving diplomats and spies in the West a chance to catch up and remind themselves just how much they still don’t know about Moscow and its vassal allies.

Put another way, and borrowing from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: Western intelligence parties have a number of “known unknowns” about Putin, what comes after him, and the future of a vast former empire that stretches over 11 time zones. With nukes and oil both in play, not to mention strategic considerations about Russia’s geopolitical power vis a vis China and India, there was a whole lot of Monday-morning discussion of Washington’s blind spots when it comes to its rival after being given the first tangible evidence that the invasion of Ukraine may not be as popular as once argued inside the Kremlin.

But there’s also this corollary: a damaged leader can survive this style of challenge. The power of incumbency is one that has few rivals. Being commander in chief of Russia’s military complex—and the world’s largest reserve of nuclear weapons—comes with an advantage. And the open secret is that it may not be in the West’s interest to have Putin ousted.

A leadership vacuum in Russia could easily turn into a quagmire in the region, transitioning a stable and consistently vexing autocratic state into something approaching chaos. At the White House and State Department on Monday, spokesmen doubled-down on the standing assertion that the United States has no position in choosing Russia’s leaders.

There’s a good reason for this vague diplospeak, and such a devil’s bargain is familiar to Russia wonks. As TIME’s W.J. Hennigan writes, the threat of loose nukes is one that haunts Western policy hands to no end, “the stuff of nightmares.” At present there’s an accurate accounting of those nukes in an imperfect state, one that comes in between Venezuela and Republic of the Congo in rankings of civil and political freedoms. Autocracy, at least in this case, brings order. As Polish President Lech Walesa told George H.W. Bush during a 1991 period of uncertainty: “We are afraid of one thing in the Soviet Union—anarchy.”

This isn’t the first time Washington has faced deep uncertainty in Moscow that could upend the global order. Mikhail Gorbachev survived his 1991 coup attempt that found him locked in his dacha, cut off from the outside world with encircled troops, and pressured to resign for health reasons. Gorbachev prevailed after a few tense days in August—yet, by December of that year, was giving a farewell address and watching as the Soviet Union dissolved.

That’s the thing about the internal threats, be they military or political. The public can see weakness when seemingly invincible figures stumble. Once the aura is pierced, things can go south quickly. No matter the form of government, wounded leaders often soon find themselves with a newly minted honorific: Ex-.

A strong history rooted in democratic norms is no guarantee that a political rebellion can’t have similarly striking results. President Lyndon Johnson was the presumptive Democratic nominee for President in 1968 until anti-war Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota nearly won the New Hampshire primary and claimed 20 of its 24 delegates. A little less than three weeks later, LBJ was out of the race. It was similar when Ronald Reagan challenged incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976 and Edward M. Kennedy sought to deny Jimmy Carter re-nomination in 1980. Both men won re-nomination and then lost the general election in November of those years. In the U.K., Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher faced her own Tory revolt in 1990, prevailed on the first round of voting, but a quick-moving Cabinet revolt forced the end of an 11-year run.

For now, Putin survived the challenge. Even in its weakened and distracted form, the Russian military was never likely to allow a band of mercenaries to overthrow a government—unless those professional troops believed in the cause. For now, they are not joining the rebels. But that doesn’t mean they won’t hear the echoes of 1917—or 1991—and suddenly remember how to march. After all, history is a tough mistress to defy.

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – From the Intercept

By James Rison June 25 2023, 5:23 p.m.

YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN IS A DEAD MAN WALKING. BUT SO IS VLADIMIR PUTIN

In an insane series of events over the weekend, Russian mercenary leader Prigozhin launched what appeared to be a coup against Putin’s regime, marching his Wagner Group mercenaries from their positions in Ukraine, where they had been fighting alongside the Russian military, into Russia. They seized control of Rostov-on-Don, a key military hub, before marching north to Moscow. Prigozhin and his troops met little resistance from the Russian military; he seemed poised to enter the capital and seize power. Nothing would stop him, he said, vowing that “we will go to the end.”

But his bravado didn’t last long. Just as Wagner forces were closing in on Moscow Saturday, Prigozhin suddenly reversed himself. He cut a deal with the Russian president, brokered by Alexander Lukashenko — Belarus’s autocratic leader and a close Putin ally — and announced that his troops would turn back. Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and go into a sort of exile in Belarus, while Putin agreed to drop a charge of armed rebellion against Prigozhin and grant immunity to his men in connection with the rebellion. Some Wagner forces seem likely to be integrated into the Russian army.

It is still not certain what Saturday’s deal really means and whether it represents an end to the crisis or merely a short-term tactical shift in an ongoing duel between Prigozhin and Putin. But one thing is clear: Prigozhin lost his nerve on Saturday. He had a golden opportunity to seize power at a moment when Putin was surprised and vulnerable. The Russian military had many of its resources in Ukraine rather than Russia, and Wagner’s heavily armed forces had at least the potential to outgun the remaining Russian security services guarding Moscow. Chechens?

But Prigozhin’s moment was fleeting. Now the odds are good that Putin will have his rival murdered. The Russian leader has had opponents thrown out of windows for far less. To think that Lukashenko, a Putin stooge, will protect Prigozhin in Belarus is madness. Moscow has a long reach; Putin has had plenty of opponents assassinated in the West, and Minsk, the capital of Belarus, might as well be a suburb of Moscow.

If Prigozhin believes Putin will abide by their deal, he isn’t thinking straight — which may be why he launched the coup attempt in the first place.

But Putin is a dead man walking, too, because his tenuous hold on power has now been exposed to the world. Prigozhin’s rebellion has revealed that Putin’s regime is a hollow shell and doesn’t really have a monopoly on violence in Russia.

On Saturday, Putin gave an angry national address, calling Prigozhin’s rebellion treasonous and “a stab in the back of our country and our people.” But just a few hours later, he negotiated the settlement with Prigozhin. Putin’s actions showed the Russian people and the rest of the world that when confronted by a powerful adversary, he will blink. That is certainly the lesson now being absorbed by leaders in Ukraine and at NATO.

Putin’s only play to remain in power may be to have Prigozhin murdered once he settles into exile in Belarus. Prigozhin, meanwhile, may be condemned to await his assassin, even as he wonders what might have been.

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – From Sky News

VLADIMIR PUTIN WON'T 'WHACK' WAGNER BOSS YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN - BUT HE'S IN RUSSIA, SAYS BELARUS LEADER

Yevgeny Prigozhin was last seen in public leaving the Russian city of Rostov after ordering his men to stand down following the group's rebellion. Speculation has since continued over his whereabouts and the future of the Wagner Group.

By Olive Enokido-Lineham Thursday 6 July 2023 17:06, UK

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has said Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is in Russia - and Vladimir Putin will not "whack" him.

Mr Lukashenko said Prigozhin may be in St Petersburg or Moscow, and insisted he is "absolutely free", adding his Wagner troops remain at the camps where they had stayed before the group's aborted coup attempt last month.

"As for Yevgeny Prigozhin, he is in St Petersburg where he is this morning, maybe he went to Moscow, maybe somewhere else but he's not in the territory of Belarus", Mr Lukashenko said.

Answering a question from Sky's Diana Magnay, Mr Lukashenko said Prigozhin would not be "whacked".

"What will happen to him next? Well, things happen in life. But if you think that Putin is so malicious and vindictive and that he will, to say in plain Russian, whack him somewhere tomorrow - no, this will not happen. It will not happen," Mr Lukashenko said.

Prigozhin, 62, has not been seen in public since he was driven out of the Russian city of Rostov after he ordered his men to stand down and speculation has continued over his future and that of his mercenary group.

Last week, Mr Lukashenko confirmed the exiled leader was in his country following a Belarus-brokered deal between the Kremlin and Prigozhin which brought an end to the mercenary chief's armed mutiny on 24 June.

Mr Lukashenko, a close ally of Mr Putin, did not specify the location of the camps but Prigozhin's mercenaries fought alongside Russian forces in Ukraine before their revolt.

His comments follow Russian media reports claiming Prigozhin was spotted in St Petersburg.

Sky's security and defence editor Deborah Haynes says if the reports are true, they speak of "unresolved issues".

She said: "If he is actually on his way to Moscow that doesn't speak of defiance, it speaks more of unresolved issues surrounding the whole extraordinary affair, which only two and a half weeks ago saw the Russian president facing the gravest threat to his authority during more than 20 years in power."

Asked if Prigozhin and his mercenaries were going to move to Belarus, Mr Lukashenko answered evasively that it would depend on the decisions taken by the Wagner chief and the Russian government.

The president has said previously that he does not think Wagner's presence in Belarus could lead to the destabilisation of his country.

It comes as Prigozhin's St Petersburg palace was raided by Russian security services.

The FSB says it found gold bars, a stuffed alligator and a cupboard full of wigs at the residence as the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia published images and video of the raid yesterday.

While the exact terms of the Belarus-brokered deal are unclear, it is believed that Prigozhin agreed to relocate to Belarus.

The Russian president described Wagner's brief rebellion as "treason" and "a stab in the back".

However, after it was called off, the Kremlin said all criminal charges against Prigozhin would be dropped and Wagner fighters would not be prosecuted.

The group has been responsible for some of Moscow's successes in the war in Ukraine and helped capture the city of Bakhmut after months of bloody fighting.

ATTACHMENT NINE – From the Independent UK

UKRAINE WAR – LIVE: PUTIN’S SECURITY FORCES RAID WAGNER CHIEF’S MANSION AS PRIGOZHIN ‘RETURNS TO RUSSIA’

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters on Thursday Prigozhin is ‘in St Petersburg’

By Arpan Rai and Tara Cobham

A raid by Russian security services has revealed the colourful inside of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s St Petersburg lavish mansion.

A wardrobe stuffed full of wigs, gold bars and a stuffed alligator were among the many bizarre finds in photos and footage published by pro-Kremlin media outlet Izvestia.

Officials are also said to have found assault weapons, ammunition and even a photograph allegedly showing the severed heads of the Wagner leader’s enemies.

Meanwhile, the exiled Wagner boss is back in Russia weeks after his failed mutiny and his Wagner troops have remained at the camps they stayed in before an attempted mutiny against Moscow.

Having brokered a deal last month, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told reporters on Thursday: “As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus.” Last week, he said that Prigozhin was in Belarus.

President Alexander Lukashenko helped broker a deal under which Prigozhin ended his abortive mutiny on 24 June in exchange for security guarantees for himself and his soldiers. The deal allowed Prigozhin and his troops to move to Belarus.

5 hours ago

Wigs, gold bars and ‘severed heads’: Inside Wagner boss’s lavish Russian mansion

A raid by Russian security services has revealed the colourful inside of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s St Petersburg lavish mansion.

A wardrobe stuffed full of wigs, gold bars and a stuffed alligator were among the many bizarre finds in photos and footage published by pro-Kremlin media outlet Izvestia.

Officials are also said to have found assault weapons, ammunition and even a photograph allegedly showing the severed heads of the Wagner leader’s enemies.

Read more:

Wigs, gold bars and ‘severed heads’: Inside Wagner mercenary boss’s lavish mansion

Pro-Kremlin media alleged that a raid on the Wagner chief’s flat had been conducted by Russian forces

Eleanor Noyce 6 July 2023 12:00

Zelensky visits Bulgaria and draws support for Kyiv’s NATO membership bid

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed military aid Thursday during a trip to the Bulgarian capital in which Bulgaria’s parliament expressed its support for Ukraine’s entry into NATO after its war with Russia is over.

During his brief visit at the invitation of Bulgaria’s new pro-Western government sworn in a month ago, Zelensky also discussed European integration and bilateral energy cooperation. Talking to reporters after the meetings, he defended Ukraine’s right to fight Russian aggression and to seek help to do so.

“Occupiers came to our land, killed, tortured, kidnapped Ukrainian children, separated them from their families and tried to teach them hatred,” Zelensky said. “This is happening at a time when we need to be united and build an international order based on rules”, he added.

Zelenskyy visits Bulgaria and draws support for Kyiv’s NATO membership bid

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has discussed military aid and possible membership in NATO with Bulgarian officials during meetings in Bulgaria’s capital at the invitation of the country’s new pro-Western government that was sworn in a month ago

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 17:00

29 minutes ago

White House: Providing cluster munitions to Ukraine under ‘active consideration’ but no announcement to make yet

The Biden administration is weighing whether to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told reporters on Thursday.

Mr Bates said the idea is under “active consideration” but there is no announcement to make.

The U.S. military believes that cluster munitions would be useful for Ukraine in pushing back against Russian forces, a senior Pentagon official said in June, but they had not been approved for Kyiv yet because of congressional restrictions and concerns among allies.

Ukraine has urged members of Congress to press President Joe Biden’s administration to approve sending Dual-Purpose Conventional Improved Munitions (DPICM).

The cluster munitions, banned by more than 120 countries, normally release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday which called on both nations to stop using them and urged the U.S. not to supply them.

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 16:37

35 minutes ago

Russia expels Finnish diplomats, shuts down consulate in a tit-for-tat move

Russia‘s Foreign Ministry on Thursday announced the expelling of nine Finnish diplomats and shutting down of Finland’s consulate in St. Petersburg in retaliation for Finland expelling nine Russian diplomats last month.

The ministry said in a lengthy statement that it summoned Finland’s ambassador to Russia, Antti Helanterä, on Thursday, and relayed its “strong protest in connection with the confrontational anti-Russian policy pursued by the Finnish authorities.”

The statement also noted that “the parameters of Finland’s accession to NATO create a threat” to Russia’s security, and “encouraging the Kyiv regime to (go to) war and pumping it with Western weapons means clearly hostile actions against our country.” The statement concluded that “this line of the Finnish authorities cannot remain unanswered.”

Russia expels Finnish diplomats, shuts down consulate in a tit-for-tat move

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday announced the expelling of nine Finnish diplomats and shutting down Finland’s consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, in retaliation for Finland expelling nine Russian diplomats last month

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 16:31

55 minutes ago

What will NATO leaders decide at the Vilnius summit?

NATO leaders will meet in Vilnius between 11 and 12 July to tackle a wide range of topics, from divisions over Ukraine‘s membership bid and Sweden’s accession to boosting ammunitions stockpiles and reviewing the first defence plans in decades.

It will be the fourth NATO summit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the first held virtually on 25 February 2022, just one day after the attack, followed by meetings in Brussels and in Madrid.

The summit looks set to be dominated by how NATO will define its future relationship with Ukraine, amid repeated calls by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Kyiv to receive an invitation into the alliance at Vilnius.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has made clear that Kyiv will not become a member while the war goes on, and that the Vilnius summit will not issue a formal invitation, either.

Still, allies are divided over how swiftly Ukraine should be allowed to join after fighting ends.

While eastern European countries say a road map should be offered to Kyiv at the summit, the United States and Germany are wary of any move that might take the alliance closer to war with Russia.

In the run-up to Vilnius, more countries have backed a British proposal to allow Kyiv to skip the so-called Membership Action Plan (MAP) programme that sets out political, economic and military targets candidates have to meet and that other eastern European nations had to pass before joining NATO.

With such a move, the alliance could address demands to go beyond the declaration of the Bucharest summit in 2008, which said Ukraine would become a member eventually, without offering Kyiv an actual invitation or timetable.

NATO is also likely to find a stronger wording than 2008 to underscore Kyiv’s perspective for joining the alliance.

Leaders could agree upon something like “Ukraine‘s rightful place is in NATO”, echoing remarks by Stoltenberg on a visit to Kyiv in April, or stress that “trans-Atlantic security would be incomplete without Ukraine“.

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 16:12

1 hour ago

Russian missile strike kills five in Lviv in western Ukraine - officials

A Russian missile slammed into a residential building in Lviv in western Ukraine on Thursday, killing five people in a city that is far from frontlines and home to thousands displaced by war.

The roof and top floor of the building were destroyed in what Lviv’s mayor called the biggest attack of the war on civilian infrastructure in Lviv, a city 70 km (43 miles) from the border with NATO and European Union member state Poland.

“There definitely will be a response to the enemy. It will be a noticeable one,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an online post accompanying a video of the damage in Lviv.

Regional authorities put the death toll at five, including a 32-year-old woman and her 60-year-old mother.

Emergency services said at least 36 others had been hurt and that they had pulled seven people alive from the rubble. Reuters television footage showed residents calming crying neighbours while others helped rescuers sweep up shattered glass.

“They, Russians, Rashists, say that they are bombing military objects but they hit a peaceful house. People were sleeping. How could they do it?,” said Lviv resident Vira Luben, a woman in her seventies, using a derogatory term for Russians.

Holding back tears, she added: “World - save and help us, because without you we will not manage to deal with them.”

Ukraine‘s air force said Russia had attacked Lviv with Kalibr missiles launched from the Black Sea. It said seven out of 10 missiles were shot down.

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 15:47

1 hour ago

UK minister calls for Russia to grant IAEA access to Ukrainian nuclear plant

A Foreign Office minister has called for Russia to grant experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon called for “full and unfettered access” be given to the IAEA for the safety and security of all, including Russia, whose forces seized control of the plant last year.

However, he emphasised that the power station, unlike the Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986, has been scaled down in its operation, which limits the threat.

He said: “We take President Zelensky’s concern about possible Russian threats to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is currently under illegal Russian control, extremely seriously.

“We are in regular contact with the director general of the IAEA, director general (Rafael) Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, regarding the situation at the nuclear power plant, as well as the highest levels of the government of Ukraine.

“Working with our international partners, we continue to call for Russia to grant the IAEA full access to the nuclear plant, as called for by director general Grossi on 5 July, and it is vital that IAEA staff have full access to the nuclear plant in order to monitor the safety and security of the site.

“The site itself, much of it in terms of its direct energy provisions, has been scaled down and there is only one, I think, current operating generator on the site, and even that has been scaled down sufficiently, specifically for that purpose.

“Of course, the risk remains very high but we have been assured by the IAEA that there is no immediate threat in this respect.”

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 15:30

1 hour ago

Zelensky to visit Turkey on Friday for grain deal talks with Erdogan - Anadolu

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Turkey on Friday for talks with President Tayyip Erdogan on the Black Sea grain deal and developments in the war in Ukraine, the state-run Anadolu Agency said on Thursday.

Turkey and the United Nations brokered last year’s deal, which allows for the export of grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine‘s Black Sea ports despite the ongoing war.

But Russia, angry about aspects of its implementation, has threatened not to allow it further renewal beyond 17 July.

Zelensky and Erdogan will hold face-to-face talks and also attend interdelegational meetings, Anadolu said.

Erdogan, re-elected last month for another five-year term, has sought to maintain strong ties with both Kyiv and Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Turkey, a NATO member, has not joined its Western allies in imposing economic sanctions on Russia, but has also supplied arms to Ukraine and called for its sovereignty to be respected.

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 15:10

2 hours ago

Russia and Ukraine announce prisoner exchange

Russia and Ukraine announced a prisoner of war exchange on Thursday involving the return of 45 soldiers from each side.

Russia’s defence ministry said that 45 Russian servicemen had been returned from Ukrainian custody, the Russian news agency RIA reported.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine‘s presidential staff, said 45 service personnel and two civilians had been returned to Ukraine.

In a post on the Telegram messaging app, Yermak said some of those freed had fought in Mariupol and the southern city’s Azovstal steel plant, and others had fought on the frontline elsewhere.

“Each of them is a hero,” Yermak said.

Ukraine‘s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said most of those freed were “seriously injured” and all would undergo rehabilitation.

In a separate post, Yermak said that two children aged six and 10 had been allowed to return to Ukraine following the release of their mother, a military medic, last October.

Russia and Ukraine have periodically exchanged groups of prisoners in the course of the war, now in its 17th month.

Lubinets said that 2,576 Ukrainians have been freed in prisoner swaps since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

Eleanor Noyce6 July 2023 14:55

2 hours ago

Ukraine and Bulgaria sign memorandum on energy cooperation following Zelensky’s Sofia visit

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday his country and Bulgaria had agreed on more active cooperation in the defence sector, and that he had invited Sofia to take part in Ukraine‘s reconstruction.

“We discussed the military aid which Bulgaria gives to our country. We count on the continuation of the cooperation which has already saved many lives,” he told a joint press conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov in Sofia.

He thanked his hosts for their support as Ukraine battles Russian forces who launched their full-scale invasion more than 16 months ago.

Bulgaria is a member of the NATO military alliance and the European Union, two Western groupings that Ukraine hopes to join. Zelenskiy said before talks that a NATO summit in Lithuania next week was on the agenda of his visit to Sofia.

Shortly before the two leaders gave speeches, a memorandum on energy cooperation was signed between the two countries.

“Together we are ready to give our countries greater guarantees in energy stability, as well as attractive prices for ordinary people,” Zelensky said.

He said he had invited Bulgaria to participate in the reconstruction effort in Ukraine, particularly in the rebuilding of the education sector. Zelensky said Bulgaria was also ready to help in the areas of ecology and digitalisation.

This selection includes a Priggy Peanut Gallery, here.

ATTACHMENT TEN – From Forbes

Russia Escalates A Smear Campaign Against ‘Traitor’ Prigozhin That Includes Wigs And Weapons

Ty Roush

Jul 8, 2023,12:11pm EDT

Russian media and the Kremlin appear to be escalating a smear campaign against Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group that led a brief uprising against Moscow last month, in an effort to discredit Prigozhin while praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian state television networks were increasingly critical of Prigozhin over the last week, according to the Washington Post, as some outlets featured leaked photos of Prigozhin’s home, which featured images of wigs, gold bars, a sledgehammer and a weapon stash.

The images were broadcast by the state-run Russia-1 network as an exclusive on Wednesday, according to NBC, as the network’s “60 Minutes” show mocked Prigozhin’s property while host Yevgeny Popov—who also suggested the Russian government was still investigating Wagner’s uprising—labeled Prigozhin a “traitor.”

Russian journalist Eduard Petrov was also critical of Prigozhin on the show, labeling Prigozhin a “fighter for truth with two criminal records” while criticizing Prigozhin’s wealth: “A fighter for justice had 600 million rubles.”

Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of another state-run political talk show, accused Wagner and Prigozhin’s catering company on Sunday of receiving state funding while suggesting Wagner’s victory in Bakhmut—seen as a key city in Ukraine—was not important.

Images of Prigozhin wearing the wigs from his home were leaked by Russia’s security services on social media earlier this week, including photos of Prigozhin wearing fake beards.

Mikhail Leontiev, a spokesperson for the St. Petersburg-based oil firm Rosneft, was also critical of Prigozhin while comparing him to Hitler, according to the Post.

As Russian media worked to discredit Prigozhin, the Russian government launched a public relations campaign to praise Putin, according to the CBC, including a video released on Tuesday of Putin hugging an 8-year-old girl with a bouquet of flowers, which was then repeatedly played on state television,

Maria Lipman, a Russia analyst at George Washington University, told the Post that a smear campaign against Prigozhin was necessary because he “looked fresh, he looked genuine and he looked sincere, and people appreciated this about him. He was somehow a patriot without the lies.”

SURPRISING FACT

Leaked U.S. intelligence documents in March suggested that Russia’s defense ministry had planned to launch a public campaign to discredit Prigozhin, who had been critical of the ministry and other Russian military officials during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

BIG NUMBER

10 million. That’s how many rubles—an estimated $110,000—were found by Russian security officials at Prigozhin’s home, according to CNN.

KEY BACKGROUND

After a year of worsening relations between the Wagner group and Russian officials, Prigozhin ordered his forces last month to march toward Moscow in a “march of justice.” Prigozhin accepted a peace deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Prior to the group’s brief rebellion, Prigozhin had been linked to Putin for over 30 years and was previously known as “Putin’s chef.” Prigozhin—who owns a successful catering business that has contracts with the Kremlin and Russian military—had also been linked to the Wagner group, despite previously denying any connection to the mercenary firm. The group has been involved in several Russian conflicts over the last decade, including Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Russian military efforts in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Mali, Mozambique and the Central African Republic, according to the New York Times.

TANGENT

Wagner’s forces are preparing to move to Belarus as part of a peace deal between the group and Russia, according to Reuters, following speculation of Prigozhin and Wagner’s whereabouts. Lukashenko claimed earlier this week that Prigozhin was “not in the territory of Belarus” while Wagner troops were still stationed in occupied Ukraine, after suggesting the group would move to the country after ending its march on Moscow. Prigozhin instead returned to St. Petersburg to retrieve money and weapons that were seized by Russian security services, according to the Washington Post.

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN – From the Guardian UK
PRIGOZHIN WIG PICTURES APPEAR TO BE GENUINE, ANALYSIS SHOWS

Images leaked by Russian security services are consistent with one another and appear distorted due to being pictures of a digital screen

By Manisha Ganguly Fri 7 Jul 2023 16.58 EDT

A raid on Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mansion in St Petersburg by security services has revealed his possession of some interesting items.

Among them was a wardrobe full of wigs, and photos of Prigozhin in various disguises wearing those wigs, which were allegedly taken from his personal album.

They include photos of the Wagner boss dressed in fatigues and a fake beard in front of flags of the Libyan national army, photos of him in a keffiyeh and brown beard and wig, and one of him in fatigues at what looks like a military airbase.

While the images – which circulated on social media earlier this week – were reportedly leaked to humiliate the mercenary leader, there has been speculation that they may have been doctored.

Preliminary assessment indicates that the images were photographs of a digital device or screen such as a smartphone, due to the visible rainbow pixellation.

In the photos, the level of granular details such as the wrinkles on Prigozhin’s forehead and frown lines, appear to be consistent across all the photos, with additional detailing of a pimple in one.

Alongside the selfies, it is also possible to match at least one of the wigs in the photos, a dark blond one, to the one lying in the cupboard in his mansion.

The bad lighting, awkward and inconsistent selfie angles seem to suggest they might be authentic, although it is difficult to be sure.

Prigozhin had briefly been in exile in Belarus after calling off Wagner’s mutiny last month, but the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said he returned to Russia on Thursday.

ATTACHMENT TWELVE – From Newsweek

PUTIN DEAL HANDS WAGNER'S PRIGOZHIN $111M CASH, GOLD BARS: RUSSIAN MEDIA

BY DAVID BRENNAN ON 7/5/23 AT 11:04 AM EDT

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has reportedly won back more than $100 million in cash and gold bars seized by Russian authorities in the midst of his short-lived June insurrection, as the oligarch-warlord continues negotiations with the Kremlin as to the stripping of his assets and his enforced exile in Belarus.

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St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka reported Tuesday—citing undisclosed internal sources—that around 10 billion rubles ($111.2 million) made up of boxes of U.S. dollars and five gold bars were returned to the disgraced oligarch, who last month led a Wagner Group mutiny against Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chair of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

The assets were confiscated by Russian authorities in raids on properties linked to Prigozhin on June 24, the day after Wagner Group fighters seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and a column set out towards Moscow.

The group briefly threatened to storm the capital until Prigozhin reached a deal with the Kremlin—facilitated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko—to abandon the mutiny and go into exile in Belarus. In exchange, Russian authorities are not pursuing criminal charges related to actions initially described as "treason" by President Vladimir Putin.

The seized assets reportedly weighed "a couple of tons" and were returned to Prigozhin's driver, who had been granted power of attorney, on July 2. Criminal investigators did not wish to relinquish the funds, but Fontanka reported that "judging by yet another reversal, a higher power intervened."

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry by email for comment.

Prigozhin said on June 24 that the money was intended to pay salaries to his Wagner fighters and compensate the families of fallen troops. St. Petersburg police seized the funds in two batches: first some $47 million from a parked minivan, and second another $66.7 million stored in 80 cardboard boxes in a second van.

Western officials have said it remains unclear whether Prigozhin and his Wagner units will indeed go into exile in Belarus, where recent satellite imagery shows the construction of new military bases.

One Latvian diplomat who spoke with Newsweek on the condition of anonymity said NATO capitals are "watching and assessing" any new Wagner arrivals in Belarus, preparing to respond to any deployment there with additional sanctions on Minsk.

...

Why Putin remains paranoid

Moscow police trained for urban warfare after Prigozhin's mutiny

Putin has made key mistake with his army since Prigozhin's mutiny

Reports indicate that Prigozhin did leave Russia, though he has been spotted in St. Petersburg and Moscow in recent days seemingly as part of negotiations to dissolve his media empire and relinquish control of other business interests.

Moscow is working to incorporate Wagner into the regular Russian military, with fighters reportedly given the choice of contracts with the Defense Ministry or exile in Belarus. Other reports suggest that Wagner is still recruiting inside Russia, and the Pentagon has said mercenaries remain on the battlefields of Ukraine.

The Institute for the Study of War's Wednesday bulletin said Prigozhin was being absolved "of financial responsibility for damages caused by the Wagner Group rebellion" in Rostov-on-Don, which local authorities have said cost around $1 million.

Putin's refusal, or inability, to punish Prigozhin and the Wagner Group—which has so far proved Moscow's most effective combat formation in 16 months of difficult fighting in Ukraine—has prompted speculation that the president is in a precarious political position.

European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrel wrote this week that the Wagner conflagration shows that the Kremlin's quagmire in Ukraine "has weakened Vladimir Putin's regime far more than many observers had thought."

Robert Kaplan of the Foreign Policy Research Institute told Newsweek that Putin "is not acting like a normal dictator. A normal dictator would have arrested or relieved, or possibly even executed a pretender like Prigozhin months ago. Now, after calling Prigozhin a traitor, Putin has made a deal with him.

"Maybe this is because Putin desperately needs the Wagner Group. Maybe it's because Putin is unable to project-specific military and logistical power in southern Russia. Either way, it demonstrates how weakly institutionalized Putin's personalized state is, compared to that of his Soviet predecessors. A weak state means more unpredictable events lie in the future," Kaplan said.

ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN – From Time (repeated from last week’s Lesson)

How Long Can Wagner Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin Survive?

Yevgeny Prigozhin is seen during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum SPIEF2016 on June 17, 2016 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

BY ASTHA RAJVANSHI 

JUNE 26, 2023 6:01 PM EDT

The armed uprising against Russia’s military command was called off just as quickly as it first began, but the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin—the leader of the Wagner mercenary group who led the mutiny and incurred the enmity of Russian President Vladimir Putin—is now uncertain.

On Saturday, Prigozhin reportedly agreed to leave Russia for an “early retirement” in Belarus after withdrawing his troops from marching on Moscow in a deal mediated by the neighboring country’s autocratic leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin’s.

00:12 / 00:30

“Realizing 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,” Prigozhin said in an audio broadcast on Telegram.

The paramilitary leader then left the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don that evening. In video footage, Prigozhin was seen smiling and shaking hands with his supporters who flocked to his car to cheer him on.

His current whereabouts are unknown, but on Monday, Prigozhin posted an 11-minute audio message on Telegram. Referring to previous orders from the Russian ministry of defense asking his commanders to sign government contracts, Prigozhin said the Wagner group was “categorically against the decision to close Wagner on 1 July 2023 and to incorporate it into the defense ministry.”

The sudden turn of events has raised questions over whether Prigozhin will continue to pose a threat to Russian leadership, and whether he can survive in exile in Belarus given Putin’s long history of retaliation against his critics and opponents.

One political commentator even likened Prigozhin’s fate to that of Julius Caesar’s assassins, who were initially pardoned for their crimes. “The assassins went into voluntary exile. Caesar’s supporters promptly reneged, revoked the amnesty – and hunted the assassins to death,” David Frum posted on Twitter.

The Kremlin’s unkept promise

Under the deal brokered by Lukashenko, the Kremlin agreed not to prosecute Prigozhin or other members of the Wagner group for launching an armed rebellion if Prigozhin departed to Belarus, Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said Saturday.

On Monday, however, Russian media outlets reported the criminal charges against Prigozhin had not been dropped and the Russian Federal Security Service was continuing its investigation against the Wagner chief. The reports came via Kommersant, a Russian newspaper, and the country’s three main Kremlin-run news agencies—Tass, RIA, and Interfax—citing anonymous sources. Though the reports could not be independently verified, they suggest that if the proceedings do continue, Prigozhin—who has been accused of “betrayal” and “treason” by Putin and Russian officials—potentially faces up to 20 years in prison.

“Whatever agreement they made over the weekend, Putin has now dropped it,” says Martin Kragh, the deputy director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies. A reversal is also predictable on Putin’s part, Kragh continues, given that 15 Russian servicemen were killed during the uprising by Wagner.

“It’s one thing to allow [Prigozhin] to leave the country and never show his face; it’s another thing to say that Putin is going to forget about this,” he says.

In the “pure logic” of a KGB leader, Putin now needs to “punish his enemies and traitors” to demonstrate his strong leadership, adds Sergej Sumlenny, the founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center in Berlin. “The question is, does he have the required resources to do so?”

Putin’s long history of retaliation

Putin’s regime has long been defined by his efforts to crush dissent and political opposition. In 2003, he put Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, behind bars for a decade for criticizing state corruption before he was released and exiled to Zurich.

In January 2021, he arrested the country’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, sparking some of the biggest protests that the country had seen in years. The authorities met pro-Navalny protestors with violence, and since then, Putin has intensified his tactics by eliminating opposition politicians, weaponizing the justice system, and labeling critical journalists as “foreign agents.”

Read More: The Man Putin Fears

“All the prominent figures who challenged Putin in the past are either in exile or have been persecuted or killed,” says Tymofiy Mylovanov, the President of the Kyiv School of Economics and an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine.

Not every Putin critic dies under mysterious or suspicious circumstances, but there is a long history of Kremlin foes who have indeed died this way. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent and vocal critic of the Russian Federal Security Service, died in a London hotel after drinking a cup of tea laced with deadly polonium-210. A British inquiry found that Litvinenko was poisoned by Russian agents who were acting on orders that had “probably been approved” by Putin.

Similarly, Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader and Putin critic, was killed in Moscow in 2015 after he was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. The attack occurred just hours after Nemtsov urged the public to join a march against Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine.

And in 2016, Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian Communist Party member who began sharply criticizing Putin after fleeing Russia, was shot in Kyiv in what former Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko called an “act of state terrorism by Russia.”

Still, the weekend’s events were “qualitatively different from anything else we have seen before,” Kragh says, because while those who previously challenged the Russian president were “primarily outside of the political system,” Prigozhin owes much of his rise in the political and military ranks to Putin.

Since forming the Wagner mercenary group in 2014, Prigozhin has been a key tool of Putin’s overseas adventurism, from propping up his ally Bashar Al-Assad in Syria to helping replace French influence in Mali. Experts have noted how the Wagner group operated at an arms-length from the Kremlin and therefore allowed Putin to deny Russian involvement, which in turn made Prigozhin popular with the Kremlin and enabled him to build up his own power base.

As a result, there are still questions about what happened over the weekend, Kragh says. “We still don’t know to what extent the Russian intelligence agencies were aware of a potential uprising, and why they failed to react,” he says.

What happens next?

For now, experts say the future of the Wagner chief remains unknown, in part because Prigozhin’s main objective was calling Putin’s attention to the imminent breakup of Prigozhin’s mercenary army. “These weren’t demands for a governmental overthrow; they were a desperate bid to save the enterprise,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, posted on Twitter.

She continued, “Now it appears that these merits helped Prigozhin to get out of this crisis alive, but without a political future in Russia (at least while Putin is in power).”

Cutting a deal with Putin may have left Prigozhin in a fraught situation with the estimated 25,000 Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion and will now have to disband. As they face the choice of either signing contracts with the defense ministry or dispersing into Russian society under the watchful eyes of the Kremlin, they are likely to resent Prigozhin for putting them in their bind.

“Prigozhin’s life is in danger from both Putin and his own guys because he set them up,” says Mylovanov.

It’s likely that Putin will react by becoming “more paranoid, and even more repressive than in the past,” surmises another Time source, Martin Kragh, the deputy director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies guesses. Comparing the weekend’s events with the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016, which resulted in the detention of more than 160,000, he says something similar could unfold in Russia with Putin targeting the opposition, civil society, and the media more aggressively.

If Putin cracks down even further, experts say he’ll likely rethink allowing Prigozhin to live in quiet exile in Belarus—especially after he openly challenged the Russian leader in the public eye.

AND the WAR ROLLS ON...

ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN – From WashPost

EXCLUSIVE

Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny, wants shells, planes and patience

By Isabelle Khurshudyan

June 30, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

KYIV, Ukraine — For Ukraine’s counteroffensive to progress faster, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the top officer in Ukraine’s armed forces, says he needs more — of every weapon. And he is telling anyone who will listen, including his American counterpart Gen. Mark A. Milley as recently as Wednesday, that he needs those resources now.

In a rare, wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Zaluzhny expressed frustration that while his biggest Western backers would never launch an offensive without air superiority, Ukraine still has not received modern fighter jets but is expected to rapidly take back territory from the occupying Russians. American-made F-16s, promised only recently, are not likely to arrive until the fall — in a best-case scenario.

His troops also should be firing at least as many artillery shells as their enemy, Zaluzhny said, but have been outshot tenfold at times because of limited resources.

So it “pisses me off,” Zaluzhny said, when he hears that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive in the country’s east and south has started slower than expected — an opinion publicly expressed by Western officials and military analysts and also by President Volodymyr Zelensky, though Zaluzhny was not referring to Zelensky. His troops have gained some ground — even if it’s just 500 meters — every day, he said.

“This is not a show,” Zaluzhny said Wednesday in his office at Ukraine’s General Staff headquarters. “It's not a show the whole world is watching and betting on or anything. Every day, every meter is given by blood.”

“Without being fully supplied, these plans are not feasible at all,” he added. “But they are being carried out. Yes, maybe not as fast as the participants in the show, the observers, would like, but that is their problem.”

For the past 16 months, Zaluzhny, 49, has had the monumental challenge of leading Ukraine’s military against a larger, better-armed Russian force that still occupies about one-fifth of his country, even after successful counteroffensives last fall. He has managed it, in part, by transforming his soldiers into a modern, nimble force, schooled in NATO tactics, and by shedding the overly centralized Soviet-style command structure that was still in place when he first entered training.

On this part of the eastern front, Russia is still on the attack

The questions that weigh on him daily: When will Ukraine’s Western partners provide the arms he needs, particularly more ammunition and the F-16s? And how can he be expected to get the job done without them?

Zaluzhny said he relays his concerns to Milley, whom he has grown to deeply admire and considers a friend, several times per week in conversations that can last hours. “He s them absolutely. And I think he can help me get rid of those worries,” Zaluzhny said, adding that he told Milley on Wednesday how many more artillery shells he needs per month.

In these conversations, Zaluzhny is frank about the consequences: “We have an agreement: 24/7, we’re in touch. So, sometimes I can call up and say, ‘If I don’t get 100,000 shells in a week, 1,000 people will die. Step into my shoes,’” he said.

But “it’s not Milley who decides whether we get planes or not,” Zaluzhny said. “It’s just that while that decision is being made, in the obvious situation, a lot of people die every day — a lot. Just because no decision has been made yet.”

While F-16s will eventually arrive, following President Biden’s decision in May to back an international plan to train Ukrainian pilots and send the planes, Ukraine’s strained ammunition resources pose a different challenge. In February, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that the “current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production.” That means the shells Zaluzhny said he needs could become even scarcer the longer the war lasts.

Ahead of the long-planned counteroffensive, Ukraine for the first time received Western battle tanks, including German-made Leopards and infantry fighting vehicles. Moscow’s troops have established a land corridor between mainland Russia and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed in 2014 where Russia has several military installations. Severing that link would deal a significant blow to Russia’s ability to resupply its forces.

Those tanks and fighting vehicles debuted on the battlefield when the counteroffensive kicked off earlier this month. Several have already been destroyed, Zaluzhny acknowledged, adding that “we didn’t get Leopards to ride in parades or have politicians or celebrities take pictures with them. They came here for the war. And a Leopard on the battlefield is not a Leopard but a target.”

After Wagner mutiny, Navalny asks why he, not Prigozhin, is jailed

Ukraine has not yet launched the main thrust of its counteroffensive, analysts say. Not all of its specially-prepared forces have been committed to the front line, and those that have still seem to be probing for weak spots in Russia’s defenses. Roughly 50 square miles in total have been liberated, Ukrainian officials have said.

But Zaluzhny also pointed to NATO forces’ own doctrine — which parallels Russia’s, he said — that calls for air superiority before launching ground-based deep-reaching operations.

“And Ukraine, moving to offensive operations, should follow which doctrine?” Zaluzhny said. “NATO's? The Russian Federation's? Or is that none of your business? ‘You have your own doctrine. You have tanks, you have some cannons, you have some [fighting vehicles]. You can do it.’ What is that?”

In his command post, Zaluzhny has a screen that shows him everything in the air at any given moment — the aviation from NATO countries at Ukraine’s western border, his own planes in the sky over Ukraine, and Russia’s on the eastern edges. “Let’s just say the number of aircraft that are on duty near our western borders is twice as much as the number of Russian aircraft devastating our positions. Why can’t we take at least a third of it from there and move it here?” Zaluzhny asked.

Because Russia’s more modern fleet of Su-35s have a far superior radar and missile range, Ukraine’s older jets cannot compete. Troops on the ground are easily targeted as a result.

“Nobody is saying that tomorrow we should rearm and get 120 planes,” Zaluzhny said. “Why? I do not need 120 planes. I’m not going to threaten the whole world. A very limited number would be enough. But they are needed. Because there is no other way. Because the enemy is using a different generation of aviation. It’s like we’d go on the offensive with bows and arrows now, and everyone would say, ‘Are you crazy?’ But with this question, ‘No, no.’”

If anyone thinks that Ukraine’s counteroffensive got a lucky boost last weekend when Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin led a mutiny of mercenary forces on an assault toward Moscow before halting the advance, Zaluzhny is not so sure. Prigozhin’s Wagner forces had already exited the front line, after claiming the eastern city of Bakhmut a month ago, Zaluzhny said, so there was no noticeable change on the battlefield as the rebellion took place.

“We didn't feel that their defense got weaker somewhere or anything,” he said.

The Wagner fighters who do not want to stay in Russia or sign defense contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry will have the option to join Prigozhin in Belarus, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. But while some of the mercenaries might be leaving the battlefield, where Ukraine’s commanders often praised their effective — albeit brutal — tactics, Zaluzhny might now have to consider a new, additional threat to his northern border as some of the fighters relocate there.

“I have a lot of fears, and Wagner is among them‚” Zaluzhny said. “And they’re not the only ones. If we start talking about it now, my head will spin. … Our task is to prepare for the worst and most possible scenarios. And we will try to minimize the possible consequences of what could be.”

At least 11 killed when missile strike hits popular restaurant in Kramatorsk

One worst-case scenario Zaluzhny must consider is the threat that Putin might deploy a nuclear weapon. And Zelensky warned last week that Ukrainian intelligence received information that Russian forces were preparing a “terrorist act with the release of radiation” at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest atomic power station.

Does that give Zaluzhny pause from trying to retake control of the plant as part of Ukraine’s counteroffensive?

“It doesn’t stop me at all,” Zaluzhny said. “We are doing our job. All these signals come from outside for some reason: ‘Be afraid of a nuclear strike.’ Well, should we give up?”

Kostiantyn Khudov contributed to this report.

ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN – From GUK

FOUR CHILDREN AMONG 11 KILLED IN MISSILE STRIKE ON UKRAINE PIZZA RESTAURANT

At least 56 people injured when Russian rocket hit packed restaurant in eastern city of Kramatorsk

· Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

· Four children were among 11 people killed in a devastating Russian rocket attack on a packed pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.

· Ukraine’s state emergency service said at least 56 people were injured, some critically, when two Iskander missiles slammed into the cafe in the city centre on Tuesday evening, when it was full of diners. The restaurant is popular with civilians and foreign journalists.

· On Wednesday, firefighters were combing through the ruins in the hope of finding survivors buried beneath concrete debris.

· Kramatorsk’s mayor, Oleksandr Goncharenko, said the latest victim was a boy. Writing on Telegram, he said: “Rescuers pulled a boy’s body from the rubble.”

· The missile strike occurred at 7.32pm on Tuesday, hitting RIA Pizza and a popular shopping plaza. “Two rockets were fired at a food establishment in the centre of the city where there were a great number of civilians,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region.

· A large crowd gathered at the scene as police officers, ambulance crews and the military worked to recover victims. As many as a dozen people were pulled from the ruins, according to witnesses.

· Among the dead named on Wednesday were twin sisters, Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko, both 14. The girls were pupils at Kramatorsk’s primary school No 24 and were about to finish eighth grade. A 17-year-old girl was also killed and a baby suffered head injuries.

· Survivors were taken to hospital in Kramatorsk. One of the restaurant’s cooks, Ruslan, 32, said there were “quite a lot of people” inside at the time. “I was lucky,” he said.

· A woman called Natalia told Agence France-Presse that her half-brother Nikita, 23, was inside near the pizza oven. “They can’t get him out, he was covered by debris,” she said.

· Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said Russia hit Kramatorsk with two short-range Iskander ballistic missiles. “They have a circular error probable (CEP) rating of between 30 and 70 metres, or 5-7 metres when equipped with a homing system, which means Russia was deliberately targeting civilians. Not that anyone needs any more proof of this any more,” he said.

· “Russia deliberately targeted crowded areas,” Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Ihor Klymenko, added on Telegram.

· Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address condemned the “brutal” attack on civilians. “Each such manifestation of terror proves over and over again to us and the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done – defeat and a tribunal, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” Zelenskiy said.

· The White House national security council, asked about the attack, said: “We condemn Russia’s brutal strikes against the people of Ukraine, which have caused widespread death and destruction and taken the lives of so many Ukrainian civilians.”

· Kramatorsk, once a city of 150,000 inhabitants, is the last major urban centre under Ukrainian control in the east of the country. It lies about 30km (18 miles) from the frontline, and next to the city of Sloviansk.

· While some residents have left, many have not. Restaurants and hotels have mostly closed down. The pizzeria and nearby shopping centre kept going, and are typically full of local people shopping or relaxing, as well as troops stocking up on food during breaks from the fighting.

· Several photographers and correspondents were having dinner when the missiles struck. They included the Colombian novelist and journalist Héctor Abad Faciolince and his colleague Sergio Jaramillo Caro, who recently served as the high commissioner for peace in Colombia.

· Both suffered minor injuries and were treated in Kramatorsk hospital. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency said it had arrested a local resident who helped coordinate the strike and allegedly sent video footage of the cafe to the Russian military.

ATTACHMENT SIXTEEN – From GUK
‘OBJECTS RESEMBLING EXPLOSIVES’ PLANTED AT ZAPORIZHZHIA NUCLEAR PLANT, SAYS KYIV

Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Russia plans to simulate attack but Moscow says Ukraine will mount its own offensive

· Read all our Ukraine coverage

Guardian staff Q51and agencies

Wed 5 Jul 2023 10.27 EDT

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has again claimed Russia may be planning to “simulate an attack” on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, claiming that Russian troops have placed “objects resembling explosives” on the roofs of buildings at the site.

Citing Ukrainian intelligence, Zelenskiy said the objects had been positioned on the roof of several power units of the power plant that is currently held by Russia.

Earlier on Tuesday, Zelenskiy briefed the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Russia’s “dangerous provocations” at the plant in south-eastern Ukraine. He said he and Macron had “agreed keep the situation under maximum control together with the IAEA”, the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

On Wednesday, the IAEA said its experts based at the plant said they had not observed any indications of mines or explosives at the plant, but more access was needed to be sure.

“The IAEA experts have requested additional access that is necessary to confirm the absence of mines or explosives,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. “In particular, access to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 is essential, as well as access to parts of the turbine halls and some parts of the cooling system at the plant.”

Zelenskiy’s warnings echo comments he made last week at a joint news conference in Kyiv with the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. “There is a serious threat because Russia is technically ready to provoke a local explosion at the station, which could lead to a [radiation] release,” Zelenskiy said at the time.

Russian troops seized the station, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, in February 2022. Each side has since regularly accused the other of shelling around the plant and risking a major nuclear mishap.

Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, which operates Russia’s nuclear network, said Ukraine planned to drop ammunition laced with nuclear waste transported from another of the country’s five nuclear stations on the plant.

“Under cover of darkness overnight on 5 July the Ukrainian military will try to attack the Zaporizhzhia station using long-range precision equipment and kamikaze attack drones,” Russian news agencies quoted Karchaa as telling Russian television. He offered no evidence in support of the allegation.

A statement issued by the Ukrainian armed forces on Tuesday, quoted “operational data” as saying that “explosive devices” had been placed on the roof of the station’s third and fourth reactors and an attack was possible “in the near future”.

“If detonated, they would not damage the reactors but would create an image of shelling from the Ukrainian side,” the statement on Telegram said. It said the Ukrainian army stood “ready to act under any circumstances”.

In his nightly video message, Zelenskiy said Russia was planning to “simulate an attack” on the plant. “But in any case, the world sees – and cannot fail to see – that the only source of danger to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is Russia. And no one else.”

Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian military provided no evidence for their assertions.

On Friday Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate (GUR) claimed Moscow had approved a plan to blow up the station and has mined four of the six power units, as well as a cooling pond.

It also said that Russian troops were reducing their presence at the plant and that Ukrainian employees who stayed at the plant and signed contracts with Rosatom had been told to evacuate by Monday, preferably to Crimea.

While the reactors would be difficult to damage, according to former plant workers who spoke to the Guardian, the small cooling pond is vulnerable to an explosion, which could cause partial nuclear meltdown comparable to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the US. Oleksiy Kovynyev, a former senior engineer, said that in this scenario, most radiation would be contained, but that if ventilation channels were opened, radiation could be released.

Reuters contributed to this report

ATTACHMENT SEVENTEEN – From Newsweek

PRIGOZHIN'S FAILED PUTSCH IS A HUGE COUP FOR UKRAINE

BY ISABEL VAN BRUGEN ON 7/5/23 AT 11:09 AM EDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been weakened by the failed rebellion led by Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, the European Union's foreign policy chief has said.

Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, outlined the lessons he believes should be drawn from Prigozhin's short-lived mutiny on June 24, including that Russia's war against Ukraine has weakened Putin's regime "far more than many observers had thought" and that the lack of resistance from Russian forces as the Wagner Group marched on Moscow demonstrated "the depth of the divisions within the Russian army and state apparatus."

"Even if this attempted coup ultimately failed, Putin has suffered a serious loss of authority, with real consequences for the future," Borrell wrote in a blog, adding that the mutiny should not lead Europe to "slow down our support for Ukraine. On the contrary."

Prigozhin's uprising saw his fighters seize two military hubs in southern Russia and advance on Moscow. He announced a "march of justice" against the country's military leadership over the handling of the war in Ukraine, demanding the resignation of Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

The Wagner chief said his forces faced no resistance as they advanced from southern Russia to the capital, while the head of the Russian National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, said on June 27 that Moscow concentrated all forces on the defense of the city "otherwise they would have passed through us like a knife through butter."

Russia's Most Combat-Ready Unit

Prigozhin was exiled to Belarus as part of a deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to end the crisis and he hasn't been sighted publicly since the end of his rebellion, when he departed from Russia's southern city of Rostov-on-Don. Lukashenko said he offered Prigozhin and his fighters "an absolutely profitable and acceptable option for resolving the situation, with security guarantees."

Although the precise details of Prigozhin's deal with Lukashenko remain unclear, the Wagner Group's relocation to Belarus will from the war in Ukraine the group of fighters described by Andrey Kartapolov, head of Russia's State Duma Defense Committee, as Russia's most combat-ready.

During the turmoil in Russia, Ukraine has been able to concentrate on pushing forward with its counter-offensive, and has been making "steady, gradual advances," according to the Institute for the Study of War think tank.

Surovikin

The deputy commander of Russia's military operations in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, also appeared to be sidelined in the aftermath of the rebellion. Citing Russian Defense Ministry sources, the Russian-language version of The Moscow Times said Surovikin had been arrested for siding with Prigozhin during the failed coup.

Russian military blogger, Vladimir Romanov, also said on Telegram that Surovikin had been arrested on June 25, the day after Prigozhin marched on Moscow.

The British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence report on Wednesday that another high-ranking Russian general, Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, has been notably absent from the public field after Prigozhin's mutiny.

Vlad Mykhnenko, an expert in the post-communist transformation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at the University of Oxford, told Newsweek that despite all the rumors about Surovikin's arrest, the Kremlin has attempted to squash any suspicion about the mutiny really being a "generals' Putsch", "whilst everyone understands no one was really trying to stop Prigozhin's convoy speeding to Moscow."

"And because the elites really know the reality, Putin's attempt to play 'nicely', rather than putting half a dozen of generals against the wall, is another sign of weakness."

Mykhnenko added: "Putin's afraid to investigate for he might find out no one in the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff really supports him."

Prigozhin's Mutiny Set a Precedent

Keir Giles, an expert on Russia and a senior consulting fellow at the Chatham House think tank, said Prigozhin has demonstrated the vulnerability of Putin's reign more effectively than any previous challenge.

"Most damagingly of all, Prigozhin's mutiny has set a precedent. It is clear that you can not only challenge Putin, but survive doing so. That means it is not a question of if, but when a new challenge will arise," Giles told Newsweek.

He said all of these factors present an opportunity for Ukraine to "win its war to defeat and evict the Russian invaders, and for the western coalition of nations backing Ukraine to ensure that the Russian threat is neutralized."

1. Wagner Group fires one of its five leaders—a former Russian army colonel

2. Prigozhin blew it

3. Exclusive: Putin "fled Moscow" during Prigozhin's mutiny

4. Wagner Group s update on future plans

5. Prigozhin's villain origin story revealed

Giles noted however that while the removal of Wagner from the Ukrainian front does reduce the resources available to Russia to prosecute its war, the group's arrival in Belarus may introduce a new complication for Ukraine.

"Much will depend on how exactly they are made use of by Minsk—which may not necessarily have been expecting their arrival," he said, hinting at the possibility of Wagner fighters launching a fresh attack into Ukraine from Belarus.

"While previous threats of renewed incursions from Belarus have been no more than feints by Russia, intended to distract and divert Ukrainian forces, the arrival of Wagner does give either Russia or Belarus a new capability on that northern axis—if it can be used.

"Either country will face a severe challenge integrating those Wagner employees who will be disaffected and angry after the abortive mutiny," Giles added.

'Colossal Damage'

Top Putin ally and Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov weighed in on the mutiny attempt on his radio show Polniy Kontakt (Full Contact) last week, saying that it has revealed information to the "enemy." He branded the rebellion as an act of treason that has caused colossal damage to Russia's reputation.

Meanwhile, Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest at Moscow's war in Ukraine, previously told Newsweek he believes Prigozhin's mutiny attempt will ultimately lead to the downfall of Putin.

ATTACHMENT EIGHTEEN– From NPR

WEEK IN RUSSIA-UKRAINE: WAGNER MUTINY RATTLES MOSCOW, AS COUNTEROFFENSIVE CREEPS ALONG

By Alex Leff July 3, 2023 12:08 PM ET

Here's a look ahead and a roundup of key developments from the past week.

What to watch

Eyes are on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenary group one week after an attempted mutiny against the Defense Ministry. Plenty of questions remain. Among them: Where is Prigozhin now? Will Wagner fighters join the Russian military or move to Belarus? Will the group stop recruiting?

Family and friends of American reporter Evan Gershkovich are anxious for news of how he's holding up in Russian jail after the U.S. ambassador to Russia was granted access to him on Monday following weeks of requests.

On Thursday, Turkey and Sweden are expected to hold talks in Brussels on the Swedish bid to join NATO.

On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is due to give a preview of next week's summit of the alliance in Lithuania.

Protests and events against war and NATO expansion are also expected in Brussels.

What happened last week

President Putin tried to restore calm and control after the rebellion by Wagner mercenary fighters he has relied on for conflicts in Ukraine and other countries. In a speech, he thanked the military and security services, saying "you have stopped a civil war." Putin said some Russian pilots were killed. He did not mention the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had launched the armed march.

The ruble fell to its lowest level against the dollar in more than a year as concerns festered over Russia's political and economic stability.

President Biden said the U.S. and NATO were not involved in the mutiny attempt in Russia. CIA Director William Burns also spoke with his Russian counterpart to assure him the U.S. had no part in the events, The Wall Street Journal reported.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE RECAP

In case you missed it: The previous week in review of Russia and Ukraine news

Russia's infamous online troll factory shut down, one of several media assets belonging to Prigozhin that closed following his mutiny attempt. Online trolls at his Internet Research Agency were accused of interference in U.S. elections, anti-Ukraine propaganda and other information warfare around the world.

Russia arrested a top commander in its war on Ukraine, days after the Wagner uprising set off widespread speculation about loyalty and schisms within Moscow's leadership.

Ukrainian prosecutors charged three people for allegedly deporting orphans from Kherson. The war crime charges, against a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators, follow the launch of a broader International Criminal Court case into Russia's removal of Ukrainian children.

A Russian missile hit a pizza restaurant in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 11 people, including three children, and injuring more than 50 people, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukraine liberated about 10 square miles in the south and 3.5 square miles in the east from Russian forces over the past week, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister said. A military spokesman said Ukrainian snipers entered the town of Bakhmut.

In-depth

There's a glitch in the Russian matrix

CIA Director Burns says the Wagner uprising's fallout "will play out for some time"

Not your typical army: How the Wagner Group operates

Ukraine monitors the fallout from the Wagner Group's failed revolt in Russia

What's next for Putin's rule and the war in Ukraine

Putin insists Russia is united after the Wagner Group uprising, vows to uphold deal

On State of Ukraine podcast: One key person in ending the uprising in Russia

On Here & Now: What to know about how Putin is handling the divisions among Russia's national security apparatus

Russia's war in Ukraine is changing the world: See our report on its ripple effects in all corners of the globe.

MUTTERINGS from the MOSCOW STREET

ATTACHMENT NINETEEN – From MSNBC

‘INFIGHTING IN RUSSIA SEEN AS GOOD FOR UKRAINE’: VELSHI LIVE FROM KYIV ON WAGNER GROUP REBELLION

JUNE 26, 202311:35

Zelenskyy is the embodiment of this national resolve. Americans heard about his nerves of steel when he resisted a corrupt extortion attempt by Donald Trump in 2019. (Disclosure: One of us worked on the impeachment and the trial that ensued.) The whole world realized his defiant character, though, in the early days of the war, when Russian assassins entered Kyiv and, instead of fleeing, he posted videos from the streets. 

But the second half of Ukraine’s struggle against oligarchy will be just as hard. Corruption remains entrenched in powerful quarters, including all three branches of the Ukrainian government. The president’s office wields extensive informal power, which some top appointees use to control judicial institutions instead of to cement reform. Though the specialized anti-corruption agencies have been productive during the war, reputable reformers like former infrastructure minister Andriy Pivovarsky are being prosecuted even though they have not engaged in corruption. While Ukraine has improved on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, it is still ranked as the second worst country in Europe, better only than Russia. 

Supporting this fight against corruption isn’t just right for Ukraine — it’s right for the U.S.

As with all key Ukrainian anti-corruption reforms since 2014, continued progress will require conditioning foreign aid upon difficult achievements. Those conditions do not apply to security assistance, which was used as leverage only once by Trump for his own personal political reasons. But it does mean tying loans and budgetary assistance to a variety of reforms, including legislation giving the anti-corruption agencies all needed resources. Congress should codify the ongoing coordination of U.S. inspectors general and urge the creation of a Kyiv-based group of international inspectors general to report to the G-7.  

Supporting this fight against corruption is not just right for Ukraine — it is right for the U.S. It would allow even more scrutiny of our and our allies’ tax dollars spent in Ukraine, and it could help get skeptics in Congress on board with another desperately needed tranche of security assistance. 

Prigozhin’s rise as a favored oligarch of Putin who turned on the Russian military is a reminder of the dangers of oligarchy and corruption. Ukraine was right to tackle its own Prigozhins, even if doing so helped trigger the conflict. It must continue to push forward in the battle against corruption to win the war and secure the peace. All of us who care about Ukraine must have its back in this crackdown on corruption.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY – From Forbes

ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE – From Politico

‘The People Are Silent’: The Main Reason the Wagner Mutiny Bodes Ill for Putin

Prigozhin crossed a line. But it was the reaction of ordinary Russians that should worry the Russian president the most.

By LEON ARON

06/25/2023 04:17 PM EDT

Leon Aron is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His new book, “Riding the Tiger: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the Uses of War,” will be published in the fall.

With a deal reportedly worked out by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the Wagner mutiny appears to be over. The commander and owner of the “private military company,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, promised to turn the troops back to the Ukrainian border, while he himself was reportedly going into exile in Belarus.

What Prigozhin called the March for Justice is likely to be remembered not so much for the actual military operation as for what it revealed about Russia. Like a powerful searchlight, the 48-hour rebellion illuminated the murky innards of the Putin regime including the military’s divided allegiances, the seeming hollowness of the people’s support for the regime and, by extension, the regime’s shaky legitimacy. The images — of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a famous night owl, addressing the nation in a dark suit and tie early on a Saturday morning; of mangled Russian helicopters felled by Wagner forces; and of residents of Rostov-on-Don jeering local police after the mutiny was ended — do not bode well for the Kremlin.

Prigozhin had been pushing the envelope for months. Yet until very recently his obscenity-laden Telegram rants were directed at the Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of general staff Valery Gerasimov. He hugely upped the ante this past Friday, when he dismissed as fabrications the reasons for invading Ukraine: a preemptive strike against NATO’s alleged aggression and protecting the inhabitants of Russia-occupied Donbas from supposedly relentless Ukrainian shelling. Those were Putin’s pretexts, so while Prigozhin blamed Shoigu for lying to Putin and didn’t name Putin directly, everyone knew that the criticism was ultimately directed at the president.

And so Putin finally decided to end the long-running feud between Prigozhin and Shoigu and Gerasimov. After the Wagner chief refused to sign a “contract” subjugating his troops to the ministry of defense, Prigozhin was already guilty of insubordination and the military leaders’ hands were untied. Whether or not they ordered missile strikes on the Wagner camp, as Prigozhin claimed, he apparently opted for dying like a soldier in a battle against Shoigu’s and Gerasimov’s regular troops to facing a firing squad for treason. (And when a third choice suddenly appeared, the offer of exile in Belarus in return for halting the advance on Moscow, Prigozhin apparently judged that there was enough of a guarantee in the Lukashenko deal keep him alive — even though, a virtual Putin stooge, Lukashenko is hardly in a position to shield the rebel from Putin’s retribution.)

Coups are a tricky thing for an authoritarian. Address the nation too quickly and you are deemed panicked. Wait longer and you come over as indecisive. Putin waited 24 hours. It is now clear why: Once you call it “treason” and threaten the mutineers with “tough” and “imminent” punishment, you’d better follow through. Putin likely hesitated because he doubted that his forces would follow those kinds of orders and he could look impotent as a result.

He was right. Regular troops appear to have melted away before the advancing Wagner forces. There was no resistance even in Rostov-on-Don, the headquarters of the Southern Military District. Apart from a few helicopter gunships, shot down by Wagner, no one attacked the “muzykanty,” or “musicians,” as the Wagnerites like to call themselves. Where were the bomber and jet fighter pilots, who could have pummeled the advancing columns from on high as they marched from the Ukrainian border to Rostov-on-Don?

Even more significant in the long run was the reaction of the people. Coups — and revolutions — are decided not by how many storm the palaces but by how many come to defend them. Indifference helps the plotters. The last line in Pushkin’s tragedy Boris Godunov encapsulates a key condition of a successful rebellion: “Narod bezmolvstvuet.” The people are silent.

In fact, things turned out even more dire than that for Putin. The residents of Rostov were worse than silent. Instead of deploring the Wagner takeover, they appeared in videos welcoming Prigozhin’s “musicians.” Instead of waving portraits of Putin and Russian flags, they brought the insurgents water and candy.

Putin is an avid (and shamelessly mendacious) amateur historian who decries both the end of the Russian Empire and the collapse of the Soviet Union Communism?. In his address to the nation, he replaced his favorite trope of the 1941 Nazi invasion with the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution as the calamity from which he was defending the Motherland. That was a telling substitution. Abandoned both by the people of Petrograd and the troops of Petrograd Military District, the Provisional Government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks with only two regiments, two armored cars, and two cars armed with anti-aircraft guns. Was this the memory he was guarding against in his address to the nation?

It proved far from a groundless foreboding. Neither the top military brass, nor the prime minister nor the leaders of the Duma parties, nor the mayor of Moscow backed Putin publicly. The fissures in his support were also evident with the Russian people, who appeared at best indifferent to the outcome of mutiny and at worse, like the residents of Rostov, welcoming it.

In the Soviet classic satire “The Twelve Chairs,” when the charming rogue hero senses that fortune is about to shift his way, he shouts, “The ice is breaking!”

The rebellion was ended by the man who started it, and the ice did not break. But we can all see the cracks.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO – From Politico

RUSSIA’S PUT THE GENIE BACK IN THE BOTTLE — OR HAS IT?

Moscow’s near future seems destined for more witch hunts and rumors, more jostling and infighting as factions and clans ponder how to ensure they don’t become casualties in Putin’s endgame.

BY JAMIE DETTMER

JULY 5, 2023 4:01 AM CET

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

Nothing to see here — now move along, please.

A little over a week after the 36-hour insurrection of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group mercenaries, this seems to be the line adopted by the Kremlin, its propagandists and supporters.

The politicians and functionaries who remained ominously silent and kept their heads down as the shock rebellion unfolded are now all rallying, flocking to President Vladimir Putin and praising his sagacity, while seeking to trivialize Wagner’s military contribution in the war on Ukraine.

“If there had been people like Putin at the helm of the state in 1917 and 1991, there would have been no revolution and no collapse of the USSR,” declared Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma. Putin has emerged even stronger, he opined on Telegram.

Meanwhile, Andrey Kartapolov, chair of the Duma’s defense committee, was quoted by the state-run TASS news agency as saying there would be no adverse effects from Wagner’s absence on the battlefield. “There is no threat at all regarding a drop in the combat potential, both in the mid-term and long-term perspective,” he said. And state TV channel Rossiya-1 has been similarly downplaying the paramilitary group’s battlefield effectiveness, dubbing its role in the war an overblown and “constructed myth.”

Putin’s propaganda machine has thus found its footing and voice once more, after being thoroughly wrong-footed by the armed rebellion authored by a convict-turned-caterer-turned-warlord. And Russia’s modern-day tsar has become visible once again — now that the immediate danger has seemingly passed.

This is a pattern we’ve seen repeated time and again by Putin, disappearing whenever serious problems have emerged — whether they be man-made or natural disasters. For example, he was largely absent when the pandemic unfolded, as Moscow battled to curb its spread and St. Petersburg prepared for a surge of cases. Instead, he secluded himself at his Novo-Ogaryovo estate on the outskirts of Moscow.

Similarly, in 2000, Putin vacationed at his residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea. He eventually met with the relatives of the 118 victims as a media storm erupted, but the meeting did not go well, as he was accused of inaction and the military was accused of incompetence.

Then again, in 2018, Putin was criticized for a sluggish response to a massive shopping mall blaze in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, which left at least 64 dead — 41 of them children — with bereaved families accusing him of repeating his Kursk disappearing act.

And now, with Prigozhin’s rebellion over, in recent days Putin has apparently appeared in Dagestan, mingling with an adoring crowd in what Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described as an “astounding demonstration of support and happiness.”And he also delivered a speech in a square inside the Kremlin to 2,500 members of the military, security forces and the National Guard, thanking them for quelling the mutiny and saving Russia from chaos.

The message being conveyed is that Putin is in control; that he never lost control, he’s loved, and he acted judiciously — allowing talks to conclude the mutiny without more bloodshed and then offering Prigozhin a way out with exile in neighboring Belarus.

The coherence here stands in stark contrast to the confusion when the insurrection began — from the stunned initial silence of state broadcasters, who had no direction from the Kremlin, to the following mixed messages, including the claim the West must be behind it all. And as Prigozhin headed toward the Russian capital, executive jets began heading away from Moscow, including those of oligarchs Arkady Rotenberg, Vladimir Potanin and Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, according to investigative website Vazhniye Istorii. Manturov had long planned a weekend away in Turkey, friends said.

The confusion was even greater farther afield, with regional governors unsure of what to do or expect. And the first sign of some direction eventually came around 24 hours later from Sergey Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, who instructed governors and regional leaders to register public support for the Russian leader.

And they did. Although the statement from the head of Buryatia Alexei Tsydenov was strikingly equivocal: “You know our people are worrying about their loved ones equally … no matter if they are listed in the Armed Forces … or Wagner. We are watching all your ups and downs equally,” he said.

But now the genie is back in the bottle. Or is it? Questions persist.

How exactly were a rag-tag group of mercenaries able to mount the challenge they did? How were they allowed to seize control of Rostov — a key logistical hub and military headquarters — then proceed up the M4 highway, only facing opposition around Voronezh, which is a six-hour drive from the Russian capital, and still manage to get within 240 kilometers of Moscow’s outskirts? Why did the armed forces, security services and National Guard react so slowly? And how come the security services — including the GRU military intelligence agency, which has close ties with Wagner — fail to pick up on what Prigozhin was planning?

Was it incompetence or betrayal? Likely both. And that, no doubt, is what Putin and his loyalists are trying to weigh as they trawl through the ranks of security services, armed forces and government technocrats. Who can be trusted? Who equivocated? Who was treacherous? Most observers don’t expect a quick wholesale purge — Putin might not be strong enough for that — and there are already confusing signs as to who’s in and who’s out. Kremlinology is a fool’s game.

So far, however, some Western media outlets have said General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, has been detained. And according to Alexei Venediktov, former head of the independent Ekho Moskvy radio station that was shut down by authorities last year, Surovikin and his close lieutenants haven’t been in contact with their families for several days.

But pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov believes Surovikin is still destined to replace Valery Gerasimov as chief of the General Staff — which was one of Prigozhin’s key demands. Markov has also tipped Alexei Dyumin, governor of the strategically important Tula region and a former top security official, to succeed Sergei Shoygu as defense minister. “But this will not happen immediately, so that there are no thoughts that Shoygu and Gerasimov were d at the request of the rebel,” he wrote.

If that were to happen, it would mark a significant win for Prigozhin, who called for the ouster of Gerasimov and Shoygu for months. Surovikin and Prigozhin have reportedly been close since 2015, when they were both active in Syria. And it’s been noted on the Meduza news site that both Dyumin and Dmitry Mirono — another rising star and former head of the Yaroslavl region — have been quietly supportive of Prigozhin.

So, is the genie really back in the bottle? Not likely. And Russia’s near future seems destined to witch hunts and rumors, more jostling and infighting as factions and clans ponder how to ensure they don’t become casualties in Putin’s endgame — however short or prolonged it might be.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY THREE – From Time

‘THE DOOR HAS NOW BEEN OPENED FOR ANYONE TO CHALLENGE PUTIN.’ WHY THE WAGNER GROUP'S REBELLION MATTERS

Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia on June 22, 2023.

BY YASMEEN SERHAN 

JUNE 27, 2023 7:39 AM EDT

When Vladimir Putin delivered a speech just days after surviving the greatest challenge to his leadership in 23 years, he sought to strike a defiant tone. The Russian President described the armed convoy of thousands of Russian soldiers led by Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin as a “mutiny” designed to foment domestic turmoil, and its organizers as plotters who “betrayed their country and their people.” But to the surprise of even the most astute Kremlinologists, Putin did not reveal plans for punishment or retribution. Instead, he described the majority of those involved as misled patriots and said that Prigozhin and his men would be free to go into exile in Belarus, Russia’s vassal state next door.

This is not the traditional Putin playbook, according to the prominent Kremlin critic Bill Browder. He would know better than most. The London-based financier has spent more than a decade exposing corruption and human rights abuses in Russia, culminating in the creation of the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which has enabled the U.S. and other countries to freeze the assets and ban visas of human-rights violators in Russia. Browder has personally faced the ire of Moscow—which declared him a threat to Russian national security in 2005—and he has seen his friends and colleagues jailed and even killed for their activism. Most recently, Browder’s close friend, the prominent Russian dissident and Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, was sentenced to 25 years in a penal colony on charges of treason. His real crime: being the political prisoner Putin fears most.

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Speaking to TIME by phone, Browder discusses how the failed Wagner mutiny has affected Putin’s image both within and beyond Russia and what the future holds for Russia’s longest-serving leader.

TIME: Prigozhin was able to get within 124 miles of Moscow before he ultimately decided to turn his forces around. What does this tell us about Putin’s image in Russia before the mutiny began? Was he quite as omnipotent an autocrat as observers believed?

Bill Browder: Putin has tried to create this image of a strong man in total control, and there’s really been no way to test that from outside of Russia because opinion polls are completely meaningless and any type of airing of opinions is totally forbidden. So we and many people in Russia have been operating on this false impression that he’s somehow been firmly in control. And then all of a sudden on Saturday, what we see is that a relatively small group of armed marauders were able to cross into Russian territory totally unopposed, go into Rostov (where they were not only unopposed, but people came out on the street to welcome them), and then they took over one of the most important strategic military bases in the country. That just shows that the image that Putin has been trying to project is a complete fraud. As Prigozhin made his way toward Voronezh, the same thing happened there. And then he got on the highway to Moscow. And the only reason why he didn’t complete his journey was that 8,000 men can’t take over a country of 141 million people unless they have co-conspirators, and I believe that he probably thought he did and it was probably pre-arranged and those people got cold feet when the situation escalated to that point.

This is a monumental challenge to Putin—something that he hasn’t seen since the days he began his presidency. Unless he’s able to reinsert the impression that he’s this ruthless strongman, he will lose his power and lose his life.

After all that, Putin appears to have let Prigozhin go—despite having done far worse to critics who have done far less. Why do you think that is?

Putin has jailed Vladimir Kara-Murza for 25 years for giving a few speeches about human rights abuses in Russia. To have an actual rebellious traitor and to let him off is completely out of character. Why would Putin be so lenient?

There’s two reasons. One is that Prigozhin is the most capable fighter in all of Russia. He’s a killer, he’s ruthless, and he has every capacity to cause unheard-of hardships for Putin and everybody around him. Putin should be just as afraid of Prigozhin as Prigozhin should be of Putin.

The second thing is that Prigozhin continues to be a key man in Russia. Russia is so full of incompetency that the one person who emerged who was competent at military operations was Yevgeny Prigozhin. He was the one person that the Ukrainians respected on the battlefield and he runs 17 other military operations in Africa on behalf of the Kremlin or with his mercenary group. And so Prigozhin is both too ruthless to arrest and also too important to the overall foreign policy of Russia.

How has this incident undermined Putin’s image within Russia?

His image has been totally destroyed. Russia is like a prison yard. It’s all based on brutality and respect. Putin was able to establish himself as the chief criminal in the prison yard by being so ruthless at the very beginning of his presidency, and that ruthlessness and that brutality allowed him to stay in power in a country in which it’s very difficult to do that. The fact that he was rumored to have gotten on his plane and fled Moscow, the fact that Prigozhin was unopposed, the fact that he let Prigozhin off the hook afterwards—it makes Putin look like a truly weak leader in a country where weakness is despised. There’s no way that this won’t invite more challenges now because Putin’s strength is diminished.

With all that in mind, what do you think the future holds for Putin?

Well, it’s hard to say. There are so many different factors that play in. Taking Prigozhin out of the military equation in Ukraine is going to give Ukrainians a great military advantage. The fact that Russian territory is undefended means that they have to disperse their military assets to protect more of Russia. The fact that every Ukrainian gain creates more infighting in Russia, that’s very helpful for the Ukrainians to have their victory.

The door has now been open for anyone to challenge Putin—not just Prigozhin. If somebody can step into Putin’s shoes at some point, the riches are beyond imagination. So there’s a huge incentive for a lot of people to do that. Putin still has an opportunity to redeem himself, but in doing so he’s going to have to embark on an almighty purge that we haven’t seen since Stalin’s time. And I think that that’s what he’s going to do, but whether he succeeds in that is another question.

Prigozhin is now in Belarus, as per the terms of the deal that ultimately prompted him to turn his march on Moscow around. Will he be safe there? Or should we expect him to face the fate of past Putin opponents?

Everyone is talking about Prigozhin needing to worry. I think Putin probably needs to worry more about Prigozhin than vice versa. Prigozhin is a trained, cold-blooded killer. Putin is a guy who hides in his bunker.

This interview has been edited for style and length.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY FOUR – From NY Post

RUSSIA DEFENSE CHIEF SERGEI SHOIGU BREAKS SILENCE ON WAGNER REVOLT

By Ryan King

July 3, 2023 2:11pm

Vladimir Putin’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, commended the “loyalty” of Russia’s armed forces in his first known public remarks on the Wagner Group uprising that sought his ouster.

“This [was] an attempt to destabilize the situation in Russia on June 23-25,” Shoigu told military leadership on a conference call, according to a translation from Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

“These plans failed primarily because the personnel of the armed forces showed loyalty to the oath and military duty.”

The 68-year-old also downplayed the ramifications of the rebellion on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine before voicing gratitude to Moscow’s military “for their conscientious service.”

Shoigu repeatedly drew the ire of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who accused the defense chief of incompetence and failing to support the mercenary force before directing his men to march toward Moscow late last month.

The final straw for Prigozhin, once Putin’s personal caterer, appeared to be plans to fold the Wagner Group into the regular military. On the eve of Wagner’s march toward Moscow, Prigozhin also leveled unconfirmed allegations that his forces were struck by the Russian military.

On June 24, Wagner forces briefly occupied the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don before marching to within 120 miles of Moscow.

Ultimately, Prigozhin backed down and headed into apparent exile in Belarus as part of a deal brokered by that country’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Ukrainians seized on the aborted mutiny as a boost for their ongoing counteroffensive. The Kyiv government claims to have clinched incremental territorial gains since the offensive began last month.

“We see Putin’s reaction. It’s weak,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN over the weekend.

“Firstly, we see he doesn’t control everything. Wagner is moving deep into Russia and taking certain regions shows how easy it is to do. Putin doesn’t control the situation in the region.”

ATTACHMENT TWENTY FIVE – From France 24

PUTIN'S DEFENCE CHIEF SHOIGU SURVIVED WAGNER’S CHALLENGE – BUT FOR HOW LONG?

Russia’s embattled defence minister was in the hot seat long before Yevgeny Prigozhin sent his Wagner mercenaries racing to Moscow on a stated mission to oust him. The latter’s failure shows President Vladimir Putin is unwilling to sacrifice his long-time confidant – at least for now.

Issued on: 27/06/2023 - 22:09

Wagner’s aborted weekend rebellion wound up without attaining its stated goal: the removal of Prigozhin’s archenemy Sergei Shoigu, the seemingly untouchable defence minister who has overseen Russia’s grindingly slow invasion of Ukraine.

To dispel any notion that Putin might have bowed to Prigozhin’s demands, Russian authorities on Monday released video footage of Shoigu flying in an army helicopter, examining military maps and holding talks with officers.

The undated video led some observers to speculate that Moscow may have recycled old footage to give the impression that the minister was out on the front line. Either way, the timing of its release sent out a clear message after the extraordinary drama that unfolded at the weekend.

“It showed to everyone that Putin is behind Shoigu – and still firmly in control,” said Jenny Mathers, a Russia specialist at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales.

“The Kremlin is trying to convey the idea of stability and continuity at the helm after the weekend’s events,” added Stephen Hall, a lecturer in Russian and post-Soviet politics at the University of Bath in England.

‘Loyalty trumps competence’

Shoigu’s removal had been a key demand of Prigozhin, who blamed the defence minister for botching the invasion of Ukraine and causing the deaths of “tens of thousands” of Russian troops.

By showcasing the minister, Monday’s video hammered home the point that the Wagner rebellion had failed to reach its goals, said Luke March, a Russia expert at the University of Edinburgh.

“If Putin had fired him, it would have looked like he did so under pressure, which would have been a sign of weakness,” he explained.

Such a move would also have forced the Kremlin to change its narrative about the war in Ukraine, added Mathers, noting that Shoigu’s removal “would have meant acknowledging that something is not going according to plan”.

Having survived an unprecedented challenge to his authority, Putin is now desperate to steady the ship. Indeed, one reason Shoigu stays put is precisely because the rebel Prigozhin wanted him out.  But there is more to it.

The embattled minister has survived calls for his ouster since the beginning of Moscow’s so-called “Special Military Operation”, gradually becoming the principal target of ultra-nationalist critics of the Russian army’s shoddy campaign.

As Hall noted, the defence minister “doesn’t have a lot to show for since the war started”. In this respect, March observed, his political survival provides concrete evidence that “loyalty tends to trump competence” at the Kremlin.

Who to replace him?

A long-time confidant of the Russian strongman, Shoigu has in the past gone on hunting and fishing trips to Siberia with Putin. He belongs to what Hall described as the “shrinking group of loyalists whom Putin still trusts”.

Shoigu was appointed defence minister in 2012, replacing Anatoly Serdyukov, whose sweeping reforms of the military had alienated top generals. From the outset, the incoming minister showed he had a knack for smoothing things over.

As he took on the job, Shoigu “quietly watered down (Serdyukov’s) reforms in order to appease the generals", said Mathers. “Since then, he has been very good at getting along with the boss and persuading him that everything is fine.”

Shoigu has another asset in the eyes of the strongman in the Kremlin: he is part-Tuvan – an ethnic group that is indigenous to Siberia – and thus one of the very few non-ethnic Russians to have made it to a top government post. His background means “he would stand very little chance of becoming president and doesn’t represent a threat to Putin’s power", said Mathers.

Another reason for Shoigu’s longevity is the lack of suitable alternatives. As Hall put it, “whether or not Shoigu’s star has fallen may be not so relevant, because who would Putin put in charge to replace him?”

In recent days, Russian commentators have speculated that Putin could replace Shoigu with Alexei Dyumin, the governor of Tula region, south of Moscow, who has held top army and presidential security posts. However, Dyumin has a number of flaws in Putin’s eyes: he is ambitious, still relatively young (50), and considered close to Prigozhin.

First Gerasimov, then Shoigu?

While Putin has good reason to hold on to his minister for the time being, the Wagner rebellion may well have sealed Shoigu’s fate in the longer run.

The mutiny has “undeniably weakened his image", said March, noting that Shoigu’s absence from the airwaves during the weekend’s dramatic events “hardly gave the impression that he was capable of defending the nation – which is the very definition of his job”.

The defence minister’s disappearance at the height of Russia’s most serious crisis since Soviet times will have done little to assuage his many critics, which begs the question of how long Putin will want to be associated with him.

So far, Shoigu has allowed Putin to “deflect the blame” for Russia’s military setbacks in Ukraine, March observed. “But the fact that Putin is backing him so strongly may mean that, at the end, his fate is tied to Shoigu’s,” he cautioned.

While Prigozhin’s challenge has petered out, the decision to stand by a minister who has lost the confidence of many in the military threatens to further alienate an institution already demoralised by the lack of progress in Ukraine and now rattled by Wagner’s mutiny, March added.

“Sticking with Shoigu is going to lower morale in the ranks of the generals because it suggests that the criticism voiced by Prigozhin – and d by part of the military – is not being heard,” he explained.

Instead of firing Shoigu, Putin could choose to get rid of his right-hand man Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the armed forces – though axing the seasoned soldier while sparing the civilian minister would be a risky move.

“In the middle of a war, sacking the one with the military expertise and not the other guy won’t necessarily go down well with the army,” said March. “But Putin may think it could buy him some time.”

The Russian leader needs enough time for public opinion to move on from the shock of Wagner’s uprising. After which, he will be free to sack his loyal minister – without it looking like he bowed to pressure.

This article was translated from the original in French. 

ATTACHMENT TWENTY SIX – From the New Yorker

PRIGOZHIN SHOWED RUSSIANS THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE A CHOICE

This weekend, the country saw someone other than Putin act politically and—even more important—wield force.

By Masha Gessen

What happened in Russia over the weekend? It began as a mutiny within the armed forces, continued as what looked like a mafia sit-down, seemed briefly to transform into a coup, then ended abruptly the way that a hostage-taking may end, with the terrorist given safe passage, immunity from prosecution, and a bunch of promises.

Stage 1: Mutiny. It had been brewing for months. All through the winter and spring, Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose private army, the Wagner Group, was fighting the Ukrainian military for control of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, had been accusing the Russian Defense Ministry of sabotaging his actions and failing to supply enough armaments. Prigozhin and his men—many of them convicted felons conscripted from prison colonies, an approach he didn’t invent but was the first to apply during this war—alternated between being plaintive and menacing. They threatened to abandon Bakhmut. On social media, they hurled insults at military brass, including the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov. In response, the Ministry of Defense, Russia’s official, taxpayer-funded Army, which has been fighting alongside Prigozhin’s private force, apparently moved to limit Prigozhin’s power. For months the Ministry of Defense has reportedly been drafting from prison colonies, appropriating Prigozhin’s know-how and presumably cutting off his supply of able-bodied men with nothing to lose. In mid-June, the state military tried to put its house in order by requiring all fighters to sign identical contracts with the Ministry of Defense. It wasn’t clear if the measure applied to the Wagner Group—if it did, Prigozhin could effectively lose control of his army. On June 23rd, Prigozhin accused the Ministry of Defense of striking his bases and, in a series of statements, declared an armed rebellion. “The evil being wrought by the military leadership of this country must be stopped,” he said. “Justice in the ranks of the military will be restored—and then justice for all of Russia.” His men crossed the border from Ukraine into Russia. He claimed that they numbered twenty-five thousand. “This is not a military coup,” he said. “This is a march for justice.”

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Prigozhin was not challenging Putin. In fact, he was acting in accordance with the power structure and the mythology constructed by Putin, whereby Putin alone makes all the decisions and, if those decisions are bad, then it’s someone else’s fault—it means that he was misinformed. In a video released on June 23rd, Prigozhin said that war in Ukraine had been unleashed under false pretenses—because, he said, the Ministry of Defense had lied to Putin, making him think that Ukraine and nato were about to attack Russia. Prigozhin was apparently marching to the capital not to depose Putin but to enlighten him.

Stage 2: The Sit-Down. Prigozhin’s men and their tanks entered Rostov-on-Don, a city of more than a million people and the seat of Russia’s Southern Military District. There Prigozhin talked, over what appeared to be tea, in what appeared to be the courtyard of a military building, with the Deputy Minister of Defense, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, and a deputy chief of the general staff, Vladimir Alekseyev. The genesis of the meeting was unclear. Had the two generals flown in to speak with Prigozhin? If so, this was a negotiation. Were they in Rostov when Prigozhin’s men occupied the city? That would make them more like hostages and less like negotiators. Prigozhin sat, manspreading, on a narrow bench, his Kalashnikov dangling against his right knee as he used both hands to gesticulate. “We want the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” he said. “Until they are handed over to us, we will stay here and blockade the city.”

“Take them,” Alekseyev said, smiling and spreading his arms wide, as though waving Shoigu and Gerasimov away. He seemed to have as little regard for Shoigu as did Prigozhin. This is not surprising. Shoigu did not come up through the ranks of the military. In the Soviet Union, he was a Party functionary. In post-Soviet Russia, he became the Minister of Emergency Situations. What primarily qualified him for the job of Minister of Defense, which he has occupied since 2012, was a sort of adventurous friendship with Putin: the two camped together and hiked together and ran the Russian Geographic Society together, Shoigu as president and Putin as chairman of the board.

Stage 3: The Coup. Prigozhin’s men began their march toward Moscow. Along the way—perhaps even before entering Rostov—the Wagner Group shot down some number of Russian military aircraft. Now Prigozhin’s mutiny was looking like a coup—not because Prigozhin was challenging Putin directly but because he was fighting Putin’s actual Army. In the morning on the second day of Prigozhin’s insurgency, Putin addressed the nation. He compared the “armed rebellion,” as he called it, to the revolutions of 1917, which, he claimed, cost Russia its victory in the First World War and caused it to lose vast territories. He did not name Prigozhin, referring, rather, to “organizers of the armed rebellion,” whom he called traitors. He vowed to punish them, and to defend Russia.

Several Russian regions declared states of emergency or introduced various restrictions. The mayor of Moscow gave the city a day off on Monday. (It was still only Saturday at this point.) The Russian capital prepared for battle. Putin’s plane left Moscow and disappeared from the radar. Prigozhin had to face that, rather than speak to Putin, he would likely die when he attempted to enter Moscow—because, whatever he had intended, he had ended up attempting a coup.

Stage 4: It Ends the Way a Hostage-Taking Might. On Saturday evening, about thirty-six hours after the mutiny began, the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenka’s press service announced that he had negotiated an end to the crisis. Prigozhin’s people would reverse course. Prigozhin would go to Belarus. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said that all criminal cases against Prigozhin had been closed. Lukashenka’s press statement said that the agreement was mutually beneficial.

Rumors swirled that Lukashenka, empowered by Putin, had promised Prigozhin Shoigu’s head on a platter. There is no way to know if this is true, or if Putin had any intention to keep whatever promises Lukashenka doled out, but one of several impossible dilemmas that Putin is facing now is, indeed, what to do with Shoigu. He can hardly afford to keep a Defense Minister who allowed all of this to happen—the public spats, the mutiny, the siege of what is arguably the country’s most important military city, the apparent failure to stop Prigozhin’s armored column, and, most of all, the disrespect evident during Prigozhin’s sit-down with the military brass. On June 26th, Prigozhin issued a ten-minute audio statement on the mutiny. He stressed that his troops were able to incapacitate all Defense Ministry troops along the route of the “march for justice.” He added that, in twenty-four hours, the Wagner Group covered the equivalent of the distance from Ukraine’s eastern border to its western one, saying, “If the Special Military Operation had been undertaken by troops as well trained and disciplined, it could have lasted a day.”

Putin may be similarly stuck on the issue of Prigozhin himself. The Wagner Group may or may not be essential to the Russian effort in Ukraine, especially during the ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive. But, even if Putin doesn’t need Prigozhin on the battlefield, he must decide what to do about him. The conceit that Prigozhin is going into exile in Belarus is absurd, mostly because this wouldn’t be exile. With charges against Prigozhin dropped, he is functionally free to return to Russia (in contrast to anti-Putin activists and independent journalists, many of whom are forced to stay in exile for fear of being arrested in Russia). Belarus, the junior member of the Russian-Belarusian “Union State,” is not exactly a sovereign state. The border between the two countries is functionally open. Lukashenka depends on Putin to help in his continuous crackdowns to prop up the Belarusian regime. Lukashenka was once fickle, playing Russia against Western European countries, but, ever since Putin helped Lukashenka put down pro-democracy protests in 2020, Lukashenka has stayed in line. Having the head of a large private army live in Belarus should seem to Putin like an extremely risky proposition. What if Lukashenka replaces Putin’s muscle with Prigozhin’s?

Historically, among Russian élites, Putin has followed the rule to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. No one leaves this mafia family intact. Putin has the option, and perhaps the instinct, to bring Prigozhin back into the fold (and out of Belarus). That should be easy, since Prigozhin never actually wanted to leave the fold. In his June 26th statement, Prigozhin reiterated that he had no desire to bring down the government. Putin addressed the nation later that day, promising to deal decisively with those who inspired the mutiny that threatened the country. But he chose to frame the rebellion as a kind of terrorist attack, blaming it on neo-Nazis in Kyiv and unnamed enemies in the West, vowing never to cave in to blackmail, and praising Russian national unity. He did not mention Prigozhin by name and, indeed, praised Wagner fighters as brave patriots, and invited them to join the regular Ministry of Defense forces. This invitation back into Putin’s good graces does not necessarily exclude Prigozhin himself. A return to Putin’s circle would probably require Prigozhin to appear on television and express contrition for going a bit overboard in his conflict with Shoigu. Absurd as this prospect may seem, what with the siege of Rostov and the destroyed aircraft and their dead pilots, it falls within the bounds of the imaginable for Russian propaganda.

What would the Russian people think of this? In general, the Putin regime, like all totalitarian regimes, aims to prevent people from thinking. But this past weekend Russians—not just the Russians who consume independent media but all Russians who watch any TV or read or watch anything online—saw something extraordinary. They saw real political conflict. They saw someone other than Putin act politically and—even more important—wield force. Can all the propagandists and censors make them unsee it? They will try. Russians should probably gear up for an extreme information crackdown.

Will Russians then forget what happened? Some things that shocked Western observers, such as Prigozhin’s statement that the war in Ukraine was started under false pretenses, will probably easily vanish from consciousness. The specifics of what he said matter little. What’s important is that he tapped into a reservoir of bitter suspicion: Russians always suspect that they are being lied to, yet they have no choice but to support those who lie to them. Prigozhin gave them a choice, by driving tanks through the streets of Rostov.

If Putin’s regime ends before Putin dies, that end will look much like the events of this past weekend: sudden, bloody, and ridiculous at first. Most coups seem absurd at the beginning. Every coup is a confidence game. The ultimate question is: How many people will believe that Person A, not Person B, has power? Prigozhin’s gambit wasn’t intended as a coup, but it functioned as one. Regular military forces didn’t stop him, and indeed the defense officials negotiated with him, because they apparently believed that he had power. Not the power to bring down Putin but the power to influence Putin. They were not wrong. Putin greeted the mutiny by calling Prigozhin a traitor and accusing him of sticking a knife in his back, and ended the coup by absolving Prigozhin of charges.

Even though, in the short term, it may look as if Putin survived Prigozhin’s accidental coup attempt, something has changed in Russia. One of the most intriguing scenes of the wild weekend was Prigozhin’s troops’ departure from Rostov. People applauded and thanked them. For what? For voicing their resentments. In the American imagination, these are specific, possible to verbalize. In the Russian reality, they are felt more than spoken (as, indeed, they are here)—they require someone to come along and give voice to them (as, for example, Donald Trump does for millions in the U.S.). Prigozhin did that. He even broadcast his conversation with the Deputy Minister of Defense and the deputy chief of the general staff. This was the first unscripted top-level political conversation that Russians had seen in years. It sounded like two thugs haggling over the terms of their protection racket, but it was a negotiation —it was politics—and it was possibility. Most Russians I know wouldn’t want to live in the country that this exchange portended, but it’s different from the one they live in now. ♦

ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN – From the New Yorker

WHAT PRIGOZHIN’S HALF-BAKED “COUP” COULD MEAN FOR PUTIN’S RULE

Although the immediate threat of revolt has been extinguished, the episode may embolden future challengers to Russia’s status quo.

By Isaac Chotiner

June 27, 2023

Late last week, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, launched a mutiny against the Russian state and began an armed march on Moscow. A day later, it was all over: in a deal brokered by the President of Belarus—a close ally of Vladimir Putin—Prigozhin agreed to stand down and leave the country. Initial reports indicated that Russia agreed to drop a criminal case that had been initiated against Prigozhin; more recently, Putin said that the organizers of the aborted rebellion will be “brought to justice.” (Wagner mercenaries can either join the Russian Army, leave for Belarus, or return home.) But the stunning turn of events—the first challenge of this nature to Putin in more than two decades of rule—has shocked Russia and the world. What it means for the future of both Putin’s rule and the war in Ukraine, which Wagner has played a central role in waging, remains to be seen.

Tatiana Stanovaya is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. In 2018, she founded R. Politik, a political-analysis firm, which is based in France. I recently corresponded with Stanovaya via e-mail. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below. In it, we discuss what Prigozhin was trying to accomplish, why Putin’s response was more passive than might have been expected, and whether a post-Putin Russia is now imaginable.

How should the past couple of days change the way we view Prigozhin? What did we learn? Does this change the way you view his prior behavior?

Let’s face it: we, myself included, underestimated the risks associated with Prigozhin’s capacity to incite a mutiny. This, in many respects, is tied to our struggle, as observers, to believe that anyone within Putin’s regime could act in such a manner. I purposely refrain from using the phrase “turn against Putin” because Prigozhin didn’t aim to overthrow the regime, nor did he anticipate that it would be so straightforward to traverse half the distance to Moscow without encountering any barriers. [On Monday, Prigozhin claimed that his intention was to “demonstrate our protest.”] Nevertheless, his actions and speech represented, without a doubt, a significant challenge to the regime. For months, Prigozhin had been escalating, each time breaching new boundaries, daring to voice bolder statements, and increasingly targeting narratives of strategic importance to Putin. Behind closed doors, many high-profile individuals in the Russian leadership expressed their discontent and apprehension about Prigozhin’s rise, and even more so about Putin’s indifferent and laissez-faire stance.

But let’s be clear: this was not an attempt to conduct a coup. It was a gesture of desperation. Prigozhin wrapped up his “mission” in Ukraine after bearing heavy losses and feeling humiliated by the apparent indifference directed at him by the Kremlin. He found himself at odds with the system, and bereft of any means to uphold his status or position, notwithstanding the fact that he had arguably secured the sole significant military triumph [in Bakhmut] that Russia had seen since the summer of 2022. Regardless of the apparent feelings of marginalization, it seems that the war fuelled his self-esteem, underpinned by the conviction that he still enjoyed Putin’s favor and had his support. He was under the impression that his exploits in Ukraine had elevated him to the status of a military hero in Putin’s eyes. Prigozhin lost touch with reality and a sense of proportion.

This serves as an important lesson for us—with Putin appearing increasingly detached and the élites feeling anxious and desperate, it’s possible for someone to rise and challenge the regime. Prigozhin’s mutiny will only amplify these risks.

Why is Putin allowing himself to seem weak? Even his spokesman gave credit for the stand-down to Aleksander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus. Is this a conscious strategy?

This is a frequent query that I have to clarify for Western audiences. Putin does not concern himself with his image in the same way leaders in conventional Western democracies do. His understanding of power is not derived from the populace, but rather from a divine source, a sense of historical rectitude, and a sense of justice. Numerous instances have demonstrated how Putin dismisses public opinion and supports unpopular measures, such as the pension reform in 2018 or the mobilization last autumn. During the war, he was dismissive of the outrage from patriots, appointing the hugely unpopular Valery Gerasimov to oversee the “special military operation,” in January, and extolling the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu. To Putin, the democratic world’s inclination to avoid embarrassment and humiliation morphs into populist enslavement, which can potentially compromise the interests of the state. I am not advocating for or glamorizing Putin. My point is that it would be mistaken to anticipate that his political decisions will be influenced by considerations of optics and public or international opinion. And I concede that this trait is becoming one of the primary weaknesses of his regime, and one which will eventually work against him.

Regarding Putin’s sudden about-face on Prigozhin, who went from a revolutionary to be crushed to a forgiven warrior in a matter of hours, what alternatives did he have? Wait for the rebellion to inch closer to Moscow; provoke a bloodbath with significant casualties, including civilians; incite conflict between Russians and Chechens in the Rostov region with unpredictable and inevitably negative repercussions; and even risk pushing the country toward civil war? Putin effectively tackled the issue of Wagner and Prigozhin by dissolving the former and expelling the latter. While it’s a significant blow and a humiliation for Putin and the state, he will likely view it as a learning opportunity and concentrate on fortifying the regime and addressing its exposed weaknesses. The security services will gain more powers, the regime will hasten its shift toward a military dictatorship, and the Kremlin may become more brutal toward dissent within the patriotic camp.

Regarding Lukashenko, his role was merely procedural. Putin fundamentally refused to communicate with Prigozhin, while Prigozhin declined to negotiate with Putin’s subordinates. The leader of Belarus was brought in to relay an offer to Prigozhin that he couldn’t refuse. The message was straightforward—face a humiliating demise or retreat to Belarus. It’s crucial to remember that this is not a cast-iron agreement; we’re dealing with human intentions in a moment of shock. Either side may reconsider their commitments, and the confrontation could assume a different form. But I am certain that, regardless of what ensues, Prigozhin’s time is over, and Wagner will be dismantled.

What do we know about how popular Prigozhin is with the Russian public and specifically with the lower ranks of the armed forces?

Prigozhin has gradually emerged as a prominent figure in recent months, his audacity and authenticity resonating with many within the patriotic camp. In May, Russian polling from the independent Levada Center indicated that ordinary Russians considered the fall of Bakhmut the most significant event of that month, which boosted Prigozhin’s popularity and significantly elevated his ratings. In the same month, Prigozhin made his first appearance among Russia’s ten most trusted politicians, garnering four-per-cent support, putting him on par with former President Dmitry Medvedev and Gennady Zyuganov [the Communist Party leader], and ahead of Vyacheslav Volodin [the chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament], and the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, both at three per cent. Prigozhin was barely noticeable as a political figure six months ago and has now gained considerable traction. People tend to back victors, but ordinary Russians were also moved by his open clash with the Ministry of Defense and his comments on ammunition shortages. Notably, residents of Rostov-on-Don sent off Wagner’s forces with applause.

While it’s hard to gauge the scope, there’s reason to believe that middle- and junior-rank military officers harbor sympathies for Wagner. This is why the discourse around the risk of civil war has escalated recently. On one side, there are those who blame the leadership for its inept management of the war—missteps, indecision, corruption—and believe that Prigozhin had some valid points. On the other side, there are those who adopt a statist perspective, asserting that the state must be defended, supported, and bolstered in the face of any rebellions, irrespective of their underlying principles or intentions.

However, the mutiny has somewhat tainted Prigozhin’s image. The concept of rebellion frightens ordinary Russians, who prioritize stability and personal safety over justice in the conduct of war. For a large portion of the urban middle class, Prigozhin remains an intimidating, unappealing figure. For the élites, he embodies their worst fears for a post-Putin Russia. While Prigozhin might retain some followers, their chances of surviving in the aftermath of Putin’s efforts to solidify his regime seem slim.

What do you expect will change in the Russian chain of command?

I’ve become accustomed to the unpredictability of Putin’s personnel decisions. Regardless of the sources you may have at hand, his moves can never be fully anticipated. However, I believe Putin will have to reassess the situation and potentially implement institutional and personnel changes. He may question the F.S.B.’s oversight in missing the mutiny—especially given that the U.S. intelligence officials provided advance briefings to Congress about it. He may question the military’s ability to effectively handle such challenges, senior officials’ hesitation and delay in publicly supporting the state and condemning Prigozhin, and the élites who hastily fled Moscow. He is aware that the situation appeared—and indeed was—precarious. Had Prigozhin, or anyone in his position, been better prepared, with a more consistent plan, the outcomes could have been far worse for Putin.

You have made the point that Putin doesn’t view his political incentives the way people in the West do. Will these events force him to change? If he can’t offer stability like he used to, what can he offer average Russians now?

I don’t believe so. Quite the opposite, in fact. Putin has a particular understanding of how a “genuine political leader” should act. To simplify, he believes that if you do the right things and serve the nation’s interests, the people will support you. If they turn their backs on you, it means you’ve failed to explain your priorities and goals. This perspective held true until Prigozhin’s mutiny. Now, his old fears regarding the fickle nature of human loyalty will likely resurface. The mutiny has shaken Putin’s fundamental belief that a true patriot could not turn against the regime. This could lead him to favor control over trust, and prioritize security over legitimacy.

The notion that Putin provides Russians with stability in exchange for their support began to lose its relevance in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea. Then followed constitutional reform, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the eradication of nonsystemic opposition. Now, especially with the ongoing war, stability holds little value. Putin’s main offering these days is protection from an existential threat coming from the West and from nato, which he says is aiming to ruin Russia. In this context, Prigozhin’s mutiny is seen by Russians not as something overly appalling, but as an internal dispute among patriots about how best to combat the hostile West.

What signals do you think he can try to send to other stakeholders and élites that he is still in control? Do you expect changes in strategy vis-à-vis Ukraine or more broadly?

This is also a typical Western interpretation—to use such terms as “signals to élites” or “stakeholders.” In Putin’s system, all political decisions are made solely and exclusively by Putin himself, with élites or senior officials having no opportunity to question them. He doesn’t feel a need to send any signals domestically. He is much more at ease staying publicly detached, downplaying risks, and addressing internal threats quietly and unexpectedly. As for the strategy in Ukraine, I wouldn’t anticipate any significant changes. However, Prigozhin’s case will reaffirm to Putin how detrimental it can be to fragment military forces. He will strive to centralize command, and discourage any autonomy or individual games in Ukraine.

Are you beginning to imagine a post-Putin Russia now, even if it’s not imminent, and, if so, does that vision potentially look different from what you expected?

The nature of a post-Putin Russia could manifest in an array of ways, contingent on when and how the transition happens and the state of the regime at the time. The longer Putin stays in power, the more challenging it may be to uphold “Putinism” and insure continuity. If the domestic situation worsens, the chances of a post-Putin Russia being unstable and chaotic increase. However, the recent events highlight the fragility of the regime in the face of a military revolt. A common sentiment I’ve heard from my contacts in Moscow is that, if Prigozhin had reached Moscow, people wouldn’t have risen up to defend Putin and his regime. The élites would have dispersed, citizens would have rushed to withdraw their money from banks and fled, and those who couldn’t would have adopted a wait-and-see approach. This is a crucial reminder that the current support for Putin, which remains high, is a pragmatic choice to side with the perceived stronger party in times of war. Average Russians harbor no illusions about who Putin is, and there’s a dearth of warm feelings remaining. I believe one of the most profound psychological consequences of this mutiny and its resolution is the realization by many within the Russian political class that one can challenge the status quo and escape unscathed, as demonstrated by Prigozhin. This realization could embolden influential individuals to act more decisively in the future.

Can you give some flavor of how people in Russia are feeling? What are your conversations like?

I still have family, friends, and colleagues in Moscow. Their initial reaction was one of shock: people were scrambling to understand what was happening, whether Prigozhin could actually enter Moscow, and what might ensue; they were wondering if they should flee, hide, or withdraw money from the banks and such. This was a very human response. But, when Prigozhin unexpectedly decided to perform an eyebrow-raising about-face, mediated by Lukashenko’s bizarre intervention, and with Putin behaving as if nothing had happened, people began to ridicule the situation. What began as a mutiny morphed into a circus. Now, Russian social networks are awash with jokes about the situation, mocking the farcical actions of Putin, the security services, the army, as well as Prigozhin and Shoigu. Life is resuming its normal rhythm. ♦

ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT – From Reuters

PUTIN WANTED TO ‘WIPE OUT’ WAGNER CHIEF PRIGOZHIN DURING MUTINY ATTEMPT, SAYS LUKASHENKO

By Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly June 28, 2023 9:47 AM EDTUpdated 2 hours ago

MOSCOW, June 28 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin not to "wipe out" mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, in response to what the Kremlin cast as a mutiny that pushed Russia towards civil war.

Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolution of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.

Prigozhin flew to Belarus from Russia on Tuesday.

While describing his Saturday conversation with Putin, Lukashenko used the Russian criminal slang phrase for killing someone, equivalent to the English phrase to "wipe out".

"I also understood: a brutal decision had been made (and it was the undertone of Putin's address) to wipe out" the mutineers, Lukashenko told a meeting of his army officials and journalists on Tuesday, according to Belarusian state media.

"I suggested to Putin not to rush. 'Come on,' I said, 'Let's talk with Prigozhin, with his commanders.' To which he told me: 'Listen, Sasha, it's useless. He doesn't even pick up the phone, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone'."

Putin used the same Russian verb in 1999 about Chechen militants, vowing to "wipe out them out in the shithouse", remarks that became a widely quoted emblem of his severe persona.

There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin on Lukashenko's remarks, which give a rare insight into the conversations inside the Kremlin as Russia, according to Putin's own account, teetered towards turmoil not seen for decades.

Lukashenko, both an old acquaintance of Prigozhin and close ally of Putin, said that he had advised the Russian president to think "beyond our own noses" and that Prigozhin's elimination could lead to a widespread revolt by his fighters.

The Belarusian leader also said that his own army could benefit from the experience of Wagner troops who, according to a deal struck with the Kremlin, are now free to move to Belarus.

"This is the most trained unit in the army," BelTA state agency quoted Lukashenko as saying. "Who will argue with this? My military also understand this, and we don't have such people in Belarus."

Later Lukashenko told his military that "people fail to understand that we are approaching this in a pragmatic way ... They've (Wagner) been through it, they'll tell us about the weaponry - what worked well, which worked badly."

Prigozhin halted what he called was "march of justice" on Moscow from the southern city of Rostov-on-Don within 200 kilometres of the capital after Lukashenko's intervention.

ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE – From Fox News

PUTIN WANTED TO 'WIPE OUT' PRIGOZHIN BUT WAS TALKED DOWN BY LUKASHENKO, BELARUSIAN LEADER SAYS

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says killing Yevgeny Prigozhin could inspire a wider Russian rebellion

By Chris Pandolfo

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin not to "wipe out" Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin during Saturday's short-lived rebellion, which Putin had called "treason." 

Prigozhin marched an alleged 25,000 mercenaries nearly all the way to Moscow over the weekend, demanding the ouster of Russian military leadership before making an abrupt about-face. Putin had vowed to flatten the rebels, comparing the incident to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and subsequent civil war, but Lukashenko claimed to have brokered a deal where Prigozhin would relocate to Belarus and Wagner Group fighters would not face prosecution.

Lukashenko said Tuesday that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus and that his men would be welcome to stay in the country "for some time" at their own expense, The Associated Press reported.

While describing his Saturday conversation with Putin, Lukashenko used the Russian criminal slang phrase for killing someone, equivalent to the English phrase to "wipe out."

"I also understood: a brutal decision had been made (and it was the undertone of Putin's address) to wipe out" the mutineers," Lukashenko told a meeting of his army officials and journalists on Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing Belarusian state media. 

"I suggested to Putin not to rush. 'Come on,' I said, 'Let's talk with Prigozhin, with his commanders.' To which he told me: 'Listen, Sasha, it's useless. He doesn't even pick up the phone, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone'."

Putin used the same Russian verb in 1999 about Chechen militants, vowing to "wipe out them out in the s---house," remarks that became a widely quoted emblem of his severe persona.

The Kremlin did not issue an immediate response to Lukashenko's remarks, which shed light on what was purportedly discussed within Putin's regime as Prigozhin's forces advanced toward Moscow. Before Prigozhin called off his armed rebellion, it was seen as the most significant challenge to Putin's rule in more than 20 years. 

Lukashenko said he urged the Russian president to "think beyond our own noses" and that killing Prigozhin could inspire a wider revolt by Wagner troops. 

The Belarusian president also boasted that Wagner group fighters will be an asset to his own military now that they have taken up residence in Belarus. 

"This is the most trained unit in the army," BelTA state agency quoted Lukashenko as saying. "Who will argue with this? My military also understand this, and we don't have such people in Belarus."

Lukashenko reportedly characterized his approach to the Wagner Group as pragmatic, telling his military officials that the mercenaries have "been through it, they'll tell us about the weaponry — what worked well, which worked badly." 

Prigozhin has not made a public appearance or comments since Monday, when he said that Belarusian leadership would permit the Wagner Group to operate "in a legal jurisdiction." 

ATTACHMENT THIRTY – From Time

THE UNLIKELY WINNER OF WAGNER’S FAILED MUTINY IN RUSSIA

BY YASMEEN SERHAN  JUNE 26, 2023 11:51 AM EDT

When Russian President Vladimir Putin faced the greatest threat to his authority in decades over the weekend, one man sprung to his rescue: Alexander Lukashenko. The longtime Belarusian dictator has been credited by Moscow with striking the backroom deal that ultimately prompted Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin to call off his troops’ mutinous march on Moscow—a clash that observers feared could culminate in an all-out civil war, pitting Prigozhin’s band of mercenaries against Russia’s military leadership, and Putin himself. In a statement on June 24, representatives for Lukashenko said he had informed Russia about his negotiations with Wagner leaders, and Putin had “supported and thanked his Belarusian counterpart for the work done.”

While the details of the agreement are sparse, the Kremlin says Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia for Belarus—and withdraw his estimated cohort of 25,000 fighters—in exchange for their immunity and for the criminal case opened by Russia’s security services against Prigozhin for organizing an armed insurrection to be dropped. (Prigozhin has yet to publicly comment on the agreement and was last seen departing Rostov-on-Don in an SUV as supporters cheered. It is also unclear if Moscow will keep its end of the reported bargain, as there have been reports in the Russian press that Prigozhin remains under criminal investigation.)

On Monday, Prigozhin posted an 11-minute audio message via Telegram for the first time since the aborted march June 24. He said that the mutiny was not aimed at overthrowing Russia’s leadership, according to the BBC. Instead, he claims that the rebellion was “categorically against the decision to close Wagner on 1 July 2023 and to incorporate it into the defense ministry.”

Regardless of what happens, Lukashenko is the only one who appears to have emerged stronger from this crisis. Such an outcome might have been unthinkable only a few years ago. In 2020, Lukashenko was on the brink of losing power himself, when, in the aftermath of another rigged election, Belarusians took to the streets in what would become the largest pro-democracy protests in the country’s history. That Lukashenko ultimately managed to stave off the calls for his ouster was in large part thanks to Putin, who provided his Belarusian counterpart with Russian police forces to help quash the demonstrations and a $1.5 billion loan to overcome Western sanctions.

That investment has since paid off. When Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Belarus—which s a 674-mile border with Ukraine—became a convenient springboard from which Moscow positioned tens of thousands of troops and military hardware. Lukashenko has remained a loyal footsoldier to Putin, allowing Belarus to become an effective vassal state of Russia in exchange for economic and political stability. In addition to substantial loans, Minsk also relies on Moscow for billions of dollars in oil and gas subsidies.

By reportedly intervening in Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny, Lukashenko may have been seeking to protect not only his Kremlin benefactors, but also himself. “Lukashenko’s regime would crumble immediately if Prigozhin succeeded, so Lukashenko definitely had motivation to stop it,” Franak Viačorka, the chief political advisor to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, tells TIME. But that necessity quickly turned into opportunity, with Lukashenko capitalizing on the deal as evidence of his own statesmanship. Belarusian media outlets have heaped praise on his efforts, with some even going so far as to dub Lukashenko “the peacemaker of Slavic civilization” and the “Hero of Russia.” It’s a narrative that Moscow has proven happy to support. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov credited Lukashenko’s decades-long relationship with Prigozhin in helping get the deal over the line, adding that Moscow is “grateful to the President of Belarus for these efforts.”

Read More: The West Can’t Afford To Forget About Belarus

Lukashenko “is interested to say very publicly and loudly that he was the mastermind,” says Ryhor Astapenia, the director of the Belarus Initiative at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “He used this window of opportunity to restore a lot of his agency that he lost after 2020.”

Still, Viačorka says Lukashenko’s role in diffusing the crisis shouldn’t be overstated. As he and many other observers see it, Putin merely used Lukashenko as a messenger to avoid speaking with Prigozhin directly, whom the Russian president had accused of committing high treason. “For Putin, it was a way to stop Prigozhin; for Prigozhin, it was a way to save face,” Viačorka adds. “It is not a long-term solution, but it just gives them both a break to regroup.”

What ultimately comes of the agreement—and whether Prigozhin and Putin choose to uphold their sides of it—could have significant consequences for Lukashenko. Viačorka says that, at the end of the day, all three men concerned are mutually dependent on one another: Putin on Prigozhin for fighting in Ukraine; Prigozhin on Lukashenko for providing him safe haven; and Lukashenko on Putin for his own political survival. (Lukashenko’s dependence on Putin suits the Russian President, who can scarcely afford another pro-democracy uprising on his doorstep.) “On the one hand, they hate each other,” says Viačorka, “but on the other hand, they need each other.”

As such, whatever benefits Lukashenko may have reaped from this crisis may ultimately be short-lived. The last few days have severely undermined Putin’s image of strength and authority. That the Russian leader ostensibly chose to let Prigozhin go—despite having done far worse to critics who have done far less—has led some analysts to believe that perhaps the Kremlin had genuine concerns about a wider military mutiny. If the Russian president is seen to be on the verge of losing power, or susceptible to ouster by an armed rebellion, that can’t bode well for Lukashenko. If Putin goes, he’s unlikely to be far behind.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY ONE - From Forbes

WAGNER GROUP MUTINY WAS TO 'DISTRACT FROM BIDEN TROUBLES' AND OTHER CONSPIRACIES NOW TRENDING

By Peter Suciu Jun 26, 2023,02:21pm EDT

On Monday morning, President Joe Biden said that the West was not involved in any way in the short-lived mutiny conducted by the Wagner Group mercenary force that began on Friday evening.

"We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it. This was part of a struggle within the Russian system," Biden said during remarks in the East Room of the White House. The president also said he had spoken with NATO allies over the weekend, and added, "We had to make sure we gave Putin no excuse—we gave Putin no excuse—to blame this on the West or to blame this on NATO."

However, since Sunday afternoon many on social media have seen it another way entirely. There were those who shared the seemingly improbable theory that the mutiny was carried out as a distraction to draw away attention from the latest allegations involving the president and his son Hunter Biden.

There was also the competing conspiracy theory floated on social media that this was a bold plan by Russian President Vladimir Putin to redeploy the Wagner Group to Belarus, where it would be within striking distance of Kyiv. That theory was based on the fact that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has been exiled to Belarus after he led the failed armed uprising on Saturday evening. Prigozhin said via the Telegram social messaging platform that he only called off the march on the Russian capital of Moscow to avoid spilling Russian blood. In his 11-minute rambling audio rant, the mercenary leader also said the uprising was intended to register a protest at the ineffectual conduct of the war in Ukraine, not to overthrow the government in Moscow.

Still, others on social media claimed the mutiny was a false flag operation intended to restore confidence in Putin's regime—even as the Russian leader has been largely absent in recent days, making only brief remarks via a video to the Russian people on Friday.

Differing Wild Theories With No Basis In Fact

Such wild conspiracy theories have mutually exclusive takes on the mutiny, and its aftermath. But what all three—among other ideas circulating on the social platforms—is that none seem to be based on fact. The question to ask is how anyone could think this was somehow a cover for Biden or was an attempt to make Putin appear stronger.

"The answer is they are not thinking. They are seeking gratification," explained Susan Campbell, distinguished lecturer in the Department of Communication, Film and Media Studies at the University of New Haven.

Yet, such theories have been trending and have been presented very much as fact on the social networks.

"These kinds of theories continue to flourish due to the trending nature of social media as well as little to no pushback from those networks," warned Jason Mollica, professorial lecturer and program director in the School of Communication at American University.

"Case in point, a Monmouth University study last August showed 29 percent of Americans still believe President Biden's win was fraudulent. The more people rely on social media as their only source of information, the more likely they will tend to believe in conspiracies. We also know that trust in the government continues to be very low. With that thought process already having taken hold, it's easy to see why that theory has virtual legs on Twitter."

From Live Reporting To Spreading Misinformation

Social media was thus a platform for real-time updates as the mutiny unfolded—just as it was for reporting from the ground during Arab Spring and other such events. Yet, it has also proven to be where theories rather than facts can quickly gain legs and spread at record speed.

"There are many credible reports as to why this kind of fake information gets spread, and one of the more recent studies, from USC, says spreading false information has quite a lot to do with a user's social media habits," said Campbell. "Everyone wants a hit of dopamine, and the more outrageous the information, the more attention the user gains, and the greater the shot of dopamine."

People are also unwilling to fact-check what they read on social media and instead simply share and repost. As these posts trend, it furtherallows misinformation and disinformation to be taken as fact.

"Our technological reach has gone beyond our ethical one; people don't seem concerned whether the information they are spreading is false or true or uplifting or damaging," added Campbell. "They do care, however, about getting attention and dopamine. It's like a bunch of babies seeking pacifiers. Our public discussions will become better informed the day these users figure out another way to get that dopamine, and may that way be off-line."

ATTACHMENT THIRTY TWO – From the New York Times

PUTIN THINKS HE’S STILL IN CONTROL. HE’S NOT.

By Mikhail Zygar June 30, 2023

Mr. Zygar is a Russian journalist and the author of “War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky and the Path to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.”

The Scarlet Sails festival is one of Russia’s most popular holidays. A celebration of high school graduates held in St. Petersburg, it culminates in a spectacular light show, where ships — including one with scarlet sails — pass along the Neva River, fireworks cracking above them. Teenagers mill about the city and drink on the banks of the river while members of the Russian elite, officials and oligarchs alike, congregate to drink champagne on their luxurious yachts. No one enjoys the occasion more than President Vladimir Putin, who loves this student holiday in his hometown and never misses a private party on the river, watching the ships go by.

This year was no different. The revels went off without a hitch and Mr. Putin took in the show from the yacht of Yuri Kovalchuk, the president’s closest friend and one of the country’s most influential oligarchs. That was rather strange, because the festival was on Saturday, June 24 — the day Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group, launched his mutiny. Despite the shock of the rebellion, which saw Wagner forces march to within 125 miles of Moscow unimpeded, Mr. Putin flew to St. Petersburg. Nothing, not even armed revolt, would deter him from his favorite party.

In the opinion of my sources close to Mr. Putin’s inner circle — officials, administrators, journalists, businessmen and more — this is the clearest evidence yet that the president is divorced from reality. He still believes that he has everything under control and that Mr. Prigozhin’s rebellion has not changed the political situation in any way. But he is mistaken. Not only is the atmosphere around Mr. Putin fundamentally different, but there is also a growing appetite for change — even among those close to the president. For many I spoke to, Mr. Putin’s system of rule simply can’t go on much longer.

Mr. Putin was certainly culpable in allowing the situation to get out of hand. First, he encouraged Mr. Prigozhin, tacitly allowing him to recruit widely — including from prisons — for the war in Ukraine and to take a prominent position on the battlefield, particularly in the fight for Bakhmut. The calculation was not strictly military. Mr. Prigozhin was clearly elevated to act as a counterweight to the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the military generals, ensuring they didn’t become too popular. So when Mr. Prigozhin started criticizing the military leadership — often in explicit, expletive-ridden diatribes — the president did nothing to stop it.

But it soon became a problem. Mr. Prigozhin, riding a wave of popularity, became increasingly personal and insulting in his denunciations of Mr. Shoigu. Yet Mr. Putin failed to mediate. Though he arranged a meeting between the two men in February, he did not, according to a source in the presidential administration, say anything specific in the conversation, hoping the gathering itself was a sufficient warning to stop the public attacks. Mr. Prigozhin did not take the hint, however, and continued to fulminate against the military commanders.

In the weeks after, Mr. Prigozhin traveled the country as if he were a politician running an election campaign, meeting with potential supporters and criticizing the war effort. In this again he was unhindered by the Kremlin, which knew of his plans but chose to do nothing about them. As Mr. Prigozhin grew in popularity, even pulling in a former deputy defense minister as a deputy commander for Wagner — a clear sign he had high-ranking admirers among the security forces — Mr. Putin kept to himself. Sources close to him tell me he hasn’t met with Mr. Prigozhin for months.

This silence was crucial. In early June, when Mr. Shoigu sought to clamp down on private militias like Wagner by making all mercenaries sign a contract with the army, Mr. Prigozhin couldn’t get in touch with the president to object. In the language of Russian bureaucracy, this signals the highest degree of disfavor. A source close to the president told me Mr. Putin could easily have prevented the uprising if he had just talked to Mr. Prigozhin — or at least instructed someone in the administration to do so. Instead, without access to the Kremlin and fearing the loss of his autonomy, Mr. Prigozhin embarked on his aborted uprising.

The fallout was immediate. For Mr. Prigozhin, spurred on by pride and anger, it surely signals the end of his political and military career. Had he bided his time, waiting until perhaps the fall to raise a rebellion while building deeper support across the security apparatus, things could have been very different. Instead, after a deal brokered by President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus — who has known Mr. Prigozhin for decades — the Wagner chief is in Belarus. Exile in the Central African Republic, where the Wagner group has a military base, is reportedly in the cards.

The situation for Mr. Putin is equally serious. In comments this week, he has sought to project control. But there’s no doubt much more will be needed to flush away the memory of the revolt. Despite Mr. Putin’s promises to pardon those involved in the rebellion, repression of the so-called patriotic camp is surely to come. Until now, such figures — hard-liners operating largely on the Telegram social messaging app, who generally support Mr. Prigozhin — could criticize the authorities with some impunity. Now it has become obvious that this hard-right, fascist wing is no less dangerous than the liberals persecuted by the Kremlin — not least because it includes many armed supporters. A purge is to be expected, starting with Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of Russian forces in Ukraine who allegedly knew of the mutiny in advance.

But the damage is done. The rebellion has desacralized Mr. Putin, substantially weakening his authority. Before this weekend, much of Russian society, and especially state bureaucrats, believed that he always made the right decisions, that he was much more cunning, wise and better informed than anyone else. But the events of the weekend have shown Mr. Putin in the worst possible light: weak, vacillating, incapable of exerting control. He alone is to blame for what happened, something that is obvious to everyone except him.

For many members of the ruling elite, it is now clear that Mr. Putin has ceased to be the guarantor of stability he was for so long. A new situation is quickly emerging and what happens next is impossible to know. But it would be prudent, and not just for Russians, to start preparing for what will come after him.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY THREE – From Time

THE RUSSIAN GENERAL WHO STANDS TO GAIN MOST FROM WAGNER'S MUTINY

BY SIMON SHUSTER JUNE 27, 2023 4:36 PM EDT

For anyone wondering how Russia might change after this weekend’s aborted putsch, it would be worth keeping an eye on Viktor Zolotov, the longtime bodyguard of President Vladimir Putin, who emerged on Tuesday as one of the few apparent winners in the regime’s near-death experience.

A typically grey and sullen figure in the Kremlin retinue, Zolotov, who heads the Russian National Guard, stepped out of Putin’s shadow on Tuesday to claim credit for defending Moscow from the Wagner Group, the private army that marched across Russia this weekend. After meeting with Putin on Monday and Tuesday, Zolotov described how his branch of the armed forces, with over 300,000 personnel, stood to gain from the rebellion. His troops would soon receive an arsenal of advanced weaponry, he said, including tanks, to guard against similar threats to Putin’s rule.

00:12 / 00:30

It remains to be seen whether any of the Kremlin’s clans can gain from the Wagner Group’s rebellion. Its leader, Evgeny Prigozhin, has reportedly gone into exile, his mercenaries ordered to disband. His rivals in the Russian military have been humiliated by the fiasco, while Putin has struggled to save face and regain his grip on power. But Zolotov, the consummate loyalist, appears to be taking a victory lap and publicly angling for advantage.

It might be within his reach. In a speech at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin thanked the forces under Zolotov’s command for defending the capital alongside the police and other security forces. “You saved the Motherland from turmoil, and effectively stopped a civil war,” Putin told a gathering of troops and officers, including Zolotov and other senior commanders.

All of them, from the defense minister to the nation’s top spies, have kept silent in the last few days, appearing meek and exhausted in a meeting with Putin on Monday. The only one sporting a military uniform at that meeting was Zolotov, who has since become the most outspoken of Russia’s top brass. On Tuesday, he was the first senior official to blame the mutiny on the U.S. and its European allies, offering a familiar canard for the state propaganda channels to spread: “The rebellion,” Zolotov told them, “was inspired by the West.”

Among Putin’s henchmen, Zolotov’s background stands in sharp contrast to that of Prigozhin, the brash mutineer who ordered his men to advance on Moscow over the weekend. A convicted mugger and former hot dog vendor, Prigozhin wormed his way into Putin’s circle through a series of business deals and a willingness to do the state’s dirty work around the world, whether by interfering in American elections or propping up dictators in Africa and the Middle East. Zolotov, a creature of the system and a general of the Russian army, has spent most of his career within the Kremlin walls, starting as a bodyguard to President Boris Yeltsin in 1991 and continuing in that role under Putin.

He first came to public prominence in Russia in 2016, when Putin created the Russian National Guard and appointed Zolotov as its commander. The force, which answers directly to Putin, was designed to put down popular uprisings and internal threats to the regime, a task that Zolotov embraced with gusto. In one of his rare public appearances in 2018, he threatened to pound Russia’s most prominent dissident, Alexei Navalny, into a “juicy slab of meat.”

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, Zolotov’s forces mostly played an auxiliary role, bringing up the rear behind elite commandos and airborne troops tasked with the conquest of Kyiv. When that mission failed, Zolotov did not get nearly as much of the blame as the spy chiefs and generals who planned and executed the invasion. Putin continued to praise the Russian National Guard even as the rest of his military began its retreat from the Kyiv region. “The whole country is proud of every one of you,” Putin told them at the end of March 2022, marking a national holiday celebrated in honor of Zolotov’s forces.

Since that time, many of Russia’s top generals and spy chiefs have been at each other’s throats, struggling to regain momentum in the war and to skirt responsibility for Russia’s catastrophic losses on the battlefield. One of these feuds resulted in Prigozhin’s mutiny over the weekend, and it ended badly both for him and his rivals within the Russian military.

But for Zolotov, it looks like an opportunity, and a sign of the direction that Russia might take. Threatened in Moscow and frustrated in Ukraine, Putin could fall back on the man who has been by his side from the beginning, the one responsible for staving off internal threats to the regime. For Putin, that might seem like a logical move as he steps back from the brink of a civil war. For the rest of the Russian elite, it could herald the beginning of a purge, one that Zolotov would be more than happy to conduct with the forces under his command.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY FOUR – From CNN

AFTER THE SHORT-LIVED INSURRECTION, QUESTIONS SWIRL OVER TOP RUSSIAN COMMANDER AND PRIGOZHIN

By Ivana Kottasová, Jo Shelley, Anna Chernova and Sophie Tanno, CNN

Updated 2:34 AM EDT, Fri June 30, 2023

One is known as “General Armageddon,” the other as “Putin’s chef.” Both have a checkered past and a reputation for brutality. One launched the insurrection, the other reportedly knew about it in advance. And right now, both are nowhere to be found.

The commander of the Russian air force Sergey Surovikin and the Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin have not been seen in public in days as questions swirl about the role Surovikin may have played in Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny.

Kremlin has remained silent on the topic, embarking instead on an aggressive campaign to reassert the authority of the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Here’s what we know about the two men in the spotlight.

What is happening?

On Wednesday, the Russian-language version of the independent Moscow Times cited two anonymous defense sources as saying that Surovikin had been arrested in relation to the failed mutiny. CNN has been unable to independently verify that claim.

A popular blogger going by the name Rybar noted on Wednesday that “Surovikin has not been seen since Saturday” and said nobody knew for certain where he was. “There is a version that he is under interrogation,” he added.

A well-known Russian journalist Alexey Venediktov – former editor of the now-shuttered Echo of Moscow radio station – also claimed Wednesday Surovikin had not been in contact with his family for three days.

But other Russian commentators suggested the general was not in custody. A former Russian member of Parliament Sergey Markov said on Telegram that Surovikin had attended a meeting in Rostov on Thursday, but did not say how he knew this.

“The rumors about the arrest of Surovikin are dispersing the topic of rebellion in order to promote political instability in Russia,” he said.

Adding further to the speculation, Russian Telegram channel Baza has posted what it says is a brief interview with Surovikin’s daughter, in which she claimed to be in contact with her father and insists that he has not been detained. CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the recording.

Why is everyone talking about Surovikin?

Surovikin has been the subject of intense speculation over his role in the mutiny after the New York Times reported on Wednesday that the general “had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership.” The paper cited US officials who it said were briefed on US intelligence.

Surovikin released a video Friday, just as the rebellion was starting, appealing to Prigozhin to halt the mutiny soon after it began. The video message made it clear he sided with Putin. But the footage raised more questions than answers about Surovikin’s whereabouts and his state of mind – he appeared unshaven and with a halting delivery, as if reading from a script.

Asked about the New York Times story, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “There will be now a lot of speculation and rumors surrounding these events. I believe this is just another example of it.”

One European intelligence official told CNN there were indications that top Russian security officials had some knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans, and may not have passed on information about them, preferring instead to see how they played out.

“They might have known, and might have not told about it, [or] known about it and decided to help it succeed. There are some hints. There might have been prior knowledge,” the official said.

Documents d exclusively with CNN suggest that Surovikin was a VIP member of the Wagner private military company.

The documents, obtained by the Russian investigative Dossier Center, showed that Surovikin had a personal registration number with Wagner.

In the documents, “VIP” is written next to Surovikin’s number, and analysts at the Dossier Center say there are at least 30 other senior Russian military and intelligence officials also listed as VIP.

It is unclear what Wagner’s VIP membership entails, including whether there is a financial benefit. Wagner has not answered CNN’s request for a response.

And what about Prigozhin?

Prigozhin meanwhile, played the central role in the short-lived insurrection – it was he who ordered Wagner troops to take over two military bases and then march on Moscow.

Why he did so depends on who you ask.

The Wagner chief himself claimed the whole thing was a protest, rather than a real attempt to topple the government. In a voice message released Monday, he explained the “purpose of the march was to prevent the destruction of PMC Wagner.” The comment seemed to be a reference to a statement by the Russian Ministry of Defense that it would employ Wagner’s contractors directly, essentially forcing Prigozhin’s lucrative operations to shutter.

He also said he wanted to “bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a huge number of mistakes during the special military operation,” referring to Russia’s war on Ukraine with the Kremlin-preferred term “special military operation.”

It is clear the Kremlin sees the events of last weekend differently. Putin assembled Russian security personnel in Moscow Tuesday, telling them they “virtually stopped a civil war” in responding to the insurrection.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Western officials believe Prigozhin planned to capture Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and top army general Valery Gerasimov. When asked about the WSJ report, two European security sources told CNN that while it was likely Prigozhin would have expressed a desire to capture Russian military leaders, there was no assessment as to whether he had a credible plan to do so.

Where are they now?

Nobody knows. Prigozhin was last spotted leaving the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don Saturday, after abruptly calling off his troops’ march on Moscow.

He released an audio message Monday, explaining his decision to turn his troops back. The Kremlin and the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Saturday that Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia for Belarus.

Lukashenko said he brokered a deal that would see Prigozhin exiled in Belarus without facing criminal charges. According to Lukashenko, the Wagner chief arrived in Belarus Tuesday. While there are no videos or photos showing Prigozhin in Belarus, satellite imagery of an airbase outside Minsk showed two planes linked to Prigozhin landed there on Tuesday morning.

As for Surovikin, the commander of the Russian air force has not been seen in public since overnight on Friday when he issued the video.

What is the Kremlin saying?

Not much. CNN has reached out to the Kremlin and Russian Ministry of Defense for comment on Surovikin’s whereabouts. The Kremlin said on Wednesday, “no comment,” and a defense ministry spokesperson said: “I can’t say anything.”

When questioned whether Putin continued to trust Surovikin, Peskov said during his daily phone call with reporters: “He [Putin] is the supreme commander-in-chief and he works with the defense minister, [and] with the chief of the General Staff. As for the structural divisions within the ministry, I would ask you to contact the [Defense] Ministry.”

Peskov also told journalists that he did not have information about the whereabouts of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

One Russian official has said that Surovikin is not being held in a pre-trial detention center in Moscow, as some independent media and blogs have suggested.

“He is not in Lefortovo or any other pre-trial detention facility. I don’t even want to comment on the nonsense about “an underground detention facility in Serebryany Bor,” Alexei Melnikov, executive secretary of the Public Monitoring Commission in Russia, said on his Telegram channel.

The Lefortovo facility is where suspects accused of espionage or other crimes against the state are often held.

What else is known about the pair?

Prigozhin was once a close ally of Putin. Both grew up in St. Petersburg and have known each other since the 1990s. Prigozhin made millions by winning lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin, earning him the moniker “Putin’s chef.”

He then cast his net wider, becoming a shadowy figure tasked with advancing Putin’s foreign policy goals. He bankrolled the notorious troll farm that the US government sanctioned for interference in the 2016 US presidential election; created a substantial mercenary force that played a key role in conflicts from Ukraine’s Donbas region to the Syrian civil war; and helped Moscow make a play for influence on the African continent.

He gained notoriety after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022. The private military chief seemingly built influence with Putin over the course of the conflict, with his Wagner forces taking a leading role in the labored but ultimately successful assault on Bakhmut earlier this year. The capture of that city was a rare Russian gain in Ukraine in recent months, boosting Prigozhin’s profile further.

His forces are known for their brutal tactics and little regard for human life and have been accused of several war crimes and other atrocities. Several former Wagner fighters have spoken of the brutality of the force. Prigozhin himself has previously told CNN that Wagner was an “exemplary military organization that complies with all the necessary laws and rules of modern wars.”

Using his new-found fame, Prigozhin criticized Russia’s military leadership and its handling of the war in Ukraine – with few consequences. But he crossed numerous red lines with Putin over the weekend.

Surovikin is known in Russia as “General Armageddon,” a reference to his alleged brutality.

He first served in Afghanistan in the 1980s before commanding a unit in the Second Chechen War in 2004.

That year, according to Russian media accounts and at least two think tanks, he berated a subordinate so severely that the subordinate took his own life.

A book by the Washington DC-based Jamestown Foundation, a think tank, said that during the unsuccessful coup attempt against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, soldiers under Surovikin’s command killed three protesters, leading to Surovikin spending at least six months in prison.

As the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces during Russia’s operations in Syria, he oversaw Russian combat aircraft causing widespread devastation in rebel-held areas.

In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named him as “someone who may bear command responsibility” for the dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure in violation of the laws of war” during the 2019-2020 Idlib offensive in Syria.

The attacks killed at least 1,600 civilians and forced the displacement of an estimated 1.4 million people, according to HRW, which cites UN figures.

Where does this leave Putin?

The general consensus among western officials and analysts is clear: in his entire 23 years in power, the Russian president has never looked weaker.

US President Joe Biden told CNN on Wednesday that Putin has “absolutely” been weakened by the short-lived mutiny and said Putin was “clearly losing the war.”

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs said the Wagner rebellion showed Putin was “not the only master in town” and “has lost the monopoly of force.”

Speaking to journalists in Brussels on Thursday, Josep Borrell cautioned that the global community has to be “very much aware of the consequences” adding that “a weaker Putin is a greater danger.”

As for his domestic image, Putin appears to have embarked on a charm offensive, trying to reassert his authority.

He has attended an unusually high number of meetings in the past few days and was even seen greeting members of public. That is a stark reversal of tactic. Putin has stayed in near-seclusion for the past three years.

On Wednesday though, he flew for an official visit to Dagestan, meeting local officials and supporters in the streets of the city of Derbent, according to video posted by the Kremlin. On Thursday, he attended – once again in person – a business event in Moscow.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY FIVE – From the NYTimes

IN THE WAKE OF THE FAILED MUTINY AGAINST VLADIMIR PUTIN, THERE ARE SIGNS HIS CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINA’S XI JINPING HAS PEAKED, RYAN HASS ARGUES.

The leader of Belarus said that Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the Wagner uprising, was in Russia, not Belarus. The claim could not be immediately confirmed.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY SIX – From Fortune

CHINA-RUSSIA EXPERT WHO STUDIED IN BOTH COUNTRIES SAYS XI HAD A SUBTLE MESSAGE FOR PUTIN ABOUT THE PRIGOZHIN REVOLT

BYJOSEPH TORIGIAN AND THE CONVERSATION July 3, 2023 at 11:11 AM EDT

As mercenary troops bore down on Moscow on June 24, 2023, it likely wasn’t only Russian President Vladimir Putin and his governing elite in Russia who were looking on with concern. Over in China, too, there may have been some concerned faces.

Throughout the war in Ukraine, Beijing has walked a balancing act of sorts – standing with Putin as an ally and providing an economic lifeline to Russia while trying to insulate China against the prospect of any instability in a neighboring country. A coup in Russia would upend this careful diplomatic dance and provide Beijing with a fresh headache.

Joseph Torigian, an expert on China and Russia at American University, walked The Conversation through how Beijing has responded to the chaotic 24 hours in which mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin challenged the Kremlin – and why that matters.

Do we have any clues about how Beijing perceived events?

It will be hard to guess what Beijing really thinks, especially as there has been little in the way of official comment. Russians understand that the Chinese media – like their own – are tightly controlled. Historically, Russians have strongly cared about how they are depicted in the Chinese press. As such, China will be careful about what is being printed so that Chinese officials don’t get an earful from Russian diplomats.

However, real signs of worry from Beijing may get out. In a tweet that was later deleted, political commentator Hu Xijin wrote: “[Progozhin’s] armed rebellion has made the Russian political situation cross the tipping point. Regardless of his outcome, Russia cannot return to the country it was before the rebellion anymore.” Similarly, China Daily – a publication run by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party – quoted two concerned Chinese scholars in its reporting on the Wagner Group episode.

Such commentary may be a subtle way for Beijing to suggest to Moscow it needs to get its house in order. These views could also serve to remind the outside world that China and Russia are different political systems, and that Beijing will not always act in lockstep with Moscow.

At the same time, the Chinese government will be at pains not to give any support to a narrative that Beijing is worried about the strategic partnership. Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper, has already dismissed Western media reporting that China’s “bet” on Putin was a mistake. Such claims will be framed in China as a plot to hurt Sino-Russian relations.

So will the Wagner episode affect China’s support for Putin?

The Chinese government likely believes that Putin is still the best chance for stability in Russia and that supporting him is a core foundation of the bilateral relationship. Some Chinese commentators have noted that Putin did emerge victorious quickly, and with little blood spilled. They may be right – although the insurrection is widely viewed as an embarrassment, many observers in the West also believe that Putin will survive the crisis.

On the Russian side, given the importance of China for them during the war in Ukraine, officials in Moscow will expect the People’s Republic of China to clearly express support for Putin. During previous moments of intimacy in the relationship, such help was expected and valued. In 1957, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev narrowly defeated a putsch, he was so grateful that the Chinese blessed his victory he promised to give them a nuclear weapon.

There is a question of how Beijing would have reacted if the mutiny had escalated. History suggests that the Chinese might be tempted to intervene, but also that they understand the challenges any such action would face.

For example, during the 1991 attempted coup by Soviet hardliners against then-President Mikhail Gorbachev, some of the leadership in Beijing contemplated providing economic support. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, a long Soviet skeptic, ended those incipient plans, and the coup failed.

What lessons might the Chinese have drawn for their own system?

It’s hard to overstate how what happens in Russia has historically shaped thinking in China about their own country.

The birth of the Chinese Communist Party, the Cultural Revolution, the economic reforms of the “reform and opening-up” program from the late 1970s, policy toward ethnic minorities – all of these and more were shaped by what some in China thought the Russians were doing right or wrong.

But many in China may wonder how much they have in common with Russia today. Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping certainly have a set of conservative, Western-skeptic and statist “elective affinities.” But Xi’s war on corruption and the Chinese Communist Party’s “command over the gun,” as Chairman Mao put it, mean real differences.

The Chinese will likely take pride in their own system, where such a mutiny is hard to imagine, but will nonetheless be careful not to crow about it.

Joseph Torigian is Assistant Professor of International Service, American University School of International Service.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY SEVEN – From Time

XI WEIGHS UP SUPPORT FOR PUTIN AFTER REBELLION

Beijing’s support for Moscow is based on pragmatism and ideology, with China’s most powerful ally damaged by recent events

By Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent

Mon 26 Jun 2023 03.58 EDT

As Vladimir Putin reels from the biggest threat to his grip on power in years, his counterpart in Beijing will be considering the impact on the balance sheet of his support for the Russian president.

The Wagner group’s mutiny, in which troops led by Yevgeny Prigozhin came within a few hundred kilometres of Moscow, has exposed divisions in Russia’s armed forces and cracks that threaten to undermine the stability of China’s most powerful ally.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Xi Jinping, China’s president, has been unwavering in his support for his “dear friend” Putin. Although Xi has not explicitly endorsed Russia’s invasion, he has refused to condemn it and has echoed many of its justifications for the war. In a position paper published in February, Xi criticised “expanding military blocs”, an implicit reference to Nato, which Putin blames for provoking his “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin says Wagner uprisingwas ‘doomed to fail’

Beijing’s support for Moscow is based on pragmatism and ideology. It is the former that has been most damaged by the weekend’s dramatic events, which China has sought to downplay.

Having initially made no comment, on Sunday, China’s foreign ministry described the rebellion as Russia’s “internal affairs” and expressed its support for Russia in maintaining national stability.

On Sunday, the Xinhua Chinese state news agency published an article suggesting that Prigozhin had backed down because Russian public opinion was overwhelmingly against him. China Daily published a report from Moscow’s Red Square that said “the daily life of Moscow residents has not been disrupted and remains calm and orderly”.

But many in China are not convinced. Yu Jianrong, an influential liberal scholar, posted a video of Russian locals reacting angrily to police moving into Rostov-on-Don, a city that had been captured by the Wagner group, suggesting there was some level of support for their cause. “I really don’t know what’s going on in this country,” Yu wrote to his more than 7 million Weibo followers.

Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said the Wagner incident would lead to Russia’s increased dependence on China, while Beijing would take “a more cautious stance on Russia”. “Diplomatically, China needs to be careful with its words and deeds,” Shen said.

Others argue that Xi may be impressed by Putin’s handling of the insurrection. “The way that China might be looking at it is that Putin has proved to elites that he can handle enormous challenges to the country,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who focuses on China-Russia relations. “I don’t think that the Chinese government has jumped to the conclusion that there are big cracks to Putin’s regime,” Korolev said.

Still, Xi now has to balance continuing support for Putin with hedging for the possibility that his time in the Kremlin could be cut short. One aspect where this dilemma will be felt most immediately is in intelligence-sharing. Prigozhin’s swift advance on Moscow suggests the tacit support of some figures within Russia’s military and intelligence community. That means China’s contacts with Russia’s secret services are potentially vulnerable.

As Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, has noted: “If Chinese security services intelligence with their Russian counterparts on anti-Putin coup plotters, they face a high probability of discovery and risk long-term damage to bilateral relations if an ‘anti-Putin’ ascends to the power vertical in Russian politics.”

The Chinese government will welcome the fact that a deal with Prigozhin was swiftly brokered. Putin is an important partner and backs China’s position on the world stage, especially Beijing’s appeal to the global south to resist what it describes as US-led hegemony. Xi’s public support for Putin is unwavering.

However, China is increasingly worried about stability in Russia, said Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre. “Their problem is they don’t have real tools to impact it.”

The spectre of another leadership challenge to Putin will unnerve Xi. Analysts are divided on whether he would attempt to intervene in Russia’s domestic politics to keep a pro-Beijing leader in power, as any intervention could risk damaging relations with a potential successor.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY EIGHT – From Time

CHINA BACKS RUSSIA’S ACTIONS TO MAINTAIN ‘NATIONAL STABILITY’ AFTER WAGNER GROUP REVOLT

BY PHILA SIU / BLOOMBERG  JUNE 25, 2023 11:30 PM EDT

China said it supports Russia’s actions to maintain national stability, a day after Moscow defused the biggest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

The brief statement by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, who described the weekend’s events as “Russia’s internal affair,” came after Foreign Minister Qin Gang met in Beijing with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko.

00:25 / 00:30

It expanded on an earlier comment from Beijing that the pair had exchanged views on international and regional issues of common interest.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu also met Rudenko on Sunday, vowing to defend the countries’ common interests in the face of a “complex and grim” international environment.

Mutual political trust between Beijing and Moscow has been growing under Putin and President Xi Jinping, China’s foreign ministry cited Ma as saying in another statement.

Read More: Wagner Group’s Revolt in Russia Ends After Deal Struck. Here’s What to Know

In a TV broadcast to the nation on Saturday, Putin spoke of “treason” as militia members loyal to Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin made their way north toward Moscow. As part of a deal to end the uprising late on Sunday, the Russian president guaranteed that Prigozhin would be allowed to leave for Belarus and authorities would drop criminal mutiny charges against him and his fighters, according to the Kremlin.

“The Chinese side expressed support for the efforts of the Russian leadership to stabilize the situation in the country in connection with the events of June 24 and reaffirmed its interest in strengthening the cohesion and further prosperity of Russia,” Russian’s foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

The ministry said Rudenko was on a working trip and that the consultations had been planned.

The weekend’s events in Russia were covered by Chinese state media, with People’s Daily and China Central Television running stories. Global Times published an article by former editor-in-chief Hu Xijin analyzing what scenarios the uprising could lead to, including regime change. Xi has a tight relationship with Putin and visited him in Moscow in March.

The official Xinhua News Agency said in a Chinese-language article that Russian “representatives from all parts of the nation, dignitaries and religious leaders strongly condemned the incident, and clearly stated that they stood on the side of the Russian federal government, stability and peace.”

The subject was also a hot topic on China’s social media, with users sharing screen-shots of Twitter discussions. Some compared Prigozhin’s moves to the An Lushan Rebellion which began in 755 AD, when a disgruntled general and favorite of the emperor used his troops to capture the eastern capital and proclaim himself emperor. While the rebellion ultimately failed, it led to a weakening of the Tang Dynasty.

A Weibo account operated by a part of the People’s Liberation Army published a post by China National Radio about how Mao Zedong revamped the army in 1927 — an event that ensured the party retained absolute leadership over the army.

—With assistance from Jing Li and Xiao Zibang.

ATTACHMENT THIRTY NINE – From Al Jazeera

HOW PUTIN’S TASTE FOR JAIL JARGON CHANGED RUSSIA

Growing up in St Petersburg, Russia’s leader was fascinated with prison songs and sambo, a form of wrestling.

By Mansur Mirovalev Published On 31 May 202331 May 2023

Kyiv, Ukraine – When Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary company, bristled at Russia’s top brass, he did not mince his words.

“Scum”, “damn it” and “go to hell” were among the most quotable phrases from the video rant filled with homophobic slurs and prison slang that was released on Prigozhin’s Telegram channel on May 5.

The diatribe does not seem surprising given his background. In 1981, he was convicted of robbery and assault and served nine years in Soviet jails.

His knowledge of “fenya”, as jail jargon is known, proved important to the Kremlin’s faltering war effort in Ukraine last year when he toured dozens of Russian prisons to enlist tens of thousands of inmates.

But the problem with Prigozhin’s profanities – as well as the corrupting influence of fenya and the overtly romanticised lifestyle of career criminals on Russia’s politics, culture and daily life – lies much deeper.

It was Prigozhin’s boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who started peppering his speech with salty phrases and fenya idioms since the dawn of his rule 23 years ago.

Long before former US President Donald Trump built his political career on jingoistic, misogynistic and intolerant parlance, Putin did something similar in Russia – with much broader consequences.

“We’ll soak ’em in the outhouse,” Putin, a newly appointed prime minister in President Boris Yeltsin’s government, said in 1999 about the Russian bombing of Grozny, the capital of the then de facto separatist Chechnya region.]

‘I Want Someone Like Putin’

Soviet-era dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent years in gulags, pointed out that the phrase referred to the killing of snitches by drowning them in feces in giant prison outhouses.

But average Russians unfamiliar with fenya’s intricacies liked Putin’s phrase anyway.

Bottom of Form

Many more colourful, nearly obscene quotes, along with the scrupulously sculpted image of a macho man, paved the way to Putin’s first presidency in 2000.

Women were among his earliest supporters.

“‘Soak ’em in the outhouse’ was more about [Putin] becoming sexually attractive to the women whose men are drunks and who think that they need a strong hand to simply survive,” Nana Grinstein, a playwright whose family fled Russia after the all-out war began in Ukraine last year, told Al Jazeera.

She used an old Russian trope of comparing women to “necks” that support their men, the “heads” of families, and recalled “I Want Someone Like Putin”, a 2003 pop hit that describes a woman who kicks out her substance-abusing lover because she craves someone like the president.

“When these ‘necks’ turned towards Putin, then machismo worked both ways. For men, he became an example because ‘someone like Putin’ is wanted in the most open sexual way,” Grinstein said.

Other popular ‘Putinisms’

Throughout his years in office, Putin became known for language that reinforced his strongman image just as much as the photographs of him bare-chested, hunting, fishing, riding horses and doing judo did.

“He turned out to be a mighty man, raped 10 women. We all envy him,” Putin said in 2006 after Israeli President Moshe Katsav was accused of raping his female employees.

“They wore contraceptives [condoms],” Putin said in 2011 in response to opposition rallies whose participants wore white bands.

“No matter how one acts during the wedding night, the result has to be the same,” he said in 2013 about the European Union’s political consolidation.

“We, as martyrs, will go to paradise, and they will simply croak,” he said in 2018 about the possibility of a global nuclear war.

“Whether you like it or not – be patient, my beauty,” he said in 2022 about Ukraine’s reluctance to stick to the Minsk accords, a peace settlement in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

‘We’re thieves-humanists’

Some people who knew Putin as a teenager growing up in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, said that his fascination with prison life stems from his studies of sambo, a form of wrestling.

Putin’s coach was Leonid Usvyatsov, who had served nearly 20 years in jails for rape and “machinations” with hard currency.

Putin “was connected to bandits via his senior coach Leonid Usvyatsov”, Putin’s former sambo partner Nikolay Vashchilin told the Russian service of Radio Freedom/Radio Free Europe.

Usvyatsov was shot dead in 1994 by other criminals.

“I’m dead, but mafia is immortal,” the epitaph on his tombstone says.

In the 1980s, Putin became a fan of an endemically Russian music genre that lionises jail and the criminal lifestyle.

Euphemistically called “chanson” after the French word for “song”, the genre fused Ukrainian-Jewish and Roma influences with the “cruel romance”, a 19th-century style of overtly melodramatic songs.

Putin’s childhood friend Sergey Roldugin reportedly recalled how in the 1980s they listened to Willy Tokaryev, an emigre chanson crooner.

Their favourite song was “Catch the Thief”, especially the lines: “We’re thieves-humanists. We’re all recidivists.”

Roldugin, a renowned cellist and a godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter, allegedly amassed more than $100m and funnelled the money to Putin’s inner circle, according to leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Foncesca.

Despising weakness

A psychologist in neighbouring Ukraine pointed to three reasons why Putin favours fenya and the lifestyle associated with it.

Russian prison lords are “above the law, beyond the law”, says Svetlana Chunikhina, vice president of the Association of Political Psychologists, a group in Kyiv.

“For Putin, this is an ideal status. He created a state that does not follow international law, and he himself is not controlled by domestic laws,” she told Al Jazeera.

Secondly, Putin “despises weakness”, likes the prison cult of power, and makes average Russians and Moscow’s political satellites “weak” and “disorganised”, she said.

And thirdly, Putin hates the modern, Western understanding of personal freedom.

“The prison discourse that Putin turned into modern Russia’s daily political language is an ideal way to turn a nation into a jail,” Chunikhina said.

Mafia ties

To an expert on the former Soviet Union’s criminal underworld, Putin’s speech is a far cry from the actual lingo of “crowned thieves”, a caste of professional criminals.

“This is the speech of a man who thinks that this is the way career criminals talk,” Vera Mironova, who wrote the book Criminals, Nazis and Islamists: Competition for Power in Former Soviet Union Prisons, told Al Jazeera.

Although Putin lacks proficiency in real jail jargon, he still developed extensive ties to organised crime, Mironova said.

“Absolutely, 100 percent,” she said, citing the writings of Alexander Litvinenko, an officer with the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s main intelligence agency, who defected to the United Kingdom in 2000.

Litvinenko, who specialised in organised crime, which blossomed in the 1990s in Russia, accused Putin, who headed the FSB in 1998 and 1999, and his colleagues of profiting from drugs trafficking and money laundering.

Litvinenko was killed by poisoning with radioactive polonium-210 in 2006.

Putin repeatedly called Litvinenko a “traitor”, and British authorities said the Russian president “probably” approved the assassination.

Populism?

Putin’s idioms changed the way Russian politicians and officials have been talking in public.

“Putin started the tradition of using jargon in modern official speeches,” Natalia Zelyanskaya and Konstantin Belousov of Orenburg State University in southwestern Russia wrote in their 2007 paper on “political linguistics”.

A Kremlin critic said Putin and his loyalists chose the down-to-earth verbal populism because they wanted to sound like average Russians.

“These people simply speak the language spoken by the public,” said Sergey Bizyukin, who fled the western city of Ryazan following official pressure.

He said the trend was a delayed “side effect” of Soviet-era efforts to build a “classless society” when intellectualism was frowned upon and the government promoted oversimplified “art for the masses”.

As a result, in Putin’s Russia, “people with highly cultural speech are more of an exception than a norm,” he said.

The glorification of inmates is popular in many cultures – country singer Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison album went triple-platinum in the United States.

But the denizens of the Soviet Union and modern Russia have had a strange fascination with prison life and slang.

Tens of millions of people went through Soviet gulags, and Russia still has the world’s fifth-largest jail population with nearly 440,000 inmates in 2022.

“Crowned thieves” gained a privileged status in Stalinist prisons in exchange for intimidating, beating and killing “political” inmates.

“Crowned thieves” were also popularised in countless chanson songs.

Kremlin Palace shows

Musically, the result is “utter crap”, in the words of Alexander Gradsky, a Soviet rock music pioneer who recorded concept albums, wrote symphonic music and occasionally sang opera.

But his opinion does not matter when it comes to advertising revenues and jam-packed concert halls.

One of Russia’s most popular and commercially successful radio stations is Radio Сhanson, which began its broadcasts in 2000, months after Putin’s first election victory.

Since 2002, Radio Chanson has conducted annual contests whose final shows are held in the Kremlin Palace, Russia’s most prestigious concert hall, and are broadcast live nationally.

“Only in Russia, the cult of power and the culture of chanson are not marginal, but, vice versa, form the rules of behaviour and dominant principles of successful socialisation,” art critic Alexander Smolin wrote in 2019.

His opinion piece titled Chanson as a Way of Social Degradation followed the stabbing of a taxi driver who refused to play Radio Chanson to a drunken passenger.

Smolin charged that Russians who listen to chanson “are grown as extras for wars, heavy labour in toxic industries and farming badlands”.

Lionising the war

One of the perennial Radio Chanson favourites is Lyube, a group Putin names as his favourite.

Back in 2002, he appointed its frontman, Nikolay Rastorguev, as one of his “culture advisers”.

Later, Rastorguev served as a lawmaker with United Russia, the ruling pro-Putin party.

Last year, the European Union blacklisted Rastorguev for supporting the war in Ukraine.

Lyube’s popularity spilled beyond Russia, reaching other former Soviet republics, including Ukraine.

“It was my dad’s favourite band, and I listened to it too,” Oleksiy Savchenko, a native of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where many still speak Russian, told Al Jazeera in August.

Savchenko, the founder of an NGO that developed an app that turns tablets or cellphones into automated guided precision systems for Ukrainian soldiers, quit listening to Lyube after the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

In October, another Radio Chanson laureate, Vika Tsyganova (her artistic name means “Gypsy”), released “Wagner”, a song glorifying Prigozhin’s mercenaries.

She compares Prigozhin to Lucifer “who conducts the flight of the Valkyries” and praises Wagner’s “musicians” who go to “Valhalla”, a paradise for warriors who die in battle. Now they’re traitors.

“Good job,” concluded Zakhar Prilepin, a once-renowned novelist-turned-Kremlin loyalist who admitted to committing war crimes while fighting in southeastern Ukraine.

The Wagner song was deleted from YouTube for plagiarising elements of “Palladio”, a tune by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins.

“This is an act of malice,” Tsyganova said.

ATTACHMENT FORTY – From Newsweek

EXCLUSIVE: PUTIN 'FLED MOSCOW' DURING PRIGOZHIN'S MUTINY

BY ISABEL VAN BRUGEN ON 7/5/23 AT 3:00 AM EDT

Russian President Vladimir Putin fled Moscow during a mutiny led by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, Newsweek has been told.

Self-exiled former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man before he fell foul of Putin, said he was monitoring the movements of the Russian president during Prigozhin's short-lived rebellion on June 24.

He said he learned from one of his contacts that Putin left Moscow by plane during the failed coup, and most likely went to his residence in Valdai in between Russia's Tver and Novgorod regions, located some 250 miles away.

Putin's apparent absence as the mutiny played out fueled speculation about his whereabouts, and information from Khodorkovsky's contact is the latest indication from multiple sources, including aircraft tracking data, that the Russian president was not in Moscow.

Former Russian oil executive Khodorkovsky, 60, headed the energy company Yukos before he spent a decade in prison in Russia for what critics called politically motivated charges. He was one of the earliest supporters of democratic change in Russia, criticizing endemic corruption at a televised meeting with Putin in early 2003. Khodorkovsky was pardoned by the Russian president in 2013, but remains a leading critic of his regime.

Khodorkovsky, who has been designated a "foreign agent" by the Kremlin and has said he is often contacted by members of the FSB, said he had information about Putin's movements during the Wagner mutiny.

"We were monitoring Putin at that moment. And it looks like indeed, he did leave Moscow, and most likely went to Valdai to his residence," Khodorkovsky told Newsweek from London, where he now lives.

Valdai in northwestern Russia is home to property owned by Putin, multiple sources have said.

Agentstvo, an independent Russian-language investigative media outlet, reported in January that a Pantsir-S1 air defense system was placed close to the residence after drone attacks inside Russian territory. It described the home as "a place of personal leisure for Putin, his relatives and friends."

In March, independent news website Meduza reported that part of Valdai National Park was closed to visitors after an investigation revealed that Putin owns property in the area.

Putin's Presidential Airplane

A plane "which is only used by Putin" departed from Moscow on June 24 and headed to Russia's northwest, Khodorkovsky said, citing his source, adding that the aircraft disappeared from a flight tracker "somewhere around Valdai." He said he was alerted to the aircraft's movements at 1 p.m. Moscow time.

Independent Russian-language news network Current Time, citing Flightradar24 data, said that Putin's presidential jet, an Ilyushin Il-96, took off from Moscow as Prigozhin's rebellion was underway. It reported that the aircraft's transponder was turned off as it began to descend in the Tver region. It said this may indicate that the aircraft was heading to the Borisovsky Khotilovo airbase—the nearest airfield to Putin's Valdai residence.

Newsweek has checked flight information for the jet and verified Current Time's reporting. The Il-96, with the registration RA-96022, has been used to transport Putin to various meetings and summits. As indicated by Current Time, this aircraft is shown heading out of Moscow at 2:16 p.m. local time on June 24, before climbing to nearly 26,000 feet. At 2:32 p.m. it begins to descend, before tracking is lost at 2:39 p.m., west of Tver city.

Other aircraft from the Rossiya Special Flight Unit, used to transport high-ranking Russian officials or members of the armed forces, also took to the air from Moscow, with one landing in St. Petersburg.

"Leaders, all sorts of heads of different departments, indeed, a lot of them left Moscow as well," Khodorkovsky said. "So this is exactly why I thought at the time that the opposition had a chance. But...Prigozhin's mutiny came to nothing very fast."

In an article for the The New York Times on June 30, Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar also said that Putin was not in Moscow on the day of the rebellion. However, Zygar said that the Russian president spent the day on a yacht owned by his ally and businessman Yury Kovalchuk in St. Petersburg, watching the Scarlet Sails festival show. Agentsvo has disputed this, saying that there was no visual evidence, and nor did the yacht leave any digital footprint on marine tracking tools. It said, however, that transponders on Russian yachts had been turned off in the past.

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2. Prigozhin blew it

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4. Prigozhin's mutiny will lead to Putin's downfall—Russian ex-diplomat

Other sources have supported Khodorkovsky's version of events. Leonid Nevzlin, a Russian-Israeli businessman and Putin critic who announced weeks into the war that he was renouncing his Russian citizenship, tweeted on June 24 that "Putin is hiding in the bunker of his residence in Valdai."

"His closest friends and associates also flew there. The dictator is in a panic. Additional troops advanced towards Valdai to protect it. This has just been reported by my sources," he wrote.

Also on June 24, Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda quoted Kyiv intelligence sources as saying: "We already have information that Putin is leaving Moscow. He is being taken to Valdai."

Journalist Boris Grozovski wrote in a post for the Wilson Center think tank on June 30: "During the day, as the mutiny was unfolding, Putin fled Moscow and reportedly spent the next twenty-four hours at his Valdai estate."

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti that Putin was "working in the Kremlin" on the day of the failed coup. Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

Prigozhin's Ideas 'Now Very Much Widespread'

Prigozhin advanced on Moscow as part of a "march of justice" demanding the resignation of Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov over their handling of the war in Ukraine.

After less than 24 hours, Prigozhin pulled back his fighters when the Kremlin said a deal had been brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to avoid "bloodshed." That agreement will see Prigozhin and his fighters relocate to Belarus, although details of the deal remain unclear.

Khodorkovsky said Prigozhin, through his uprising, was successful in articulating ideas "which are now very much widespread in the [Russian] army, and also the political elite," including that the war with Ukraine was a mistake—something that was previously only put forward by the democratic opposition.

"Today, it is a consolidated idea, both [in] the army and the political elite," he added.

ATTACHMENT FORTY ONE – From Reuters

EXCLUSIVE: TRUMP SAYS ABORTED MUTINY 'SOMEWHAT WEAKENED' PUTIN

By Steve Holland and Nathan Layne June 29, 20237:56 PM EDTUpdated 11 days ago

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday Putin has been "somewhat weakened" by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for the United States to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

"I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war," Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Speaking expansively about foreign policy, the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination also said China should be given a 48-hour deadline to get out of what sources familiar with the matter say is a Chinese spy capability on the island of Cuba 90 miles (145 km) off the U.S. coast.

On Ukraine, Trump did not rule out that the Kyiv government might have to concede some territory to Russia in order to stop the war, which began with Russian forces invading Ukraine 16 months ago. He said everything would be "subject to negotiation", if he were president, but that Ukrainians who have waged a vigorous fight to defend their land have "earned a lot of credit."

"I think they would be entitled to keep much of what they've earned and I think that Russia likewise would agree to that. You need the right mediator, or negotiator, and we don't have that right now," he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO allies want Russia out of territory it has seized in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive that has made small gains in driving out Russian forces.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last year proposed a 10-point peace plan, which calls on Russia to withdraw all of its troops.

"I think the biggest thing that the U.S. should be doing right now is making peace - getting Russia and Ukraine together and making peace. You can do it," Trump said. "This is the time to do it, to get the two parties together to force peace."

As president, Trump developed friendly relations with Putin, who Biden said on Wednesday has "become a bit of pariah around the world" for invading Ukraine.

Trump said Putin had been damaged by an uprising by the Russian mercenary force, the Wagner Group, and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, last weekend.

"You could say that he's (Putin) still there, he's still strong, but he certainly has been I would say somewhat weakened at least in the minds of a lot of people," he said.

If Putin were no longer in power, however, "you don't know what the alternative is. It could be better, but it could be far worse," Trump said.

As for war crime charges levied against Putin by the International Criminal Court last March, Trump said Putin's fate should be discussed when the war is over "because right now if you bring that topic up you'll never make peace, you'll never make a settlement."

Trump was adamantly opposed to China's spy base on Cuba and said if Beijing refused to accept his 48-hour demand for shutting it down, a Trump administration would impose new tariffs on Chinese goods.

As president, Trump adopted a tougher stance on China while claiming a good relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping that soured over the coronavirus pandemic.

"I'd give them 48 hours to get out. And if they didn't get out, I'd charge them a 100% tariff on everything they sell to the United States, and they'd be gone within two days. They'd be gone within one hour," Trump said.

Trump was mum on whether the United States would support Taiwan militarily if China invaded the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.

"I don't talk about that. And the reason I don't is because it would hurt my negotiating position," he said. "All I can tell you is for four years, there was no threat. And it wouldn't happen if I were president."

ATTACHMENT FORTY TWO – From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist

PRIGOZHIN, PUTIN, AND THE RUSSIAN COUP THAT EVAPORATED

By John Mecklin | June 24, 2023

In a stunning whiplash turn of only partly explained events, Russian mercenary leader and oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin directed his military forces to take control of a major Russian military headquarters on Friday, then had them set off on a march on Moscow—and then, after reported consultation with Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, called off the rebellion on Saturday.

The shocking, short-lived insurrection began on Friday, when elements of Prigozhin’s mercenary forces, known as the Wagner Group, seized a military headquarters for southern Russia in Rostov-on-Don. Prigozhin, a frequent and vociferous critic of the Russian military leadership, contended Russian forces had attacked—and killed—some Wagner Group troops and vowed retribution. Subsequently, Wagner Group forces moved north toward Moscow, occupying at least one other city along the way.

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by mobilizing the government’s military forces, which took to Moscow streets and areas further south. In a televised speech on Saturday, Putin called Prigozhin’s efforts a treasonous armed rebellion and promised that those responsible “will answer for this.”

Later on Saturday, however, the coup appeared to evaporate when Prigozhin announced that his troops would halt their march on Moscow to avoid bloodshed. Although details were murky, that announcement was subsequently reported to be part of a deal, negotiated with Lukashenko, in which Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia for Belarus, and the Russian government agreed to drop the criminal case it had opened against the mercenary leader.

The quick resolution of the rebellion raised obvious questions that a variety of Russia experts were quick to address, as well as they could, given the paucity of information available outside top levels of the Russian government. Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, posted a Twitter string that addressed perhaps the most important of those questions:

Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation who previously worked at the Soviet and Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and participated in the START I and START II negotiations, weighed in, perhaps too self-effacingly, with “[a] few notes from someone who is not a Russia watcher,” suggesting that “a shakeup at the top of [the Russian Ministry of Defense] seems likely (army may like it, too),” even though the coup failed.

Many commenters on social media and television marveled at the strangeness and seeming unbelievability of the negotiated deal that would, supposedly, leave Prigozhin free in Belarus after he had engaged in what Putin—known to be a ruthless pursuer of enemies—openly termed treason. As former US ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul put it:

There was also much speculation that Prigozhin’s short-lived insurrection would undermine Putin’s authority over the longer term. Given the unusual and fast-moving series of events, however, it was entirely unclear, late on Saturday, how closely the public reporting on the two-day coup matched the underlying reality, and how much of what had happened was still to be revealed.

Plus PG

4 COMMENTS

Oldest 

Philip

 2 days ago

I don’t believe that Putin would let Prigozhin walk after an attempted coup. I don’t think he would have let the Wagner group go so far into Russia without jets, rockets, and helicopters taking them out. These were mainly just trucks carrying soldiers. Putin has wanted to nuke Ukraine for over a year but was afraid he would be nuked. So, he and Prigozhin planned everything that happened yesterday months ago.  It was a fake coup attempt. Belarus is a Russian state. If it had been a real coup attempt Prigozhin would not go there because he would be killed instantly. That is not… Read more »

0

j rosenblum

 1 day ago

Such a well-written article! What about the issue of whether this was a subterfuge (false flag to use the current metaphor), where Pregozian gets more $ and bullets, and can lead an attack from the north, establishing two fronts? Where did the troops who accompanied him in Rostov go? Back to Ukraine? to Belorussia?

3

Paul

 19 hours ago

to  j rosenblum

If Wagner and Prighozin wanted to relocate to Belarus to regroup for an attack, they could’ve just done that without carrying out a charade that exposes how poor defenses are within Russia and makes Putin look weak and exposed.
We don’t have all the information to know what actually transpired.

0

Julius Mazzarella

 1 day ago

Great article. It’s scary to think such instability exists in a country that has enough nuclear weapons to lay waste in radioactive ash every major city on earth a few times over and still have plenty to spare. Another good motivation for everyone ( with no exclusions) to sign the TPNW. You never know who’s hands will end up on the nuclear button.

0

 Rep

ATTACHMENT FORTY THREE – From al Jazeera

PRIGOZHIN HAS LET THE GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE

We have yet to see the full repercussions of the Wagner Group’s march on Moscow.

By Maximilian Hess (Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute) Published On 26 Jun 2023 26 Jun 2023

“Bombing Voronezh” is an expression in the Russian language that roughly translates to hurting yourself while trying to do damage to someone else. On June 24, language met reality as Russian forces bombed the southern city of Voronezh trying to slow down the advance of the Wagner Group’s mercenary convoy towards Moscow.

Led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s Chef” for having made a fortune in Kremlin catering contracts, the Wagner Group’s fighters went on a “march for justice” trying to depose the leadership of the defence ministry and army, which ended just as abruptly as it started.

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list 3 of 4

‘Don’t see why not’: China envoy on backing Ukraine’s ’91 borders

list 4 of 4

Wagner’s weapons to be transferred to Russian troops: Official

end of list

The private military company was established in 2014 to give cover for President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adventures by providing plausible deniability for the Kremlin’s involvement in conflicts abroad. Over the following decade, the group and its founder grew more and more empowered and well-armed.

Last year, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Wagner fighters became the Kremlin’s most effective shock troops on the battlefield, leading the eight-month-long siege of the strategic city of Bakhmut and capturing it.

But over the weekend, the group transformed from a loyal militia to Moscow’s foremost security threat, as Prigozhin openly rebelled against the Russian military.

His “march” on the Russian capital to try to overthrow military leaders – who he has accused of corruption, incompetence and sabotaging his mercenaries – revealed a deep weakness in the Russian state. By creating this irregular force, the Kremlin has indeed “bombed Voronezh”.

Prigozhin’s forces seized military facilities in southwestern Russia and moved on to Moscow without major resistance. Soon footage emerged of locals handing the Wagner mercenaries food and supplies and cheering them on.

The ease with which Wagner acted prompted panic in Moscow. Flights out of the country sold out and there were genuine concerns that violence and even war were coming to the doorstep. For the first time since Putin took power in 2000, the spectre of violent upheaval that could threaten his regime raised its head.

Moscow declared a state of emergency and made some weak attempts to stop the advance of Prigozhin’s fighters, tearing up roads and sending helicopters (at least six of which were destroyed by Wagner fighters) to bomb the convoy.

Wagner forces allegedly got to within 200km (124 miles) of the Russian capital before their leader suddenly announced they were turning back to avoid “spilling Russian blood”. It emerged afterwards that he had agreed to a deal put forward by Putin’s ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, to stand down and go into exile in Belarus. Further details of the agreement remain murky.

Bottom of Form

What is clear, however, is that Putin appears greatly weakened by the mutiny, having lost the monopoly on the use of force in Russia and the illusion that he could provide security and stability for Russian citizens.

Prigozhin has let the genie out of the bottle, and if there was a continuation of these events that seriously challenges the Russian president’s power, it wouldn’t be without precedent in Russian history.

In his speech to the nation on June 24, Putin himself referred to one such episode: “The actions splitting our unity are a betrayal of our people, of our brothers in combat who fight now at the front line. It’s a stab in the back of our country and our people. It was such a blow that was dealt to Russia in 1917 when the country was fighting in World War I, but its victory was stolen.”

In February 1917, civil unrest erupted in Russia prompted in part by the disastrous performance of the Russian military in Eastern Europe during World War I and growing public dissatisfaction with how the country was run. Perceived weakening of the authority of Russian Emperor Nicholas II also played a role.

As popular anger grew, a garrison stationed in St Petersburg, the imperial capital, mutinied. Losing control of the city, the emperor was approached by his army chief and several members of the parliament and pressured to abdicate. Power was handed over to a provisional government led by liberal forces.

Seeing the popularity of Prigozhin among Russians, some have also drawn parallels with another episode of the eventful 1917. In August of that year, as the provisional government struggled to exert control over the internal affairs of the country, Lavr Kornilov, an infantry general who had just been appointed army chief due to his popularity among troops, refused to carry out the orders of Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky.

Kornilov then attempted to march on St Petersburg and take power but failed. This further weakened the government amid a raging economic crisis, social upheaval and a looming defeat in the war. It paved the way for the Bolsheviks to ride the wave of unrest among workers and soldiers and seize power in what came to be known as the October Revolution – a historical event that Putin has long lamented.

Indeed, the Russian president has reason to fear the parallels with 1917. The war against Ukraine he launched last year is not going “according to plan”, as he has claimed in the past. Last year, his blitzkrieg towards Kyiv and attempts to take all of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper river and along the Black Sea coast failed. This year, his forces have not been able to take control of all of the Donetsk or Luhansk regions, which he declared part of Russia in October.

Meanwhile, Putin lost one of his most effective military commanders in Prigozhin, and however he tries to reconstitute the Wagner Group, it is unlikely to remain the powerful force it used to be. This will likely help Ukraine, which recently launched its counterattack and is liberating territories in the east and south. In the aftermath of Prigozhin’s rebellion, Kyiv has reportedly established a bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region and has also claimed gains in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions.

The Russian economy has also taken a hard hit due to the war and the ever-expanding list of sanctions that the European Union, the United States and their allies have imposed. It has become more reliant on exports to China, which for its part has remained unwilling to provide Russia with substantial new finance. Beijing has also dragged its feet on an agreement to build the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline that Putin desperately needs to replace lost European gas sales.

A week before the unrest, Russian media reported Chinese banks were already restricting renminbi transfers from Russian banks to third countries and Beijing will hardly see any incentive to hitch itself more to Putin now.

Of course, the Kremlin is not yet in a crisis of the same scope as the one in 1917, but we have also yet to see how Prigozhin’s mutiny will end. He indeed pulled back his fighters from Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh, but what will happen to him next remains unclear. The charges of treason against Prigozhin, which were supposed to be dropped under the deal he made with Lukashenko, are reportedly still in place.

There have been reports that he is in Minsk, though Belarusian officials have denied they are aware of his arrival and it is hard to see how they can provide a haven for him given past disputes between Prigozhin and Lukashenko. Putin is known for seeing betrayal as unforgivable, but taking further action against Prigozhin could also destabilise the situation further. Once the genie has been released from the bottle, it is hard to put it back in.

It is also unclear what will become of Wagner’s lucrative operations in Africa, where the group is said to be directly involved in the mining of gold and other precious minerals. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said these will remain in place, but the Wagner units involved are believed to be those that have served Prigozhin the longest and are likely most loyal to him. So whether they would accept a new leadership or resist remains to be seen.

On June 26, Prigozhin finally broke his silence, vowing that Wagner will continue to operate and stating that he did not aim to overthrow Putin. Those words would have been unthinkable just four days ago, and while Putin managed to survive his rebellion, the truce between the two may prove fleeting.  The wheels of change have been set in motion and it is hard to predict where they will take Russia.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Maximilian Hess is a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a Political Risk consultant based in London

ATTACHMENT FORTY FOUR – Also from Foreign Policy

PRIGOZHIN SHOULD STUDY EUROPE’S GREATEST MERCENARY

Albrecht von Wallenstein was the Holy Roman Empire’s power broker—until he clashed with his superior.

By LUCIAN STAIANO-DANIELS

Last weekend’s mutiny was partly the product of a mismanaged authoritarian state.

A colorized print depicts Bohemian mercenary General Albrecht Wenzel von Wallenstein, wearing a hat with a feather, thigh-high boots, and lace cuffs and collar as he rides atop a bearded man wearing a tall furry hat as though he were a horse. Marauding soldiers are seen in the background landscape of houses and castles.

ATTACHMENT FORTY FIVE – From Guardian UK

From the Guardian UK

IT IS LIKE A VIRUS THAT SPREADS’: BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR WAGNER GROUP’S EXTENSIVE AFRICA NETWORK

Despite Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Kremlin, his military contracts are proving too profitable to lose

Jason Burke

Thu 6 Jul 2023 07.59 EDT

Four days after Wagner group mercenaries marched on Moscow, a Russian envoy flew into Benghazi to meet a worried warlord. The message from the Kremlin to Khalifa Haftar, the self-styled general who runs much of eastern Libya, was reassuring: the more than 2,000 Wagner fighters, technicians, political operatives and administrators in the country would be staying.

“There will be no problem here. There may be some changes at the top but the mechanism will stay the same: the people on the ground, the money men in Dubai, the contacts, and the resources committed to Libya,” the envoy told Haftar in his fortified palatial residence. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere.”

The conversation, relayed to the Guardian by a senior Libyan former official with direct knowledge of the encounter, underlines the degree to which the Wagner group’s deployments and its extensive network of businesses across Africa is yet to be hit by the fallout from the rebellion of its founder and commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The resilience of Wagner’s commercial operations despite the turmoil in Russia strongly suggests Vladimir Putin’s regime will seek to appropriate and exploit the lucrative web of hundreds of companies that Prigozhin built, rather than shut it down, experts believe.

In Libya, there has been no abnormal movement of Wagner personnel, other than the redeployment of a small detachment of 50 closer to the border with Sudan.

The situation is similar elsewhere in the continent, according to sources in half a dozen African countries with knowledge of its operations.

“For the moment, it looks like Wagner’s operations are on hold. But they are successful and not so expensive, so it is very likely Wagner will be rebranded [by Moscow] while maintaining most of its assets and systems,” said Nathalia Dukhan, the author of a recent report on Wagner’s operations in Central African Republic (CAR) published by The Sentry, a US-based investigative organisation. “It is like a virus that spreads. They do not appear to be planning to leave. They are planning to continue.”

Though attention has mainly focused on Wagner’s combat role, particularly in Ukraine in recent months, analysts and western intelligence officials say that in Africa it is the group’s economic and political activities that are important to Putin’s regime.

“Since its first deployments in 2017, Wagner has really become much more widespread and high profile. Now the Kremlin certainly seems to be trying to emphasise continuity, if not immediate expansion,” said Julia Stanyard, an expert on Wagner at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, last week reassured allies in Africa that Wagner group fighters deployed to the continent would not be withdrawn. In an interview with Russia Today, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister Lavrov promised that “instructors” and “private military contractors” would remain in CAR and Mali, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Wagner has the biggest presence.

The most developed commercial operation run by Wagner is in CAR, where the group’s mercenaries arrived in 2018 to bolster the regime of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, which was struggling to fight off a rebel offensive.

From multiple bases in and around Bangui, CAR’s capital, Wagner has run an extensive mining operation across the country. The group has also begun making and selling beer and spirits, and has been granted a hugely profitable concession to exploit rainforests in the south of CAR.

The biggest single project is the vast Ndassima goldmine, which has been taken over by Wagner and is being developed. Poor infrastructure is thought to have restricted output at Ndassima, however, forcing Wagner to seek profits through the takeover of smaller mines along CAR’s remote eastern frontier region. Last year, Wagner fighters launched raids on goldmines there that killed dozens of people, witnesses interviewed by the Guardian said.

These operations are thought to be the primary responsibility of a small detachment of Wagner fighters, which also oversees the smuggling of gold and much else into Sudan, where the Wagner group has close contacts with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo currently fighting for control of the state.

Last month the US Treasury imposed a new round of sanctions that aimed to “disrupt key actors in the Wagner group’s financial network and international structure”.

Three companies were targeted, all involved in Africa. One was Midas Ressources, a CAR-based mining company linked to Prigozhin, which the US Treasury said “maintains ownership of CAR-based mining concessions and licenses for prospecting and extracting minerals, precious and semi-precious metals, and gems”, including the Ndassima mine.

A second company targeted was Diamville, described by the Treasury as “a gold and diamond purchasing company based in the CAR and controlled by Prigozhin”, which the US alleges shipped diamonds mined in the CAR to buyers in the UAE and in Europe, using a third company under sanctions called Industrial Resources.

Experts have said diamonds would be useful for evading sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. “You can buy any goods anywhere with diamonds,” Dukhan, the analyst, said.

An earlier round of US and EU sanctions targeted Wagner’s holdings in Sudan, in particular a company called Meroe Gold. Recent EU sanctions listed further companies alleged to be “illegally trading gold and diamonds looted by force from local traders”.

Until fighting between rival factions in Sudan broke out in April, Wagner operatives ran an office near the airport in the capital, Khartoum, with bullion flown out from an airbase a short distance away in the desert, local officials and diplomats told the Guardian last year. Bullion is sent to the United Arab Emirates and Moscow for sale on to international markets.

The conflict in Sudan is thought to have constrained – but not entirely halted – Wagner’s extensive operations there, which are focused on gold mining and refining in collaboration with the paramilitary RSF.

The small Wagner detachment in Sudan has also had sporadic contacts in recent months with RSF, and may have supplied them with weapons, according to local sources, but has otherwise stayed away from significant involvement in the fighting.

“The priority is basically to keep the gold moving,” said one western security source who was recently forced to leave Khartoum by the fighting.

Last weekend, observers with multiple sources on the ground in CAR said there had been no evidence of movement of Wagner personnel on any of the poverty-hit country’s few major roads, nor at its principal airport.

On the Sudanese frontier, it was “business as usual”, according to Enrica Picco, central Africa director of the International Crisis Group.

In Mali, where Wagner’s commercial operation is less well-developed, the group is thought to have struggled to make significant profits since deploying in December 2021. Diplomatic sources told the Guardian that Wagner had experienced difficulty accessing the goldmines they were allowed to exploit under the deal struck with the regime of military ruler Assimi Goïta but had been paid handsomely by the military regime.

The US believes Mali’s transition government has paid more than $200m (£157m) to Wagner since late 2021, the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters last week.

Political dividends have also been significant. Last week, the UN security council voted to withdraw its peacekeeping mission in Mali after a decade, allowing the country to swing further under the influence of Moscow. Earlier this month, Mali had asked the UN peacekeeping force to leave “without delay”, citing a “crisis of confidence” between Malian authorities and the UN mission.

Kirby said Prigozhin had helped engineer the UN’s departure “to further Wagner’s interests. We know that senior Malian officials worked directly with Prigozhin employees to inform the UN secretary general that Mali had revoked consent for the [UN] mission,” he said.

Local sources in Mali said a routine rotation of Wagner staff had been completed without incident in the days after the mutiny and mercenaries had continued operations with Malian forces fighting insurgents across the centre and north of the country.

In Libya, another sizeable contingent of Wagner mercenaries is deployed in the eastern part of the country controlled by the warlord Khalifa Haftar. The deployment has earned hundreds of millions of dollars in direct payments since the group participated in an abortive offensive to seize Tripoli in 2019, but has also offered opportunities to engage in oil smuggling on a massive scale, potentially earning similar sums.

There have been no abnormal movements of Wagner personnel in Libya either, since Prigozhin’s “mutiny”, according to a well-placed former official and analysts. Low-level fuel and weapons trafficking is thought to be continuing across Libya’s vast and largely unpoliced southern borders.

Speculation has been rife on social media accounts used by Wagner fighters in Mali, CAR and elsewhere that the group’s employees would be offered new contracts with the Russian state.

However, any process of “nationalisation” could lead to tensions, analysts said. Alia Brahimi, an expert on mercenaries at the Atlantic Council, said: “In theory, this should be quite straightforward, given the Wagner group’s origins as the Kremlin’s creature. But the commanders who ran the day to day in Africa, like [Ivan] Maslov in Mali who’s been personally sanctioned, were elevated by Prigozhin.

“They will have to reconcile the personal debt they owe to Prigozhin and their tribal identity as private operatives rather than public soldiers with more centralised Kremlin control,” he added.

“From the Kremlin’s side, the whole point and draw of letting Wagner off the leash in Africa was that they were a deniable force. Now the horrific crimes and abuses, as well as the economic predation, will have a clear return address.”

The destabilising effects on local regimes are already evident. There have been public disputes in CAR between ministers over Wagner’s exact role there, and senior officials have sought assurances that Russia will continue its support for Touadéra’s campaign to change the constitution to allow a third term as president. A referendum is due next month.

US officials believe Wagner in Mali has been using false documentation to hide the acquisition and transit of mines, uncrewed aerial vehicles, radar and counterbattery systems for use in Ukraine.

As the head of Wagner in Mali, Maslov “arranges meetings between Prigozhin and government officials from several African nations”, sanctions documents claim.

In the weeks before Prigozhin’s mutiny in Russia, there was evidence that Wagner was committing new resources and reinforcements to Mali and CAR, where Moscow wants to ensure a successful result for Touadéra’s ally in a coming referendum. Officials and diplomats in CAR have described Russia’s plan for a new major base, with capacity for up to 5,000 fighters, which would be a launchpad for Moscow’s geopolitical interests and operations in the surrounding countries.

Two other targets for the Kremlin are believed to be Burkina Faso and Chad, but the biggest prize would be the vast and resource-rich Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Last year, approaches were made by Wagner representatives to the president of DRC, Félix Tshisekedi, who eventually decided against hiring the group to fight against rebels in the vast country’s restive east in return for giving Wagner access to lucrative mining concessions. The bid to win new contracts and business opportunities in DRC was preceded by a significant influence operation masterminded by Prigozhin’s media specialists in St Petersburg.

Just four months ago, Wagner was mounting recruitment campaigns specifically for African operations, as evidence suggested deployments were being reinforced in CAR, Mali and elsewhere.

Wagner’s operations have always been closely aligned with Russia’s longer-term foreign policy objectives, analysts point out. In 2019, leaked memos obtained by the Guardian revealed the Kremlin’s aim to use clandestine influence operations in Africa to build relations with existing rulers, strike military deals, and groom a new generation of “leaders” and undercover “agents” in Africa. One goal was to “strong arm” the US and the former colonial powers the UK and France out of the region. Another was to see off “pro-western” uprisings, the documents said.

ATTACHMENT FORTY SIX – From Time

BELARUS LEADER CLAIMS WAGNER CHIEF IS IN RUSSIA, ADDING UNCERTAINTY ABOUT PRIGOZHIN'S FATE AFTER REVOLT

BY ANNA FRANTS / AP

JULY 6, 2023 6:30 AM EDT

MINSK, Belarus—Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin is in St. Petersburg and his Wagner troops have remained at the camps where they had stayed before a short-lived mutiny against Moscow, the president of Belarus said Thursday.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko helped broker a deal for Prigozhin to end his rebellion on June 24 in exchange for amnesty and security guarantees for himself and his soldiers and permission to move to Belarus.

However, few details of the agreement have emerged, and the whereabouts and futures of the Wagner company’s chief and his private army have remained unclear. The Kremlin has refused to comment on Prigozhin’s location or movements since the abortive revolt.

After saying last week that Prigozhin was in Belarus, Lukashenko told international reporters Thursday that the mercenary leader was in St. Petersburg and Wagner’s troops still were at their camps.

He did not specify the location of the camps, but Prigozhin’s mercenaries fought alongside Russian forces in eastern Ukraine before their revolt.

Lukashenko said his government offered Wagner, a private military contractor founded by Prigozhin, the use of Belarusian military camps but the company had not made a final decision.

Asked if Prigozhin and his mercenaries were going to move to Belarus, Lukashenko answered evasively that it would depend on the decisions of the Wagner chief and the Russian government. The Belarusian leader said he doesn’t think Wagner’s presence in Belarus could lead to the destabilization of his country.

Read More: ‘The Door Has Now Been Opened for Anyone to Challenge Putin.’ Why the Wagner Group’s Rebellion Matters

During their short revolt, they quickly swept over the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured military headquarters there before marching on the Russian capital. Prigozhin described it as a “march of justice” to oust the Russian defense minister and the General Staff chief.

Prigozhin claimed his troops had come within about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) of Moscow when he ordered them to stop the advance under the deal brokered by Lukashenko.

The abortive rebellion represented the biggest threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power and exposed the Kremlin’s weakness, eroding Putin’s authority.

The Wagner fighters faced little resistance, smashing occasional roadblocks and downing at least six helicopters and a command post aircraft, killing at least 10 airmen.

Lukashenko’s statement followed Russian media reports saying Prigozhin was spotted in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city. His presence was seen as part of agreements that allowed him to finalize his affairs there.

Russian media outlets claimed Prigozhin retrieved cash that was confiscated during raids of his offices and a small arsenal of weapons he kept at his home in St. Petersburg.

Russian online newspaper Fontanka posted videos and photos of Prigozhin’s opulent mansion and some personal items, including a collection of wigs of various colors. It also published a collection of selfies that showed him posing in various wigs and foreign uniforms, an apparent reflection of Wagner’s deployments to Syria and several African countries.

Lukashenko said he warned Prigozhin that he and his troops would be destroyed if they failed to make a deal to end their mutiny and that Belarus would send a brigade to help protect Moscow.

He argued that the rebellion could lead to major bloodshed and plunge Russia into a civil war.

“It was necessary to nip it in the bud. It was very dangerous, as history shows,” Lukashenko said.

ATTACHMENT FORTY SEVEN – From Newsmax

By Sandy Fitzgerald    |   Wednesday, 28 June 2023 09:19 AM EDT

Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin may be "sitting comfortably" in Belarus for now, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing signs that he may be reneging on his deal with the mercenary chief after his short-lived revolt and march toward Moscow last weekend, retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt tells Newsmax.

"Putin's got to be looking over his shoulder, but what we can see this morning in Moscow is he's already started the investigatory trail to find out where all the loose ends are," Holt told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" on Wednesday.

Prigozhin is likely to be investigated for money fraud and other elements of his interactions with the Wagner group, including reports that he is making an "interesting amount of money," with an audit showing the Russian government had paid him $2 billion in a year, said Holt.

The Russians will also be trying to determine who knew about Prigozhin's actions, including taking a look at the Russian general staff who were aware but did not report the situation to the government, said Holt.

"There is no loss of zeal for finding out where the origins of this came from," he added.

Meanwhile, Holt said it's concerning that Prigozhin is in Belarus, where Putin has been shipping tactical nuclear weapons, but at the same time, he thinks the Wagner leader has "probably played out his course like a streaking comet across the sky."

"There are so many that they can put in charge of the Wagner group or reconstitute it," said Holt. "What we know is this. We know there are former prisoners, hardened combat personnel, sitting inside Belarus right now near tactical nuclear weapons that Russia has put there."

NATO, he added, "is right to be concerned about it," but "over dialing into this guy Prigozhin is not going to get us anywhere."

Instead, Russia's intent for its tactical weapons must be examined, said Holt.

"Are they building a strike force to get at Kyiv?" said Holt. "What is their intent with the tactical weapons, should Ukraine have a big breakthrough in its counteroffensive?"

Ukraine's fight is also coming at a "tremendous cost," and the United States must watch its own readiness stocks, he said.

"NATO has got to be making some decisions," including working for a diplomatic stance on the war, and an international solution must be reached on the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, said Holt.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is still suffering from a lack of air power, which is necessary to make efficient use of the ground weapons it is receiving from the United States and other countries, said Holt.

"They're fighting with what they can, but without the air cover, they're going to chew up ammunition, and unfortunately, people too, at an alarming rate," he said. "Where does this lead? Remember, we have other adversaries in this world that we've got to account for."

ATTACHMENT FORTY EIGHT – From the Washington Post

KREMLIN WARNS OF ‘SABOTAGE’ AT UKRAINE NUCLEAR PLANT UNDER RUSSIAN CONTROL

By Fredrick Kunkle, Francesca Ebel and Natalia Abbakumova Updated July 5, 2023 at 1:28 p.m. EDT| Published July 5, 2023 at 8:03 a.m. EDT

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The Kremlin said Wednesday that Ukraine is preparing an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Russian-occupied territory, raising fears of a disaster as each side accuses the other of potential sabotage at the facility, which Moscow’s forces control.

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In recent days, Kyiv and Moscow have traded allegations that a false-flag attack is looming, with Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky in his nightly address Tuesday, saying that Russia was laying the groundwork for an operation it would seek to blame on Ukraine. Zelensky said that Russia has planted explosives around the plant’s nuclear reactors and has mined its cooling pond.

Russian forces are occupying the city of Enerhodar, where the plant is located, but the Kremlin insisted that Ukraine was planning to damage the facility. “The threat of sabotage by the Kyiv regime is high,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Wednesday without providing any basis for his allegation. Such sabotage could have “catastrophic” consequences, Peskov said.

Moscow has repeatedly denied attacks on Ukrainian civilians despite evidence that its forces have bombed apartment buildings and other civilian facilities and targeted power infrastructure this winter that forced people far from the front line to be without crucial heating.

Ukrainian officials have said the odds of an accidental release of radiation at the Zaporizhzhia plant have increased since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, an act that Kyiv has blamed on Russian forces.

Wagner rebellion raises doubts about stability of Russia’s nuclear arsenal

Russia has denied destroying the dam, which is located in Russian-occupied territory and was under Moscow’s control at the time of its collapse.

Peskov on Wednesday blamed the destruction of the dam on Kyiv, but Russia has not provided evidence and has not explained how Ukraine could have carried out such an act. The destruction of the dam, located downstream from the nuclear plant, led to catastrophic flooding and drained the reservoir of water needed to cool the reactors and spent nuclear fuel.

Peskov also claimed that Russian forces have taken steps to counter a threat to the plant by Ukraine.

“The situation is quite tense,” Peskov said. “The Kyiv regime has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to not hesitate to do anything — most recently we saw during the bombing of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, also with horrific consequences.”

Ukraine says Putin is planning a nuclear disaster. These people live nearby.

The nuclear plant has had several close calls because of fighting nearby.

The Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis published Tuesday that while each side has escalated its rhetoric, it was “unlikely” Moscow would create a nuclear disaster.

The institute said that provocative statements — and possibly provocative acts — are intended as propaganda to accuse Ukraine of irresponsible behavior near the plant ahead of an upcoming NATO leaders’ summit.

Russian forces seized control of the nuclear plant and the dam shortly after President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Meanwhile, two border regions in western Russia were attacked early Wednesday, wounding at least one person, according to local authorities. Belgorod’s regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on Telegram that the town of Valuyki — about 110 miles east of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv — was shelled for “more than an hour,” damaging power lines and homes. A woman was injured in the chest by shrapnel and was taken to a hospital for treatment, Gladkov added.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Roman Starovoyt, also said Wednesday that the village of Tetkino had been attacked. A house and a school were damaged, but no one was injured, he said. The reports could not be independently verified.

Attacks on Russian regions bordering Ukraine have been occurring nearly daily in recent months. Russian officials blame either Ukrainian forces or pro-Ukrainian saboteurs, but Kyiv has not accepted responsibility.

Wednesday’s attacks followed an unsuccessful drone attack on Moscow on Tuesday, which briefly grounded all flights from Vnukovo airport, located in the southwest of the city. Vnukovo is one of Moscow’s three major civilian airports but also typically the one used by government planes, including those of Putin.

“An attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by five unmanned aerial vehicles against facilities in Moscow region and New Moscow was foiled this morning,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

According to the ministry, four drones were intercepted over the Russian capital, and another was taken down over the city of Odintsovo, in the Moscow region. In May, drones attacked the capital for the first time since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, provoking Putin to promise that Moscow’s air defense systems would be reinforced.

Meanwhile, one person was killed and 25 were injured in a strike in Russian-occupied Makiivka, in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday evening, the Russian-appointed local authorities said in a Telegram post.

Denis Pushilin, the leader of occupied Donetsk, said that “a number of apartment buildings, hospital buildings, schools and kindergartens were damaged.” The Ukrainian military’s strategic communications office said its forces destroyed a Russian formation in Makiivka, Reuters reported.

Abbakumova reported from Riga, Latvia, and Ebel reported from Kyiv.

ATTACHMENT FORTY NINE – From the New York Times

PRIGOZHIN IS SAID TO BE IN RUSSIA, AS WAGNER MYSTERY DEEPENS

After the mercenary boss staged a brief insurrection in Russia, the leader of Belarus said his country had taken him in, but now says the Wagner leader was in St. Petersburg and then “maybe he went to Moscow.”

By Valerie Hopkins Published July 6, 2023Updated July 7, 2023, 3:01 p.m. ET

Valerie Hopkins attended a three-hour news briefing with President Aleksandr Lukashenko at the Independence Palace in Minsk, Belarus.

The mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin is in Russia and is a “free man” despite staging a rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership, the leader of Belarus said on Thursday, deepening the mystery of where Mr. Prigozhin and his Wagner group stand and what will become of them.

President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus told reporters that Mr. Prigozhin was in St. Petersburg, Russia, as of Thursday morning, and then “maybe he went to Moscow, maybe somewhere else, but he is not on the territory of Belarus.”

It was Mr. Lukashenko who brokered a deal between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Prigozhin to end the brief mutiny. He said days later that the Wagner leader had gone to Belarus, though it is not clear whether that actually happened.

Mr. Prigozhin is at liberty for now, Mr. Lukashenko said, though he conceded that he “did not know what would happen later,” and he brushed off the idea that Mr. Putin would simply have Mr. Prigozhin, until recently a vital ally, killed.”If you think that Putin is so malicious and vindictive that he will kill Prigozhin tomorrow — no, this will not happen,” he said.

If Mr. Prigozhin — vilified as a traitor in state media — is, in fact, free and in Russia less than two weeks after staging what the Kremlin called an attempted coup, it would be one of the more perplexing twists in a story full of them. On Wednesday, a prominent current-affairs television show broadcast video of what it claimed was a police search of his opulent mansion in St. Petersburg, where it said large amounts of cash, firearms, passports, wigs and drugs had been found. A spokesman for Mr. Prigozhin denied that the house was his.

Some Russian news outlets reported that Mr. Prigozhin was in St. Petersburg on Wednesday or Thursday. A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said that the Wagner leader had been in Russia for much of the time since the mutiny, but the official said it was not clear whether he had been in Belarus, in part because Mr. Prigozhin apparently uses body doubles to disguise his movements.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, deflected a question about Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts, saying that the government had “neither the ability nor the desire” to track his movements.

In a rare news conference with local and foreign journalists at the marbled presidential palace in Minsk, Mr. Lukashenko, always eager to be seen as an international statesman, clearly enjoyed the limelight cast on him by the most dramatic challenge to Mr. Putin’s authority in his 23 years in power. But days after offering a haven to Wagner fighters and their leader in his country, Mr. Lukashenko gave no clarity about where they would go or what role they would play.

The State of the War

· Military Aid: Breaking with several of its closest allies, the Biden administration said it would provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, which are known to cause grievous injuries to civilians and are widely banned.

· Fund-Raising Effort: Donations have been critical for supplying Ukraine’s military. But as contributions lag, some soldiers are turning to unconventional means, including viral videos and painting sales, to raise money.

· The Wagner Mystery: After Yevgeny Prigozhin staged a brief insurrection in Russia, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus said that his country had taken him in. A few days later, the Belarusian leader and reports in the Russian media suggested otherwise.

· A Significant Attack: Ukraine’s military launched an overnight strike on the Russian-occupied city of Makiivka, showing that it could still hit targets deep behind Russian lines as its troops fight in a grueling counteroffensive to reclaim land.

While Mr. Lukashenko, an autocrat who has ruled his country for 29 years, continued to boast of his mediation and peacemaking, he also made clear his deference, even subservience, to Russia and Mr. Putin, whom he referred to multiple times as “big brother.”

“The main question of where Wagner will be deployed and what will it do — it doesn’t depend on me; it depends on the leadership of Russia,” he said. He added that he had spoken to Mr. Prigozhin on Wednesday, and that Wagner would continue to “fulfill its duties to Russia for as long as it can,” though he did not elaborate.

Mr. Putin has long sought to pull Belarus deeper into the Russian political, economic and military orbits. For years, Mr. Lukashenko, whose power depends heavily on managing that relationship, did well enough to maintain some independence and even tried to build trade ties to the West.

But that faded after Mr. Putin helped him brutally suppress opposition protests in 2020, starting a period of increased repression in which critics of the government were jailed or fled into exile. Under Western sanctions and increasingly treated as an international pariah, Belarus — with nine million people — has became ever more reliant on Russia — with a population of 143 million — for economic aid, energy, high-tech imports and diplomatic support.

In February, when Mr. Putin thanked him for traveling to Moscow for a meeting, Mr. Lukashenko, in a remark caught by television cameras, replied: “As if I could not agree.”

A year earlier, Mr. Lukashenko had allowed Mr. Putin to launch one thrust of his invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian soil, and this year, he allowed Russia to station nuclear-armed short-range missiles there. But he has so far resisted efforts to pull Belarus’s military directly into the war.

Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

Updated 

July 7, 2023, 2:39 p.m. ET2 hours ago

2 hours ago

· Democrats denounce Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.

· The munitions are meant as a bridge, the U.S. says, until additional conventional weapons are available.

· With an eye on the NATO summit next week, Zelensky includes Turkey on a diplomatic tour.

During the Wagner uprising, Mr. Lukashenko played go-between, speaking with Mr. Prigozhin and Mr. Putin. He later boasted that he had made peace between them, persuading the Wagner leader to stand down and the Russian president “not to do anything rash,” like having Mr. Prigozhin killed or the mutiny crushed in bloody fashion. His claims could not be verified.

Wagner’s mercenaries have made up some of the most brutal and effective units fighting in Ukraine for Russia, and took the lead in capturing the city of Bakhmut after a long and very brutal battle. But Mr. Putin and his government have opted to end Wagner’s independence, requiring its fighters in Ukraine to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense — a main cause of Mr. Prigozhin’s mutiny.

Mr. Lukashenko said last week that he had offered Wagner fighters an “abandoned” military base in Belarus, and satellite images verified by The New York Times showed temporary structures being built at a deserted base about 80 miles from Minsk.

But on Thursday, he said that members of Mr. Prigozhin’s mercenary force remained in their “permanent camps,” believed to be in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine.

“Whether they will come here, and if so, how many of them will come, we will decide in the future,” he said.

Mr. Lukashenko said that any Wagner units in Belarus could be called upon to defend the country, and that the group’s agreement to fight for Belarus in the event of a war was the main condition for granting it permission to relocate to the country.

“Their experience will be in high demand,” he said.

Mr. Lukashenko also praised the group and signaled that at least some of Wagner’s fighting force could stay intact.

He has positioned himself as a power broker who had helped resolve a crisis, and not for the first time. Early in his news conference on Thursday in an ornate, high-ceiling meeting room, he reminded the dozen or so journalists present that it was in the same room that he had played host to the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine for peace talks in 2015.

In 2014, Russia had seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, and proxy forces backed by Moscow started a separatist war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region — which Russia now claims as its own. An agreement reached in 2015 in Minsk laid out steps — largely ignored in the following years — that were supposed to produce a lasting peace, and the fighting in Donbas, while diminished, did not stop.

In the first weeks of the full-scale invasion last year, Mr. Lukashenko invited delegations from Kyiv and Moscow to Belarus but they found no common ground for continued talks, much less peace.

By speaking with a small group of reporters at the Independence Palace on Thursday, Mr. Lukashenko may be hoping to establish a measure of independence from his benefactors in Moscow, and credibility with the West, while possibly getting a boost at home, with a populace more interested in peace than joining Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine.

It also presented a patina of normalcy in a country where independent journalism is effectively criminalized. Accreditation for Western journalists is unusual and can often be obtained only when Mr. Lukashenko deems it in his interest to speak to them.

Their presence — and their interest in Mr. Lukashenko’s role in the negotiations between Mr. Putin and Mr. Prigozhin — was the subject of national news in Belarus, where the state-controlled media regularly tout the president’s international stature.

Despite the formality of the scene, where white-gloved attendants poured tea, Mr. Lukashenko, who had a seating chart with all the journalists present, behaved mostly informally, addressing many reporters by name and cracking jokes.

Those from Belarus state media posed friendly questions, asking how Belarusian society should prepare to withstand information campaigns organized by the U.S. Department of State or prompting him to speak about the government’s efforts to bring children from Russian-occupied Ukraine to summer camps in Belarus — which Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating as a possible war crime.

Mr. Lukashenko mostly dodged far tougher questions from foreign journalists, like whether he regretted allowing Russia to invade from Belarus. Instead, he placed the blame for the invasion on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

He also ridiculed journalists who asked about domestic repression, particularly in recent years. Viasna, a human rights organization whose Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder, Ales Bialatski, is behind bars in Belarus, has counted almost 1,500 political prisoners.

Before the 2020 election, Mr. Lukashenko’s government imprisoned potential candidates or barred them from appearing on the ballot. After the government claimed that Mr. Lukashenko had won 81 percent of the vote, opponents cried fraud, and mass protests began.

Belarusian news outlets that covered the demonstrations have been criminalized as “extremist” and just following them or sharing their materials on social media can result in prison time.

Despite its small population, Belarus ranks fifth in the world in the number of jailed journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Association of Belarusian Journalists, itself banned as an “extremist” organization, counts 33 journalists being held.

When asked on Thursday why a leading jailed opposition figure, Sergei Tikhanovsky, had not been heard from in months or allowed access to his lawyer, the Belarusian leader seemed to stumble on his surname, as if it were unfamiliar to him.

Valerie Hopkins is an international correspondent for The Times, covering the war in Ukraine, as well as Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. More about Valerie Hopkins

The Future of Ukraine: The European Union and NATO have promised a path to membership for the country. But real partnership will hold risks and benefits.

· Photos: Photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations have been chronicling the war, capturing a slice of how soldiers and civilians have experienced it. Our photographers say some images will never leave them.

· Western Companies: Hundreds of Western businesses are still in Russia. Some say Moscow has tied their hands, while others have chosen to stay put.

· Defying Isolation: After the invasion of Ukraine, the West tried to cut Russia off from the rest of the world. But wealthy Russians continue to rely on a network of middlemen to circumvent the restrictions.

· A Wartime Partnership: The alliance between President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has become critical to the world order.

· Zelensky’s Rise: The Ukrainian president, once brushed off as a political lightweight, has become a household name, representing his country’s tenacity.

FRIDAY, JULY 7

ATTACHMENT FIFTY – From CNN

PRIGOZHIN’S FATE REMAINS UNCLEAR AND IT SIGNALS MORE TROUBLE IN RUSSIA

Analysis by Jill Dougherty, CNN

Updated 2:49 AM EDT, Fri July 7, 2023

04:06

The bizarre tale of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former pal-turned-mutineer, just got a whole lot weirder.

The foul-mouthed former head of the Wagner private military company – who ran a business empire that included a troll farm, a multi-million dollar catering company, and a media group – had the temerity to launch a mutiny on June 23 against Putin’s top military brass.

The rebellion was quelled by a “deal” supposedly brokered by another Putin friend (some call him “vassal”), Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko. It required Prigozhin to leave Russia and move to Belarus. His men had three choices: follow Prigozhin to Belarus, join the regular Russian military, or stop fighting and go home.

After the mutiny ended, Lukashenko claimed Prigozhin had, indeed, arrived in Belarus. But for weeks, no one could confirm that. Then Thursday, Lukashenko reversed himself, telling CNN that Prigozhin was in St. Petersburg and might be traveling “to Moscow or elsewhere.”

In any case, he said, Prigozhin wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Neither were the Wagner fighters at the camps Lukashenko’s government apparently had set aside for them in Belarus, raising questions about the fate of the Wagner boss.

As if on cue, Russian state-controlled TV began broadcasting video of security forces raiding Prigozhin’s St. Petersburg office and residence. His “mansion” or “palace” had a pool, a private operating room, even a “dedicated prayer room,” as the Russian propaganda website RT described it, along with a few sledgehammers – a tool Wagner is accused of using to murder defectors. The security agents reportedly found 10 million rubles (about $110,000) in cash, along with gold, guns, and wigs – presumably for Prigozhin to disguise himself.

And yet, a few hours later, there were reports that some of his money and possessions were returned to him. It adds another layer to the mystery as to why Putin has, so far, let Prigozhin remain free even as he fails to abide by the Lukashenko deal.

Unclear fate

Before he fell out of favor, Prigozhin was a social media rock star. He was a tough guy strutting about in camouflage, whose fighters could win battles in Ukraine that the regular Russian military couldn’t handle. He swore at military leaders and other elite government officials but crossed a red line when he accused them of lining their pockets and misleading Putin into launching an invasion of Ukraine when there was no real threat.

Prigozhin’s ensuing march toward Moscow – which saw his troops take over the city of Rostov-on-Don, down Russian aircraft, and kill several servicemen – enraged Putin, who accused him of “stabbing Russia in the back.”

It’s well-known that Putin cannot abide traitors, but Lukashenko, using a gangster-like Russian word that Putin famously used about Chechen terrorists, assured reporters that Putin isn’t “malicious and vindictive” enough to have Prigozhin “wiped out.”

Putin himself, several days ago, hinted at another way to deal with Prigozhin, admitting that the government had paid him billions of dollars, adding that he hoped “no one stole anything,” but that the Kremlin would deal with it.

Prigozhin’s ultimate fate is still unclear, but he is only one of Putin’s problems. What he does about Prigozhin’s valuable companies is another: The Kremlin currently appears to be dissecting his empire, putting control of the most valuable enterprises into more “reliable” hands.

Will he end up in prison? Or in a coffin? The only thing that seems even remotely clear is that Putin will have to settle this “razborka,” a word Russian mobsters use to describe their internal squabbles. And that portends more repression, more “settling scores,” and more fighting behind the scenes in Putin’s Russia.

ATTACHMENT FIFTY ONE – From Al Jazeera

NATO TRACKS MOVEMENTS OF RUSSIA’S WAGNER MERCENARIES:

STOLTENBERG

NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg says Western military alliance is monitoring movements of Russian mercenary force and their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Published On 7 Jul 2023

NATO is closely following the movement of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force as well as their boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Western military alliance’s secretary general has said, following revelations that neither the private army’s fighters nor their leader had taken up exile in Belarus.

NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg made his comments on Thursday amid reports that Prigozhin was back in Russia and had not taken up the offer of exile in Belarus, which was agreed after Wagner forces began and ended a 24-hour mutiny against the Russian military leadership on June 24.

Russia TV blasts Wagner boss Prigozhin, says mutiny probe ongoing

‘As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg,’ Lukashenko says

Who is Russia’s defence chief at the heart of Wagner’s rebellion?

‘The Wagner mutiny was not crushed. It ended in a ceasefire’

Asked by Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays to comment on reports that Prigozhin had returned to the Russian city of St Petersburg, Stoltenberg said that NATO had tracked the Wagner leader’s recent travels, which he described as “moving a bit around”.

“On Prigozhin, well, what we can say is that we monitor closely where the Wagner soldiers are moving around, and also where he [Prigozhin] is moving,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels.

“I will not go into the details, but we have seen some preparations for hosting large groups of Wagner soldiers in Belarus. So far we haven’t seen so many of them going to Belarus,” he said.

“And then we have seen Mr Prigozhin moving a bit around,” Stoltenberg said, adding that he would not go into further details.

Prigozhin’s return to Russia was revealed by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday.

Lukashenko – who mediated the exile deal that ended the Wagner mutiny last month – said that after a brief period in Belarus, the Wagner chief had returned to Russia.

“As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenko told reporters.

“Where was he this morning? Maybe he went to Moscow, or some other place. But he is not in Belarus,” Lukashenko said, according to Belarusian state news agency BelTA.

Lukashenko also said that Wagner’s troops were in their camps, but he did not specify the location of the camps. He did say that Wagner troops were offered the use of Belarusian military camps, but that the private armed group had not made a final decision. Wagner maintains camps in Russia and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

According to BelTA, Lukashenko said that he plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin soon to discuss the Wagner situation, among other topics, and that he did not think there would be “any problems” with Wagner mercenaries continuing to work “in the interests of Russia” despite their recent mutiny.

“One should not lose such a unit despite all the subtle details,” Lukashenko said, according to BelTA.

“I wish the entire army fought as well as these guys. But these are the problems of the Russian Federation and President Putin,” he added.

Prigozhin’s return to Russia

Shortly after the aborted Wagner rebellion in Russia, which saw Wagner fighters come within 200km (124 miles) of Moscow, Stoltenberg said that NATO was preparing for the arrival of Wagner forces in Belarus and that the Western alliance would protect “every ally, every inch of NATO territory” against threats from either “Moscow or Minsk”.

Prigozhin’s return to Russia raises many questions about the deal that ended the Wagner military challenge to Putin’s power.

Asked of the whereabouts of Prigozhin on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged off the question, saying that Moscow had neither the desire nor the means to track his movements – but reaffirmed that the deal that ended the mutiny envisaged the Wagner boss’s move to Belarus.

Washington DC-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) described Peskov’s statement on Prigozhin as “absurd”, noting that the Russian security services “have the ability to detain Prigozhin or restrict his movements in Russia” if they so wished.

The ISW also said on Thursday that Lukashenko appears to be attempting to distance himself from the exile deal, and is “pinning the responsibility on the Kremlin to enforce the deal”.

“Prigozhin’s ability to freely operate in Russia suggests that Prigozhin is still protected by some security guarantees and/or that the Kremlin continues to prioritize undermining his reputation in Russia over targeting Prigozhin physically or legally,” the ISW said.

While the Kremlin has sought to play down the fact that Prigozhin had escaped punishment for his mutiny so far, Russian state TV launched a fierce attack on the Wagner chief on Wednesday, saying that a criminal investigation of mutiny against Russia’s military leadership was still under way.

In a programme called 60 Minutes broadcast on Russia’s state Russia-1 TV channel, Prigozhin was branded a “traitor” and viewers were told that the case against him was in full swing.

ATTACHMENT FIFTY TWO – From The Hill

THE FAILED COUP IN RUSSIA HAS TURNED PUTIN INTO A LAME DUCK

BY YULIA LATYNINA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 07/07/23 7:00 AM ET

On June 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chef and the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin staged an almost-successful coup. In doing so, he effectively annihilated the notion that Putin can control his own country.

How was Prigozhin able to move so quickly? First, take note of a message sent by Prigozhin’s deputy, Andrey Troshev, to all army units in southern Russia. It says that “from June 21 to July 5, Wagner will be moving its units” to Russia to “sign an agreement with Russian security structure (not a Ministry of Defense).” Vladimir Osechkin of Gulagu.net, a specialist in all things Wagner, vouches for its authenticity.

This is how Wagner managed so quickly to capture Rostov, the main logistical hub for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Prigozhin was moving units even before he announced his rebellion.

Vladimir Osechkin also claims that the mercenaries were told they were marching “to help Putin,” who wants to fire the minister of defense but needs some clout. To an outsider, this level of deception may seem psychotic, but anybody who studied Prigozhin’s troll farms will recognize his signature style.

It appears that Prigozhin’s first goal was to capture the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu in his Rostov headquarters. But Shoigu fled. The two men left behind to parlay with Prigozhin included Russian military intelligence (GRU) General Vladimir Alekseev.

Alekseev, a native of Ukraine, is one of the masterminds of this war. He is rumored to be the top spy overseeing Russian intelligence operations in the West, including the Skripal poisoning. He is also the one who created Wagner. Its current military commander, Dmitry Utkin, is his personal friend.

Alekseev seemed to be the emissary of Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council and the man who was left by Putin to fight the rebels, while Putin went off to Saint Petersburg to watch his favorite water festival from the board of a new yacht. It would have been wise to treat such a man with respect. Instead, Prigozhin exhibited him in a video as a captured prize.

Prigozhin remained at the Rostov headquarters while Utkin marched on to Moscow. Utkin is a brilliant commander. He is also a man who has tattooed himself with Nazi shoulder straps and named his unit after Hitler’s favorite composer.

By this time, the coup was doomed. The Federal Security Service (FSB) had been alerted by June 22 at the latest. This tallies with Christo Grozev of Bellingcat’s report of a frantic surge of communication between the FSB, the GRU and the Federal Protective Service. If the Wagner chief expected the FSB to take his side, he was deceived.

According to my sources, the FSB had lists of locals who served in Wagner. These people were apprehended immediately after Prigozhin struck. Meanwhile, some 70 miles from Moscow, where the Oka River crosses the Rostov highway and adjacent roads, five bridges across the river were blocked and loaded with explosives with plenty of troops lying in wait. It would have been a bloodbath.

It appears that Patrushev was well-prepared for the coup, albeit in a peculiar way. Were Prigozhin crushed at Oka, this would have demonstrated the utter cluelessness of President Putin and made Patrushev the biggest guy in the city. Patrushev is the closest friend of Putin, a head of what may be called “the deep KGB,” and one of the only two people who reputedly had access to Putin in his bunker. He has also been spouting conspiracy theories left and right, talking of George Soros controlling European parliaments and U.S. corporations swatting “four U.S. presidents” like flies.

But Patrushev wasn’t the ultimate victor because Prigozhin stopped before reaching the river. The man who talked him into stopping was Alexei Dyumin, the governor of the Tula region and an ally to Yury Kovalchuk, a billionaire and Putin’s second-closest friend, reputedly a main influence behind the Ukraine war with truly bizarre ideas. His brother says the Western elites are currently engaged in creating genetically modified “serving people” and suppressing Western countries’ birthrates through “gay propaganda.”

It wasn’t simply stopping Prigozhin, it was more about preventing Patrushev’s triumph. Putin was as much as non-existent in all this. In fact, the only explanation for him letting “the traitor” live is the copious amount of blackmail Prigozhin can possess. After all, the guy was the head of Putin’s private army, first in Ukraine and later in Africa. There should be some pretty heavy stuff over there, not your usual run-of-the-mill corruption.

This all may seem highly convoluted and a conspiracy theory. Point is, all these people are ardent conspiracy theorists. And conspiracy theorists at the helm of security and military services engage in conspiracies that never pan out as planned.

The good news is that Prigozhin and Putin both lost. The bad news is that the people who benefited the most and stand to control post-Putin Russia are, frankly, nuts.

Did I mention that Alexei Dyumin’s biggest qualification for his current governor’s job is that he was Putin’s bodyguard? This is what qualified him to parlay with Putin’s chef. Wag the Dog!

Russia’s lay bureaucracy is surprisingly sound. Its state security elite, on the other hand, is the three-ring circus described above. Putin created it in his image, and now he reaps what he sowed.

Perhaps the telling fact is that even these crazy guys want to stop the war. Either way, it’s the biggest cliffhanger in the Ukraine series so far. And Putin looks like a fruit ripe for plucking, but not before he loses his war. That way, whoever survives can safely pin the military failures on him.

Yulia Latynina, a journalist and a writer, worked for Echo of Moscow radio station and the Novaya Gazeta newspaper until they were shut down as part of the current war in Ukraine. She is a recipient of the U.S. State Department’s Defender of Freedom award.

ATTACHMENT FIFTY THREE – From The Hill

Putin’s fall could be the domino that topples the world’s autocrats

BY AVRAHAM SHAMA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 07/07/23 1:30 PM ET

Vladimir Putin is likely on his way out as Russia’s president. He will be followed by autocrats governing countries such as Hungary, Turkey and Israel — to name a few. Though this process will take some time, it is a clear triumph of the innovative democratic principles upon which the United States was founded in 1776. 

When Putin entered the national political stage in 1999, he was hand-picked by then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin and elected by the Duma. I was doing work in Russia then and witnessed how proud Russians were of their new president. Like them, he was ordinary, critical of how most state enterprises were privatized by a small number of men — the oligarchs or robber barons — and embarrassed by the declining reputation of his country.

A masterful Machiavellian, Putin quickly solidified his position and popularity by raising pensions, investing in economic growth, punishing oligarchs, voicing his desire for a greater Russia, and cooperating with the West.

Less noticeable were his investments in the development of new cyberspace technologies that were eventually used to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, and in the army that would annex the Crimea peninsula in 2013 and invade Ukraine in 2022 — this time with a failure that allowed the private army, the Wagner Group, and its leader and former Putin ally, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to mutiny against him, signaling the end of his tenure. 

Though the mutiny was quickly resolved and Putin kept his office, it took him several days to address the Russian and international public. And when he did, he seemed nervous and diffident, did not make eye contact with his audience and spoke as fast as a machine gun to assert his authority. But all many saw was an “emperor with no clothes.”

A similar descent awaits autocrats such as Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister — despite many differences among them.

Orbán became Hungary’s president in 2010 and slowly chipped away at its democratic systems, enacted anti-immigration policies, distanced himself from the more democratic European Union countries, and did not join them to support the Russia-Ukraine war. It was a far cry from the jubilation I observed on the streets of Budapest when Hungary declared itself a democracy in fall 1989. And although Orbán and his party continue to enjoy modest public support, his standing could change as fast as Putin’s.

Erdoğan has been Turkey’s president since 2017 and its prime minister for many years before that. In the election held in May, he suffered the humiliation of having to go through a runoff election because his conservative party, Justice and Development, was unable to garner the support of more than 50 percent of the voters. Next time, or perhaps sooner, he may be forced out.

When Netanyahu first became prime minister in 1996 and an on-and-off prime minister for more than 16 years, he began to build power and links with other parties that he needed to form coalition governments, started taking bribes for which he is awaiting trial, and championed a judicial overhaul that could help acquit him. 

Having lived in Israel for many years, I have watched it slide into autocratic, theocratic democracy to a breaking point that has been taking hundreds of thousands of Israelis every weekend for the past 22 weeks in protest. Among the protesters were many army leaders, air force reservists and public figures, such as former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak who recently called for “civil disobedience” against Netanyahu’s plan. As a result, Netanyahu has softened his stance, but he could still be ousted in the next elections.

Putin, Orbán, Erdoğan and Netanyahu are but a few examples of declining autocratic rulers. Others in several ex-Soviet countries and China’s President Xi Jinping are taking note of these developments and calculating their next steps. An important and notable example of this is the recent change in China’s attitude toward the U.S., from despondent to amicable, reflected in the recent meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Xi.

And while it is impossible to predict how these rulers will fall, the tide has clearly turned. Some may be d by force, others by voters, and some may be forbidden to run for reelection for many years, as was the case of former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. 

Three hopeful signs for DemocratsThe environmental impacts of war

All of these developments indicate a process of weakening autocracies relative to Western democracies, led by the U.S. This would have been less possible without the Russia-Ukraine war, which crystallized the differences between governments that favor freedom and the rule of law, and those that don’t. 

More and more people seem to prefer life where they are “we the people” than where they are “we the subjects.” Our forefathers established such a novel preference in 1776. Now more countries and people are fighting for it.

Avraham Shama is the former dean of the College of Business at the University of Texas, The Pan-American. He is a professor emeritus at the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico. His new book, “Cyberwars: David Knight Goes to Moscow,” was recently published by 3rd Coast Books.

SATURDAY, JULY 8

ATTACHMENT FIFTY FOUR – From the Washington Post

Kremlin smears Wagner boss Prigozhin, hailing Putin as Russia’s savior

By Robyn Dixon

July 8, 2023 at 1:00 a.m. EDT

RIGA, Latvia — The Kremlin does not speak his name.

Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin, whose popularity rating soared before his short-lived rebellion, is threatened with political erasure, the modern-day equivalent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s purging of enemies from official photographs.

The Kremlin’s powerful propaganda apparatus is in overdrive working to discredit Prigozhin and to project President Vladimir Putin as the wise leader who saved Russia from civil war and proved the “maturity” and strength of his state, just in time for summer vacation.

In a rash of coordinated reports smearing Prigozhin on state television and in pro-Kremlin media, Putin’s spinmasters are once again manipulating public sentiment, this time to overcome perceptions of weakness in Putin’s decision to drop insurgency charges in connection with the Wagner rebellion, and to deal with a serious political problem: Prigozhin’s popularity among hard line, pro-war nationalists.

Even as the state-controlled media is trashing Prigozhin as a greedy, treasonous opportunist, the Kremlin has permitted him to return to Russia and recover millions in cash and personal weapons — apparent proof that his businesses and the state’s interest were so intertwined that it is not easy to just make him disappear. But the national gaslighting also seems to be working, by putting Russia’s shocked population back into its usual passive mode, and portraying Putin as stronger than ever.

“As far as the general public is concerned, it seems like clinging to normalcy is still the most common and the most immediate reaction among the majority,” said Maria Lipman, a Russia analyst at George Washington University.

In the aftermath of the Wagner rebellion, which exposed deep fractures caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine, the Kremlin appears to have three main goals. First, is to demolish Prigozhin and quash his damaging but true assertion that there was never a Russian security concern to justify the Ukraine invasion. Second, is to increase repressions and shore up the regime. And third is to rebrand Putin’s lately uninspiring image to cast him as a dynamic, unifying figure.

Propagandists have quickly taken up the charge. “The stability that Putin guarantees and symbolizes for everyone has become a conscious choice of an already-mature society,” intoned Russian television anchor Irada Zeynalova on pro-Kremlin NTV. “The test of unity was passed.”

Mercenary boss returned to Russia to collect money and guns

State television and pro-Kremlin Telegram channels this week went all out to savage Prigozhin, portraying him as a thuggish, greedy crook, and trying to dent his reputation as the one leading participant in Russia’s war on Ukraine who was willing to tell the truth about casualties and Defense Ministry failures.

They aired images of his luxurious home, showing his guns, piles of cash, gold bars, a personal helicopter, fake passports, and wigs for disguises, all of which were exposed during a raid on his properties in St. Petersburg by Interior Ministry police.

Before his rebellion, Prigozhin — who earned the nickname “Putin’s chef” because he got rich off government catering contracts — had emerged, quite suddenly, as a possible future rival to the president because of his stunning rise in popularity, highly unusual in Russia for someone who is neither a politician nor an official.

The week before the June 24 rebellion, Prigozhin’s approval rating soared to 58 percent, according to independent pollster Levada. The agency reported that 19 percent of Russians said they would have voted for him in presidential elections, an astonishing score for the once-secretive mercenary leader known for his blunt, often obscene language and bloodthirsty humor.

Prigozhin said he staged the rebellion because the Defense Ministry and Kremlin tried to subvert him and Wagner by forcing them to sign contracts with the military. His approval rating fell sharply after the rebellion, but it was still at a relatively impressive 29 percent — far too high for a regime that tolerates no dissent.

Maria Lipman, a Russia analyst at George Washington University, told the Post that Russians were attracted to Prigozhin’s media-savvy, anti-elite populism — a stark contrast to the deadening succession of cautious officials pledging allegiance to Putin and repeating hollow propaganda lines.

“Against this background, he looked fresh, he looked genuine and he looked sincere, and people appreciated this about him," Lipman said. “He was somehow a patriot without the lies." But Prigozhin was also viciously brutal, threatening his fighters with execution if they disobeyed orders, and sending many recruited from prison to die in waves on the front.

Putin’s approval rating has hovered at more than 80 percent, according to Levada, but independent Latvia-based Russian news agency Meduza reported that confidential polling for the Kremlin found his rating fell by up to 14 percentage points in some regions after the rebellion.

Ukraine wants and expects an invitation to join NATO. Allies are not sure.

Kremlin propagandists turned around Russians’ initial horror at the invasion of Ukraine with remarkable speed, and seem likely to enjoy similar success in smearing Prigozhin’s reputation — a task made somewhat easier given that the mercenary boss grew rich off government contracts, operated his businesses mostly in cash and spent nearly a decade in prison for robbery.

“Let’s just watch how a ‘fighter for truth’ has been living, a fighter for truth with two criminal records, a man who told us that everyone is stealing and here we see the hard currency in Prigozhin’s house — quite a sum,” said state television journalist Eduard Petrov on the Rossiya 1 program “Sixty Minutes” on Wednesday.

“And now let’s look at the palace,” Petrov continued dramatically. “So a palace, a helicopter, cash, cars loaded with cash, dollars, rubles, a palace, a helicopter, 600 million rubles. A fighter for justice had 600 million rubles!”

A spokesman for Rosneft, Mikhail Leontiev, was blunter, comparing Prigozhin to Hitler. “They say, Prigozhin was telling the truth. So what? These are obvious things, about corruption, and so on,” Leontiev said. Eighty percent of what the Nazi leader said after invading the U.S.S.R. was true, “but that doesn’t stop him from being Hitler.”

Dmitry Kiselyov, host of state television’s Sunday night flagship political program “Vesti Nedeli,” accused Wagner and Prigozhin’s Concord company of receiving nearly $20 billion in state funding, after Putin admitted that Wagner, which the Kremlin for years portrayed as a private company, in fact was fully state-funded and presumably operated at the Kremlin’s whim.

Kiselyov’s program diminished Wagner’s main battlefield achievement, the bloody 224-day fight to seize Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, saying the city was not so important.

Since the rebellion, Prigozhin has lost access to lucrative state catering contracts and has closed the media empire and troll farm he used to boost his image.

Meanwhile, a parallel effort is underway to elevate Putin, whose high popularity rating remains his main source of legitimacy. Election results, and even the Russian constitution, are manipulated to keep him in power and any potential rival, such as opposition figure Alexei Navalny or Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is jailed or exiled.

But even amid the flurry of presidential image-building, it can be difficult to conceal Putin’s stiff, regal manner. Last week he looked ecstatic, kissing a girl in a highly-stage-managed video, greeting crowds in Derbent, Dagestan, a direct riposte to the spontaneous cheers by crowds for Wagner and Prigozhin as they left the southern city of Rostov-on-Don after the rebellion.

Russian missile strike kills at least 10 in Lviv, far from front line

This week’s hagiographic effort was a mawkish video released by the Kremlin on Tuesday of Putin meeting an 8-year-old Derbent girl summoned to his office. She ran across the carpet where he hugged her, gave her flowers and invited her to sit in his chair. Both episodes revived memories of an iconic 1936 picture of Stalin holding a small girl, reproduced by the millions and turned into mosaics and a marble statue.

If Putin had been around in 1917 and in 1991, the regimes that fell in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union’s collapse would have survived, declared Vyacheslav Volodin, loyalist speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.

Amid a secretive Russian security probe of generals and others with links to Prigozhin, further tough repressions are likely, according to analysts, and the main risk to Putin seems to be further military setbacks in Ukraine.

“I don’t see anything that is politically destabilizing at this point," said analyst Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The economy is doing fine. I’m not sure that we will witness this year a major collapse of the Russian front lines.”

The Kremlin’s spin campaign, according to Lipman, has "worked, just like it has worked for 20-plus years of Putin’s leadership.”

Catherine Belton in London contributed to this report.

ATTACHMENT FIFTY FIVE – From NBC

Is Russia purging Wagner Group troops in Africa?

A video obtained by NBC News that appears to show Wagner operatives in the Central African Republican has raised questions about a possible purge of the group by Moscow.

July 8, 2023, 8:11 AM EDT

By Dan De Luce and Gabe Joselow

Hundreds of troops in the Wagner paramilitary organization have been seen flying out of the Central African Republic in recent days, prompting questions about whether Moscow is purging the group after its mutiny in Russia last month.

More than 600 Wagner employees were spotted this week departing from the airport in the capital Bangui, according to members of nongovernmental organizations and analysts tracking events in the African country. 

NBC News obtained a video that appears to show dozens of Wagner operatives in uniform at a military base in Bangui this week. Gathered near a helipad, they sorted through bags and other belongings spread out on the ground around them.

The regional French-language newspaper Jeune Afrique first reported the departure of hundreds of Wagner personnel on Thursday.

The flights came as the Kremlin has sought to reassert its authority over the organization two weeks after a short-lived rebellion in which Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin openly defied Russian President Vladimir Putin and ordered his troops fighting in Ukraine to march on Moscow. 

The June 23-24 rebellion ended after Belarus brokered a deal between Wagner and Putin’s government. But how the Russian president will manage the group’s sprawling military and business operations in the Middle East and Africa remains an open question.

It was unclear if the departure of the Wagner personnel from the Central African Republic was part of a routine rotation of troops, a large-scale sacking by Moscow designed to curtail Progozhin’s influence, or if Wagner loyalists have refused to work under the Russian Ministry of Defense. 

Moscow might be attempting to re-establish its control over Wagner’s forces, but it is still too early to draw any firm conclusions, according to Nathalia Dukhan, senior investigator at The Sentry, a nonprofit advocacy group that reports on corruption, repression and human rights abuses.

Other experts agreed. “Purges are very likely, as loyalty is the hot button issue of the moment for Putin,” said Alia Brahimi, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank.

In the days after the mutiny, Putin praised Russian military leaders for fending off Prigozhin’s mutiny and for averting a “civil war.” Russian authorities have raided Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg.

Fidele Gouandjika, an adviser to Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, said there had been “no change” in the Wagner Group’s presence in recent days. Russian “instructors” were still on the ground, along with the organization’s senior leader, Vitali Perfilev, Gouandjika told NBC News. 

The mutiny led by Prigozhin two weeks ago was “an internal matter for Russia,” he said, adding that the Central African Republic had an agreement with the Russian Federation, not the Wagner group.

A senior Wagner representative in the country, Dmitry Sytii, who runs the Russian cultural center, also implied that the paramilitaries had not been ordered to leave the country, telling NBC News: “I haven’t started to pack my bags yet. When is the plane?”

Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said it was unclear if Wagner was facing a major shake-up in the African nation.

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“We are hearing rumors from multiple sources, including from some at the airport, but the movement of Wagner forces in and out of Bangui M’Poko International Airport is not in and of itself unusual," Mudge said. "So for right now, it’s still very much a situation of wait and see.”

The White House National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment. Last week, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said there was “no indication that Wagner is decreasing its intent to exploit African countries.”

Wagner mercenaries first arrived in the Central African Republic in 2018 as military advisers, and have worked alongside the nation's armed forces to fight a rebellion threatening the government. The U.S. government and human rights groups have accused Wagner of committing atrocities in Africa and of exploiting countries’ gold and diamond mines. In January, the U.S. designated Wagner a transnational criminal organization.

The Kremlin likely will change Wagner’s name and oust some figures deemed too close to Prigozhin, said Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center, a nonprofit research center focusing on global security issues.

But even with a “rebranding,” Russia is unlikely to withdraw from Wagner’s security contracts, disinformation operations and mining ventures that have boosted Moscow’s reach in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, Clarke and other experts said.

“The services that Wagner provides for the Russians in Africa are essential,” Clarke said. “That’s not going to go away. They need it.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a recent interview with Russia Today that Prigozhin’s revolt would not affect Moscow’s relations with “partners and friends,” and that Wagner operatives would remain in the Central African Republic, Mali and other African countries.

“At their request, several hundred servicemen are working in the CAR as instructors — this work, of course, will continue,” Lavrov said. 

In public remarks after the mutiny, Putin thanked the military and law enforcement for halting the rebellion and said for the first time in public that the government had bankrolled the Wagner Group, providing 86 billion rubles, or about $1 billion.

“Even though Wagner gets referred to as a private military company, it really isn’t a completely private military company. It’s really a creature of the Russian military intelligence agency,” said Kimberly Marten, a professor at Barnard College and Columbia University.  

Experts said that Putin’s admission means Russia will have no way of denying responsibility for Wagner’s abuses in Africa and other parts of the world.  

“The Wagner Group’s exploitative business and security model, which involves rapacious economic policies and atrocities against civilians, is now attributable to the Russian state,” said Brahimi of the Atlantic Council. “The veil has been lifted and Putin will have to personally own the predation in north and sub-Saharan Africa.”

ATTACHMENT FIFTY SIX – From Newsweek

'Senile Biden' Risks World War III Over Cluster Bombs: Russia's Medvedev

BY BRENDAN COLE ON 7/8/23 AT 10:40 AM EDT

Dmitry Medvedev has again railed at Joe Biden, disparaging the U.S. president's age, actions in Afghanistan and accusing him of "provoking nuclear Armageddon" with his support for Ukraine.

Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012 during the Obama administration, when Biden served as U.S. vice president.

Now in the role of deputy chairman of Russia's powerful Security Council and a key ally of Vladimir Putin, Medvedev has used his Telegram account to take repeated swipes at the U.S. president. In April, he called Biden a "senile" and "desperate grandpa" after the U.S. president announced his candidacy for re-election in 2024.

Medvedev revisited the theme in his latest post on Saturday in which he mocked "sleepy senile Biden" for saying during a Geneva summit with Putin in 2021 that he had not agreed to Russian demands that Ukraine not join NATO.

He said that Biden had "shamefully fled from Afghanistan" and to "hide the shame, he ruined the economy of Europe." While it is unclear what Medvedev meant by that, his post did make clear his disdain for supplying Ukraine with "hundreds of tons of weapons."

"Now after exhausting all his resources, he promises cluster munitions," as well as the prospect of NATO membership for Kyiv, which if it happens, "means a Third World War."

Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to receive more cluster munitions has sparked criticism from human rights groups and some fellow Democrats because of the weapons' potential to indiscriminately injure and kill civilians.

"Why is he doing this?" Medvedev pondered, suggesting that the answer lay in it being the remit of "any American leader...to dominate and limit other countries, especially stubborn ones like ours."

"You could also say that he is a sick old man with severe dementia." Or, perhaps, as a "dying grandfather" he had "decided to leave gracefully" and so was "provoking nuclear Armageddon and taking half of humanity with him to the next world."

Medvedev has portrayed the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a proxy war between Moscow and NATO, which he has repeatedly threatened would spill over into a nuclear confrontation. Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.

The issue of Ukraine's NATO membership and the alliance's backing for Kyiv is not just of Biden's concern but will be on the agenda at the bloc's summit in Lithuania starting on Tuesday.

Biden and his administration have remained committed to the alliance's current position that Kyiv would one day become a member of NATO but there is no clarity over when.

In June, Biden said that his administration would not "make it easy" for Ukraine to join the alliance and that the country must the same standards as other members.

PEANUT GALLERY

njd2025

18 hours ago

If Russia would stop using them then maybe there's an moral argument against them. Or Russia could just leave Ukraine if they don't like the weapons being used.

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· Samuel Weir

1 day ago

UN Resolution ES-11/1 condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine by a vote of 141 to 5 with 35 abstentions. The only 5 countries in the world that voted against the Resolution were Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, and of course Russia itself.

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· F

FabricatorGeneral

1 day ago

Let's see...we're risked WWIII over HIMARS, over precision artillery, over Abrams and Bradleys, and now over cluster munitions.

It seems to me that WWIII is a lot harder to trigger than I thought.

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3 replies

· Samuel Weir

1 day ago

This is just Russian imperialism and it's not even a secret. Putin has publicly said that he doesn't think that Ukraine is even a "real country", and that he believes that it is rightfully a part of Russia.

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· AN

Ab Normal

1 day ago

How can Ukraine be a proxy war between Russia and NATO when Russia is actively involved? This isn't Yemen. Medvedev makes no sense and is just kowtowing to his master Putin.

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· AndrewGH

1 day ago

There are some really bitter people supporting Putin invading a country... just days after celebrating Independence day too. Just take one step forward and consider drawing some parallels to fighting to keep a free world. Putin destroys cities, poisons the opposition, uses chemical weapons on the t...

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3 replies

· N

NV_Independent

1 day ago

So with Russia using cluster bombs for months now, what does that make Medvedev and Putin if not more senile? Delusional? On a side note, it is beyond discomforting to know that Newsweek loves pushing Russian propaganda on a daily basis

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o F

FabricatorGeneral

1 day ago

Understand that hypocrisy is a virtue for fascists.

For fascists, standards are meant to be unequal; it's a sign of their superiority and dominion over you. You have to follow the rules, but the fascist does not, because rules are only meant for those who are inferior.

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o Jose Gonzales

1 day ago

Both sides are apparently using cluster bombs, but not supplied by the USA.

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Show 2 more replies

· Rafterman

1 day ago

We all know the real reason the right here is so in favor of Russia and against Ukraine. Because Biden is for helping Ukraine. If he was against it, the right would be demand support for helping Ukraine.

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o Anarkissed

1 day ago

Spot on.

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· AndrewGH

1 day ago

Medvedev is using the exact same language as the American far right. Are they working together? Medvedev must also be a bit confused. From the start of the invasion, Russia has used cluster munitions against civilian areas. The free world must give or lend or loan Ukrainians the tools to do the job...

28

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o Ravana

1 day ago

You will laugh, but Medvedev on Twitter called on Americans to go to mass actions of disobedience, called Trump the legitimate president and ended some of his posts with the word

MAGA!

Why do you think all the far-right and Tucker Carlson are so in love with Putin?

Somewhere between constant calls for...

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· B

BluePretzel

1 day ago

Another day, another opportunity for Medvedev to rattle the nuclear sabre.

o Jim Draper

1 day ago

Well gol dern, somebody has got to do it.

njd2025

1 day ago

I'm just amazing by how people on the right are so pro-Russia and pro-Putin nowadays. It's wasn't that long ago when Republicans used to be hawks not not doves.

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4 replies

Bunker Runt™

1 day ago

Russia can't beat Ukraine, why would they want to fight NATO?

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njd2025

18 hours ago

The Russian people need to rise up and dispose of Putin. It's time for the Russian people to show the world how strong they are by creating a real modern democracy. Democracy has been on the rise for centuries: "By the end of the century, the world had changed from having in 1900 not a single libe...

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Palace Chase

1 day ago

Medvedev is just a small man in a big world.

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Bunker Runt™

1 day ago

Medvedev just angry his pėen not work any more, and want to take it out on world.

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Steve

1 day ago

Hi Russia this the West. all your military from Ukraine now. If not we will have no choice but to freeze all assets abroad along with FULL sanctions on every sector of your economy, end all trade, and freeze those countries that support you as well. If that doesn't work we will be forced to ...

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3 replies

Ravana

1 day ago

Why do Russian officials and Russian bots always hysterically threaten a world war, although no one in the world supports Russia (four official condemnations by the UN General Assembly as an aggressor state and an occupying state), and the Russian army has been trampling around the border regions o...

Show Lol GIF by Satisfaction Group

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P Span

1 day ago

Your threats of ww3 were first issued day one of your unwarranted invasion of Ukraine and the west has called your bluff each time.

You don't threaten to use nukes, you use them.

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njd2025

1 day ago

I agree. The day Putin invaded Ukraine the threat of destroying the human race went up dramatically. I'm still surprised we made it out of the 70s and 80s. You could argue the fact the human race is still alive is proof extraterrestrials exist and are stopping us from killing ourselves.

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2 replies

njd2025

1 day ago

Newsweek is good at click-bait headlines.

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Ed L.

1 day ago

Clicks = cash when viewers haven't the sense to install ad-blockers.

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William Nelson

23 hours ago

THis proves where Maga gets its talking points, from Putin. Ridiculous lies of course. Biden is not only plenty shrp ands harp enough to beat both Putin and the Maga Republicans, but the Russians are already using cluster bombs on civilians (a war crime). Biden wants Ukraine to be able to save a...

5

2 replies

njd2025

1 day ago

The Russian people need to rise up and dispose of Putin. Democracy has been on the rise for centuries: "By the end of the century, the world had changed from having in 1900 not a single liberal democracy with universal suffrage, to 120 of the world's 192 nations, or 62% having become such democrac...

5

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Kovar james

1 day ago

"The Russian people need to rise up and dispose of Putin."

That's ideally what should happen, however, when given a chance during pootie's greatest mobilization, 300K-700K men left russia. They ran away.

THAT hypothetical assemblage of men would have been a formidable army even for Prigozhin to deal ...

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Jess

12 hours ago

Any weapon that kills Russians is a good weapon.

Russia without provocation invades Ukraine, bombs its cities , kills its citizens, steals its children, all for no reason whatsoever. And now we are going to be fussy about weather bombs do cluster or not? This war should have been finished long ti...

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Dan likes cats

1 day ago

Yes, yes. We’re all terribly afraid. He says this every day now.

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MikedumbBruxels

1 day ago

Lol let me get this straight Mr. Medvedev. It's ok for you to use cluster bombs indiscriminately but Ukraine can't? And you're calling Biden senile? Lolol. Got it! We can't send them fast enough. What are you an Puter gonna do about it? Go on it internet and complain? Threaten the world with nukes ...

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FabricatorGeneral

1 day ago

Yes it's okay, in their eyes.

Russia's nationalist ethos is based on the premise that Russia can do no wrong simply because it is Russia.

Ukraine blows up a supply depot? That's an unforgivable sin!

Russia blows up a kindergarten? Well that's just the inevitable consequences of war, it's not Russia'...

5

MikedumbBruxels

1 day ago

Oh and anther thing Mr. Medvedev. You called Biden shameful for leaving Afghanistan. Where did you go run and hide when Prigozhin was coming your way LOL. Did you and puter stay in Moscow to defend your leadership? LOL

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ConcernedCitizen

18 hours ago

Why doesn't Russia simply stop murdering people in Ukraine, withdraw their troops, pay reparations and apologize for lying so much?

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njd2025

18 hours ago

I agree.

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Show 1 more

Your Other Left

1 day ago

"Peace through strength" is a phrase that suggests that military power can help preserve peace. It has been used by many leaders from Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century AD to former US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The concept has long been associated with realpolitik. The idea has...

1

1

Putin's Shrinking War Map

1 day ago

Raccoon sightings are getting more and more rare these days.

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Yosemite Sam

1 day ago

I have a lot of names I could call Medvedev, mods won't let me though.

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Derek Pearce

15 hours ago

Russia certainly huffs and puffs but never dares attempt to blow NATO's house down because it knows how outmatched it is. All bluff no substance.

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Dan Foley

1 day ago

I don't think Russians have any room to talk about Afghanistan. Lol

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AndrewGH

1 day ago

Lets face it, that was the testing ground for Stingers round 1. The lesson wasn't learned and Stingers round 2. is underway. The US is the arsenal of the free world and Ukrainians will always be grateful for the huge assistance.

1

Keepingitreal

1 day ago

Red line #........?

Here's a novel idea. Get out of Ukraine and pay reparations.

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njd2025

1 day ago

Best post of the thread!

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njd2025

1 day ago

Someone on the right please explain to me how Newsweek is a leftist media outlet with this gem of a headline.

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4 replies

Ravana

1 day ago

2021 The US is landing the largest and most complex rover in world history on Mars.

In 2021, the USA was the first in the world to present the smallest 2 nm microchip to the public.

2021 The US launches the largest solar absurvatory on the planet, "Daniel Inoue" in Hawaii.

2021 The United States launc...

United States Usa GIF by Richard Childress Racing

2

Ravana

1 day ago

In 2023, the American Tesla model U became the most popular and best-selling car on the planet, overtaking the Japanese Toyota.

In 2023, the United States came out on top in the world in terms of the number of microchip factories under construction using advanced 5-3-2 nm technical processes. In thr...

I Mean Joe Biden GIF

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Show 1 more

Putin's Shrinking War Map

1 day ago

Russian posters are like Russian soldiers - their own ammo and weapons always end up getting used against them.

5

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BLOFO

1 day ago

Why do all the Russians here keep saying 'we'?

ATTACHMENT FIFTY SEVEN – From the Moscow Times

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN MET WITH RUSSIA’S WAGNER MERCENARY LEADER YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN AND HIS FIGHTERS AFTER THEIR FAILED MUTINY, THE KREMLIN CONFIRMED MONDAY.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin had welcomed Prigozhin and 34 Wagner commanders at the Kremlin on June 29.

“The commanders themselves outlined their version of events, emphasizing that they are soldiers and staunch supporters of the head of state and the supreme commander-in-chief,” Peskov said.

“They also said that they are ready to continue fighting for the motherland,” he added.

Earlier Monday, the French newspaper Libération, citing Western intelligence officials, first reported the Kremlin meeting, saying it had taken place on July 1. The head of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov and Russian spy chief Sergei Naryshkin were said to have been in attendance. 

Russian State TV Broadcasts Prigozhin Estate Raid, Claims Probe Into Mutiny Ongoing

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — who mediated a deal between Prigozhin and Putin to end the political crisis caused by Wagner’s mutiny — said the private army chief remained in Russia as of last week.

Reports citing flight tracking services suggest that a private jet linked to Prigozhin returned to Russia this week after flying to Belarus.

In the days following Wagner’s rebellion, Putin made several public appearances as part of an apparent PR campaign to shore up support for the Russian leader. 

At the June 29 meeting, Putin “assessed” Wagner’s actions on the Ukrainian frontline and their short-lived march toward Moscow from southern Russia, according to the state-run newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

The president offered the Wagner fighters “employment and combat options,” the publication added.

Peskov did not disclose whether Defense Ministry officials who had feuded with Prigozhin attended the talks.

“Difficult” fighting in the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

Fighting has picked up near Bakhmut, the site of the longest battle of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in recent days despite the Wagner mercenary group claiming to have captured the city in late May.

“The special operation’s command redeployed the Akhmat special forces under the command of Apty

Evacuated Residents of War-Scarred Bakhmut Envision a Far-Off Return Home

“This rotation speaks of the General Staff’s trust and the unit’s high combat effectiveness,” Kadyrov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar corroborated Kadyrov’s account of heavy fighting around Bakhmut. 

Ukraine’s military said Monday it had liberated 24 square kilometers of territory surrounding Bakhmut since launching its counteroffensive in June.

Akhmat last month became the first Russian volunteer detachment to have signed a contract coming under the Defense Ministry’s formal command — contrasting with the Wagner Group, which balked at the ministry’s order.

Kadyrov said in May that the annexed and partially occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk fell under Akhmat’s area of responsibility.

The exact number of Chechen troops who make up Kadyrov’s Akhmat special forces is unknown.

Kadyrov, a Kremlin loyalist who has ruled over Chechnya with an iron fist since 2007, said last month that Akhmat is made up of three divisions.

Kadyrov has claimed that Chechnya had sent 26,000 fighters to Ukraine, 7,000 of whom were on the frontlines as of May 2023.

ATTACHMENT FIFTY EIGHT – From the Financial Times

VLADIMIR PUTIN MET YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN A FEW DAYS AFTER FAILED RUSSIAN MUTINY

President’s invitation to 35 Wagner commanders is further sign Moscow may not punish ‘traitor’ warlord

Russian president Vladimir Putin met Yevgeny Prigozhin and other Wagner commanders a few days after their aborted mutiny, the Kremlin revealed on Monday. Dmitry Peskov, the president’s spokesperson, said Putin invited at least 35 people, including Prigozhin and the battalion commanders from the private military group, to the Kremlin on June 29. The meeting lasted nearly three hours. The revelation is another stunning turn in the Kremlin’s handling of Prigozhin and his Wagner group after their failed revolt on June 23-24. While Putin had initially branded the warlord “a traitor”, he later dropped all charges and allowed him to leave Russia for Belarus in a deal brokered by the country’s president Alexander Lukashenko.

The admission of Putin’s meeting with Wagner leaders — 10 days after the Kremlin said it took place — marked yet another signal that Russia was in no hurry to dole out harsh punishments to Prigozhin and instead has been eager to keep the warlord and other commanders from the mercenary group on side.

Last week, it emerged that Prigozhin had apparently been travelling freely across Russia, according to flight tracking of his private jet between Moscow and St Petersburg, with local news outlets reporting sightings of Prigozhin in different Russian locations. In his description of the meeting between the president and Prigozhin, Peskov suggested a civil discussion took place, with both sides giving their version of recent events, rather than Putin giving the Wagner leader a severe reprimand over the failed revolt.

“The details of the meeting are unknown. But the . . . president gave his assessment of the battalion in terms of the special military operation [in Ukraine] and also gave his assessment for the events of June 24,” Peskov said. He added: “Putin listened to the explanations of the commanders and suggested further options for employment and their use in combat. The commanders themselves put forward their version of what happened.” He also restated the Kremlin’s previous narrative that Prigozhin and the other commanders’ criticism had been directed not at Putin himself, but at the overall conduct of the war by the army leadership. “They emphasised that they are strong supporters and soldiers of the head of government and supreme commander [Putin] and said they’re ready to fight for the motherland,” Peskov said.

Russian insurrection Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s tangled links to Vladimir Putin leave Kremlin in a bind Prigozhin was a former caterer who served a prison sentence for robbery during the fall of the Soviet Union. His relationship with Putin dates back to St Petersburg in the 1990s when Putin began visiting Prigozhin’s restaurant. Prigozhin served as a kind of a fixer for Putin and built a catering company and private military group with extensive government contracts — ties that make the relationship harder to untangle. While the Kremlin has provided little information about the depth of the two men’s relationship, Lukashenko suggested last week that Putin might have more empathy for Prigozhin than his initial public statements about the uprising had let on. “They had a very good relationship with each other. Maybe even more than kind,” Lukashenko said. He added: “It’s one thing to speak out to the world, but what you feel inside is another thing entirely.”

PEANUT GALLERY

Occam

8 HOURS AGO

The revelation is another stunning turn in the Kremlin’s handling of Prigozhin and his Wagner group after their failed revolt on June 23-24.

What is really stunning here is how the British media is desperately trying to see things that aren't there. Presumably because all else failed.

1) Nato deterrence was going to stop Russia from taking action on Ukraine. Didn't happen

2) the mother of all sanctions was going to turn the Ruble to rubble. Fail.

3) Russia was going to run out of missiles by the summer of 2022. Fail

4) The Ukrainian spring offensive was going to kick Russian orcs out of every inch of Ukrainian territory (with Crimea to be liberated by August - dixit Ben Hodges, a.k.a. the most deluded of them all). Presumably also a fail (unless the Ukrainians get real and hurry up)

5) So now all that's left is the hope that Russia will do us all a favour and self destruct. Could it be that this too is baseless wishful thinking?

manticore

8 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

And Putin sat in room with thirty five of his best buddies, all of whom will put a knife in his back at a moment's notice, and caved in. No Nato action needed at all.

Occam

8 HOURS AGO

 In to manticore

Again that's wishful thinking. But then again, that is Nato's entire strategy: wishful thinking. First, try the impossible by expanding into the russosphere. And then when things blow up, Nato leaders collectively stick their heads into the sand, pretend it isn't happening and retreat into wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is the only military strategy the west is good at these days.

t

manticore

8 HOURS AGO

(Edited)

 In to Occam

The only person having wishful thoughts was sitting in the middle of the 35 guys who were quite willing to march on Moscow, until he ante'd up the half a billion dollars. The wishful thinking is hoping that all the Wagner guys still on Russian soil, who could re-form into their attack formation very fast, won't do

Occam

7 HOURS AGO

 In to manticore

Whataboutism. My comment is about Nato's main strategy being wishful thinking. What the situation is Russia is has no relevance to that.

Crossed Eyed Bear

5 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

Look, the west is happy to bleed Russia dry in Ukraine, while cutting off its revenue stream.

MES

3 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

NATO has come out much, much stronger as a result Putin’s blunder. That’s not wishful thinking.

Chester Wellborn

8 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

yes...

the whole 'special military operation' has certainly been a remarkable success

Occam

8 HOURS AGO

 In to Chester Wellborn

Whataboutsims. My comment was about the core element of Nato military strategy, i.e. wishful thinking. Whatever Russia is doing or not doing has no relevance to that.

H. Ickx

7 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

The only fail is russia. russia wanted a quick operation to grab the whole of Ukraine, it is a complete failure. There is no NATO strategy, Western response is made up as we go and NATO is just a military part of it. Western aim is helping Ukraine to stop russia taking it by force and it is succeeding.

Dan

7 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

The core element of Nato strategy was to thwart and resist the Russian invasion of Ukraine and that seems to have been in large part successful

Squirrel

7 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

Nice to see the trools are back in action... Occam did not know where to hide when Piggy was driving to Moscow... but now it's all clear.

Katfud

6 HOURS AGO

 In to Squirrel

His posting was noticeably absent that weekend. Desperately packing the Lada one might suspect?

Bertol

43 MINUTES AGO

 In to Katfud

And had discovered a new word “whataboutism”. 15 years too late.

somebody's body

7 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

We are stunned by you pathetic attempt to divert the discussion from the fact that the facts in article are another confirmation that Putin no longer is in control of power in Russia.

So, enlighten us, please, who is now a decision maker to talk to in case Ukraine wants to start peace negotiations?

stevoq

5 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

Putin needs the mercenaries…they can fight, his army cannot.

Tommy J

5 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

Wishful thinking like the entire invasion would be over in a week in the Kremlin?

The signs of strain in the regime are palpable like this bizarre chain of events. Good luck to Putin with his economy the size of New York City growing smaller.

We’ll keep sending over NATO hand me downs to Ukraine from the Army surplus store until he’s out of a job which in Russia doesn’t work well usually.

Factum

3 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

But the truth

2 HOURS AGO

 In to Occam

'What is really stunning here' is the delight you so obviously take in showing off what you see as your superior intellect, while achieving completely the opposite.

SUNDAY, JULY 9

ATTACHMENT FIFTY NINE – FROM THE NATIONAL REVIEW

Putin’s Strange Leniency (So Far)

By ANDREW STUTTAFORD July 9, 2023 7:42 AM

Prigozhin’s march on Moscow was halted by a deal under which those of his Wagner Group troops who had not joined the rebellion could join (if they chose) Russia’s regular army. Those who had participated would not face any charges, and nor would Prigozhin himself, who would go to live in Belarus, which is effectively a Russian vassal state. This had the advantage in getting him out of Russia but keeping him somewhere (with plenty of windows) where he could be watched closely.

That was the story, but that doesn’t appear to be how it’s working out, so far.

The Financial Times reports that Prigozhin’s private jet (with, presumably, Prigozhin in it) has being flying between Moscow, Belarus, and St. Petersburg (Prigozhin’s home base), which is not exactly what might have been expected. There had also been reports that some Wagner soldiers, too, would move to Belarus. The Belarusians have prepared a facility that could host 5,000 of them, but no Wagner forces appear to have showed up there. For its part, Poland, taking no chances, is moving 1,000 soldiers near to its border with Belarus.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin appears to have set out to humiliate Prigozhin, revealing some of what was found after a raid on his home, including wigs, gold bars, ridiculous-looking photographs of Prigozhin in disguise, a stuffed alligator, and a framed photograph of some severed heads in a desert, a souvenir, probably, of Wagner’s exploits in either Syria or Africa. The FT reports comments by one analyst that the photos were designed to destroy Prigozhin politically while the Kremlin decided what to do with Prigozhin the businessman (the Wagner Group is clearly still of some value to Russia).

The FT reported that “the warlord has been given space to deal with his business empire in Russia and tie up loose ends” according to “analysts and members of the country’s elite.”

What will happen next is anyone’s guess, but this does not look like a show of strength on Putin’s part, which may be . . . unwise.

ATTACHMENT SIXTY – From Al Jazeera

THERE ARE NO OPTIMISTIC SCENARIOS FOR THE KREMLIN

After the mutiny, Moscow is centralising control over all armed forces, but that will not save it from the looming crisis.

·

Gulnaz Sharafutdinova

Acting Director of Russia Institute at King’s College London

Published On 9 Jul 20239 Jul 2023

Some political crises are hard to predict. The one that erupted in Russia in late June was in the making for a few months, but despite the public visibility of the conflict between mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Russian Ministry of Defence (MOD), it was hard to know how it would play out.

Prigozhin’s militarised “march of justice” to Moscow, which Russians and the world watched in real time on June 24, was as shocking, unexpected and frightening as the mob attack on the US Capitol that took place on January 6, 2020. In other words, Russia is not unique in experiencing an attempted armed assault on its institutions of power. 

Russia says it shot down cruise missile over Crimean city

Photos: Russia’s war in Ukraine crosses 500-day mark

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 501

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy brings home Azovstal commanders from Turkey

But the way the Kremlin chose to handle the crisis was very different from how the US government approached its own back in 2020. In the US, we saw a full-scale public investigation of the January 6 events which was led by the House Select Committee and involved broadcasting public hearings and publishing an 800-page final report. Some 1,000 people were charged with federal crimes in relation to the attack.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin decided to strike a deal with Prigozhin and send him into exile in Belarus, reportedly along with some of his mercenaries. Any further action that will be taken will likely happen behind the scenes, so observers will have to wait and see what the immediate repercussions will be at the political level.

However, there are some long-term consequences that are already apparent. Russia will continue to fight the war in Ukraine but its forces will be under a single command. It is clear that the Kremlin sees the political spillovers from parallel structures running amok as too costly.

It will make sure to avoid the rise of another Prigozhin – an autonomous military operator who can act with entitlement and control military forces outside the command of the defence ministry. Implementing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s June 11 directive to bring all private formations under his ministry will be the first step.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s Akhmat forces have already signed contracts with the MOD. Does this mean the Kremlin has firmly established control over them? 

If Putin’s authority is perceived to be secure, Kadyrov will likely behave. When that is no longer the case, he may become unpredictable. The Kremlin is aware of this and of the fact that the Caucasus is Russia’s most volatile region.

It is no coincidence then that Putin chose to visit Dagestan right after the mutiny and demonstrate his own popularity by appearing in public and engaging a crowd of supporters – a PR exercise that was rather unusual for him. This was meant to counter any perception of his political weakness and confirm his control over the Caucasus.

The Kremlin will continue to take various other measures – outside the public eye – to stabilise the military command-and-control and dismantle Wagner’s structures and operations outside Russia. It will succeed in re-establishing centralised control over all armed forces, but that does not mean it has survived Prigozhin’s failed mutiny unscathed.

Significant systemic challenges – some highlighted by the overly candid Prigozhin – remain and they can further erode the authority of the Russian president and destabilise the Russian state.

The main one concerns the Russian army itself. Doubts about its ability to win the war in Ukraine are inevitably growing in Russian society and among the elites. It is becoming increasingly evident that Russian forces are not going to become more effective at the front and the only options left – to launch a nuclear strike or to cause damage to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant – do not represent an acceptable way out of the war.

Over the past year, Prigozhin repeatedly emphasised the incompetence of defence officials and the inefficiency of the military rank and file. This message resonated widely with the Russian public. In the aftermath of the “march of justice” nearly a third of Russians wanted Shoigu d from his position as minister of defence.

On top of ever-decreasing support and faith in the military, the Kremlin is facing significant economic challenges. It has had to reorient the economy towards military production and state procurement, with the private sector left to its own devices, operating under increasingly harsh conditions. The collapsing ruble, the growing list of Western sanctions, and the narrowing space for entrepreneurship are taking a toll.

The impoverishment of the Russian people is an unavoidable outcome that has so far been temporarily mitigated by the increase in social payments to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in society. But the ability of the Russian state to keep these financial flows going will waver as the war drags on and it faces a growing budget deficit and diminishing export revenues due to stricter Western sanctions.

From the present vantage point, there is no optimistic scenario for the Kremlin. Absent a drastic change of course, the different pressures – sociopolitical, military, and economic – will only accumulate, causing ruptures and eruptions of various sorts. Russia has not yet reached the proverbial “bottom”, but it is certainly experiencing the boomerang effect of the aggressive war the Kremlin recklessly decided to launch.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Gulnaz Sharafutdinova

Acting Director of Russia Institute at King’s College London

Gulnaz Sharafutdinova is Professor of Russian Politics and Acting Director of Russia Institute at King’s College London. She is an author of the award-winning The Red Mirror: Putin’s Leadership and Russia’s Insecure Identity (Oxford University Press, 2020), an earlier book, Political Consequences of Crony Capitalism Inside Russia (Notre Dame University Press, 2010), and numerous articles.

JULY 10^th, TODAY

ATTACHMENT SIXTY ONE – From the Guardian U.K. 0myster

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: NATO CHIEF ‘ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN’ SUMMIT WILL HAVE ‘UNITY AND A STRONG MESSAGE’ ON UKRAINE MEMBERSHIP – AS IT HAPPENED

General secretary Jens Stoltenberg comments made at press conference in Vilnius ahead of Nato summit

· At a glance: what we know on day 502 of the invasion

 Updated 3h ago

· 3h ago

Evening summary

· 7h ago

Scholz: Turkey’s EU bid not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato

· 7h ago

Stoltenberg 'absolutely certain' Nato will have 'unity and a strong message' on Ukraine membership

· 10h ago

Putin met with Wagner leader just days after the rebellion

· 11h ago

Summary of the day so far …

· 16h ago

Ukraine makes 'a definite advance' to south of Bakhmut, deputy defence minister says

· 16h ago

Biden and Sunak to hold talks focusing on Ukrainian membership of Nato

· 16h ago

Opening summary

Tom Ambrose (now); Jamie Grierson, Tobi Thomas, Martin Belam and Helen Livingstone (earlier)

Mon 10 Jul 2023 13.56 EDT

09.46 EDT

Stoltenberg 'absolutely certain' Nato will have 'unity and a strong message' on Ukraine membership

The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he is “absolutely certain” that by the end of the week the alliance will have “unity and a strong message” on the future membership of Ukraine.

Speaking at a joint press conference with the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, in Vilnius before the summit, he also said that Sweden had met previously agreed conditions agreed with Turkey, and that it was still possible Ankara’s reticence could be overcome during the summit.

The summit will be dominated by discussions on membership options for Ukraine, resolving the dispute between Turkey and Sweden over the latter’s accession to the alliance, and the question of cluster munitions being supplied to Ukraine.

Nausėda said a prospect of membership was extremely important to Ukraine, which had been “heroically fighting the Russian monster for almost one and a half years”, and that “we must avoid Ukraine membership ... becoming a horizon. The more you walk towards it, the farther it is”.

Nato appears to have been clear that the door remains open and that Ukraine is expected to join eventually, but has been hesitant to put a timetable on it.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had sharp words about the prospect, saying: “You know the absolutely clear and consistent position of the Russian Federation that Ukraine’s membership in Nato will have very, very negative consequences for the security architecture, the already half-destroyed security architecture in Europe. And it will be an absolute danger, a threat to our country, which will require from us a sufficiently clear and firm reaction.”

·

·

Updated at 09.58 EDT

3h ago13.56 EDT

Evening summary

The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s headlines:

· The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he is “absolutely certain” that by the end of the week the alliance will have “unity and a strong message” on the future membership of Ukraine. Speaking at a joint press conference with the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, in Vilnius before the summit, he also said that Sweden had met previously agreed conditions agreed with Turkey, and that it was still possible Ankara’s reticence could be overcome during the summit.

· Nato allies on Monday reached agreement on regional plans detailing how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack, overcoming a Turkish blockage one day before leaders meet for a summit in Vilnius, three diplomats told Reuters. Nato had for decades seen no need for large-scale defence plans, as it fought smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.

· Associated Press reports that Putin has met with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner leader, just days after a short-lived rebellion by the mercenary chief and his private army. According to the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, a three-hour meeting took place on 29 June, which also involved commanders from the military company Prigozhin founded. Prigozhin has had a longstanding conflict with Russia’s top military brass which on 24 June culminated in an armed mutiny in which he led his fighters into Russia.

· The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he wants to work with allies to discuss a pathway for Ukraine to join Nato, but the exact mechanism is up for discussion, his spokesperson said on Monday, following talks with the US president, Joe Biden. The spokesperson said it would not be appropriate for Ukraine to join Nato when the war with Russia was going on, but Sunak believed Ukraine’s “rightful place” was within alliance.

· The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has thrown a surprise obstacle in the way of a plan from Joe Biden for Swedish accession to Nato by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package. Speaking at the airport before departing for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Turkish president said: “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland.”

· German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Turkey’s EU bid is not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato, after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared to introduce a new hurdle for Sweden to clear before joining the military alliance. The Turkish president told reporters in Istanbul: “Turkey has been waiting at the door of the EU for over 50 years now, and almost all of the Nato member countries are now members of the EU.”

· Norway will extend the presence of its Nato forces in Lithuania until 2024, its government said on Monday. Norway has been a part of Nato’s Enhanced Forward Presence in Lithuania since 2014, Reuters reports the government said in a statement, adding that its contribution consists of about 150 people.

· Reuters reports that Russia will continue to co-operate with Beijing and can count on China’s “friendly shoulder”, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament said on Monday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. “We can count on a firm and reliable friendly shoulder in China,” Valentina Matvienko said.

· The Australian government will send a surveillance aircraft to Germany to help monitor the flow of military and humanitarian supplies into Ukraine. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced the deployment after talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin on Monday, a day before attending a Nato summit in Lithuania where the war in Ukraine will dominate discussions.

· Ukrainian forces have registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar. In a Telegram post Maliar said there was no change in positions on the northern flank. She did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut. Earlier, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.

· A joint investigation by the Russian investigative journalism outfits Meduza and Mediazona released this morning estimates that about 47,000 Russian soldiers and contract fighters have died since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The figures were calculated based on data from the beginning of the war until 27 May 2023. Russia has not released official figures for those killed in action since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had died in what Moscow calls its “special military operation”. The numbers were widely seen as implausibly low. Ukraine’s military has claimed to have killed over 230,000 enemy combatants.

· Russia is “almost certainly struggling with a crisis of combat medical provision, after suffering an average of about 400 casualties a day for 17 months,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.

· Four people died and 11 were injured after Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region while distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, the governor of the region said on Monday. Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s.

· Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.

· Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba posted to social media to say “following intensive talks, Nato allies have reached consensus on removing MAP from Ukraine’s path to membership. I welcome this long-awaited decision that shortens our path to Nato”. The “membership action plan” (MAP) is a process by which the alliance enters negotiations with a prospective member about political, economic, defence and security issues.

· The US president, Joe Biden, has arrived in London for talks with UK prime minister Rishi Sunak.

· Turkey’s foreign ministry said that foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed the expansion of Nato in a phone call ahead of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania. Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify Sweden’s accession to the alliance.

· A substantial announcement on Germany delivering military hardware to Ukraine is expected over the course of this week’s Nato summit, a senior government official said in Berlin on Monday.

· Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted his daily operational update to Telegram. He listed a number of settlements in the region which he claims have seen cross-border shelling from Ukrainian forces. He reported no casualties, although he did detail some damage to power lines.

· Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Donetsk, has said that presently the Russian authorities in the region are unable to proceed with demining in the Bakhmut area due to shelling by Ukrainian forces.

That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for this evening. Thanks for following along.

4h ago13.06 EDT

Nato allies on Monday reached agreement on regional plans detailing how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack, overcoming a Turkish blockage one day before leaders meet for a summit in Vilnius, three diplomats told Reuters.

Nato had for decades seen no need for large-scale defence plans, as it fought smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.

But with Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945 raging just beyond its borders in Ukraine, it is now warning that it must have all planning in place well before a conflict with a peer adversary such as Moscow might erupt.

Turkey had been blocking approval of the plans over the wording on geographical locations such as Cyprus.

Nato leaders gather in Vilnius on 11-12 July for a summit that will discuss Sweden’s membership and the alliance’s future relationship with Ukraine.

·

5h ago11.25 EDT

More on the meeting between Stoltenberg, Erdogan and Kristersson from Reuters:

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is meeting with the leaders of Turkey and Sweden in Vilnius as he seeks to break the deadlock over Stockholm’s NATO membership bid.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson are in the Lithuanian capital for a NATO summit that will start on Tuesday.

NATO last year invited Sweden to join the alliance, but Turkey has been blocking the ratification of that decision.

In an unexpected move, Erdogan said on Monday the European Union should open the way for Ankara’s accession to the bloc before Turkey’s parliament approves Sweden’s NATO bid.

·

·

6h ago11.17 EDT

Here’s our Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer’s take on the meeting between Putin and Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. He writes:

The Kremlin has said the Wagner group head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, met Vladimir Putin on 29 June, five days after his mercenary fighters marched towards Moscow in an aborted rebellion.

The Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Putin invited 35 senior Wagner commanders including Prigozhin to the Kremlin, adding that the meeting lasted three hours.

The Kremlin’s statements reveal Prigozhin has travelled to Russia at least once since the deal brokered by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, under which the warlord abandoned his military march on Moscow in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus.

According to Peskov, Prigozhin assured Putin during the meeting that his Wagner troops were loyal to the country and the Russian president.

“The commanders outlined their version of what happened [on 24 June]. They emphasised that they are staunch supporters of the head of state … and also said that they were ready to continue to fight for their homeland,” Peskov said.

Peskov did not comment on Prigozhin’s whereabouts, which remain unclear. Last week, Lukashenko said Prigozhin was in St Petersburg despite Peskov stressing that the deal under which Prigozhin relocated to Belarus “remained relevant”.

·

·

6h ago10.51 EDT

The Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg is holding a meeting with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson at the summit in Vilnius to discuss Sweden’s Nato membership bid, Reuters is reporting.

·

·

6h ago10.33 EDT

Diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour has reported on wrangling between Turkey, the US and the EU. He writes:

Joe Biden will try to nail down a four-country deal that would lead to Turkey allowing Sweden into Nato in return for the sale of US F-16 jets to Ankara, on the condition they are not used to threaten Greece.

But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a surprise obstacle in the way of Biden’s plan by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package. Speaking at the airport before departing for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Turkish president said: “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union, and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland.”

Erdoğan’s remarks suggest diplomats’ eve-of-summit efforts to lift the year-long Turkish veto on Sweden’s membership of Nato will be even more complex than envisaged. Turkey has been in talks over joining the EU in one form or another since 1987 but there is no enthusiasm for letting such a large country with a questionable human rights record join.

The US president held further last-minute talks with Erdoğan on his flight to Europe on Sunday but no breakthrough occurred during their nearly hour-long conversation, according to the White House.

·

7h ago09.58 EDT

Scholz: Turkey’s EU bid not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato

Faisal Ali

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Turkey’s EU bid is not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato, after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appeared to introduce a new hurdle for Sweden to clear before joining the military alliance.

The Turkish president told reporters in Istanbul: “Turkey has been waiting at the door of the EU for over 50 years now, and almost all of the Nato member countries are now members of the EU.”

Speaking in Berlin, Scholz responded: “Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership.” He added: “The other question is one that is not connected with it, and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

Erdoğan did not make it clear if Ankara’s long-stalled bid to join the EU was genuinely a new condition for Swedish accession to Nato, or if it was simply an issue Turkey wanted to get the ball rolling on again.

The White House, like Scholz, sought to downplay any link.

Reuters reports a White House national security council spokesperson said the US had always supported Turkey’s EU membership aspirations, and continued to do so, but added that those discussions were a matter between Turkey and the bloc’s members.

“Our focus is on Sweden, which is ready to join the Nato alliance,” the US spokesperson continued.

Earlier in the day, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, expressed his support for Turkey’s ambition to become an EU member.

·

·

Updated at 10.39 EDT

7h ago09.46 EDT

Stoltenberg 'absolutely certain' Nato will have 'unity and a strong message' on Ukraine membership

The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he is “absolutely certain” that by the end of the week the alliance will have “unity and a strong message” on the future membership of Ukraine.

Speaking at a joint press conference with the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, in Vilnius before the summit, he also said that Sweden had met previously agreed conditions agreed with Turkey, and that it was still possible Ankara’s reticence could be overcome during the summit.

The summit will be dominated by discussions on membership options for Ukraine, resolving the dispute between Turkey and Sweden over the latter’s accession to the alliance, and the question of cluster munitions being supplied to Ukraine.

Nausėda said a prospect of membership was extremely important to Ukraine, which had been “heroically fighting the Russian monster for almost one and a half years”, and that “we must avoid Ukraine membership ... becoming a horizon. The more you walk towards it, the farther it is”.

Nato appears to have been clear that the door remains open and that Ukraine is expected to join eventually, but has been hesitant to put a timetable on it.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had sharp words about the prospect, saying: “You know the absolutely clear and consistent position of the Russian Federation that Ukraine’s membership in Nato will have very, very negative consequences for the security architecture, the already half-destroyed security architecture in Europe. And it will be an absolute danger, a threat to our country, which will require from us a sufficiently clear and firm reaction.”

·

·

Updated at 09.58 EDT

7h ago09.28 EDT

Norway will extend the presence of its Nato forces in Lithuania until 2024, its government said on Monday.

Norway has been a part of Nato’s Enhanced Forward Presence in Lithuania since 2014, Reuters reports the government said in a statement, adding that its contribution consists of about 150 people.

Canada pledged on Monday to deploy up to 1,200 more troops in Latvia as part of a Nato plan to reinforce its battalions, deterring Russian aggression in the Baltic region.

·

·

Updated at 09.29 EDT

8h ago08.50 EDT

The Australian government will send a surveillance aircraft to Germany to help monitor the flow of military and humanitarian supplies into Ukraine.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced the deployment after talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin on Monday, a day before attending a Nato summit in Lithuania where the war in Ukraine will dominate discussions.

Albanese also confirmed previous reports that Australia would join the German-led Climate Club, a new international grouping that is expected to focus on reducing emissions in heavy industry and bringing “green steel” and “green hydrogen” on to the market quickly.

Australia to send surveillance aircraft to Germany to help protect supplies to Ukraine

Read more

·

·

Updated at 09.03 EDT

8h ago08.29 EDT

The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he wants to work with allies to discuss a pathway for Ukraine to join Nato, but the exact mechanism is up for discussion, his spokesperson said on Monday, following talks with the US president, Joe Biden.

The spokesperson said it would not be appropriate for Ukraine to join Nato when the war with Russia was going on, but Sunak believed Ukraine’s “rightful place” was within alliance.

“We want to work with the US and our allies on the pathway for Ukraine to join,” the spokesperson told reporters.

·

·

Updated at 08.39 EDT

9h ago07.40 EDT

Colin Kahl, US undersecretary of defence, visiting the UK alongside President Joe Biden, told an audience at the Chatham House thinktank that there was resistance in the White House to any suggestion “that there’s a degree of automaticity or immediacy” to Nato membership for Ukraine on the eve of the military alliance’s summit.

The idea of Ukrainian membership should not be “temporally bounded, but conditions based” he added, using cautious language in line with previous US comments on the topic. Kahl also emphasised that, from Biden’s point of view, Ukraine had also to engage with “a whole host of domestic and security reform issues,” a reference to clamping down on corruption.

Coming this close to the gathering in Vilnius in Tuesday and Wednesday, the comments do not suggest much hope for Ukraine’s aspirations for a clear and short roadmap to joining Nato, although Kahl was speaking when Biden was in Downing St, meeting Rishi Sunak, where the issue of Ukranian membership was expected to be discussed.

The under secretary also defended the controversial decision by the US to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, banned by over 80 countries but not the Washington or Kyiv, although he insisted it was “really hard” and that the US had “wrestled with the moral issues” involved.

Kahl the move was necessary because west is not making 155m shells fast enough for Kyiv’s needs at present, and so not supplying cluster weapons in the interim would “run the risk the Ukrainians would stall out” and so be unable to fight effectively against the Russian invaders, which in turn could have worse humanitarian consequences.

The issue risks a rift in the alliance of countries supporting Ukraine, although Kahl argued cluster bombs were necessary to building a bridge until US and European arms production ramps up. Supplying them now was a decision of urgency, where a “combination of existential stakes and emergency conditions” tipped the balance, he said.

·

·

Updated at 07.46 EDT

10h ago07.10 EDT

Ukraine’s largest western allies are still finalising a joint framework that would pave the way for long-term security assurances for Kyiv, and may wait until the end of a Nato summit this week to announce them, according to European diplomats.

Reuters reports:

The 31-member Nato alliance meets in Lithuania on Tuesday, aiming above all to give Ukraine some kind of path to membership, but still divided over how far to go.

Ukraine knows it will not get entry into the alliance while the war with Russia continues, given that Nato’s article 5 – which says that an attack on one member is an attack on all -could push the alliance into war with Russia. But it wants a firm commitment at the summit that it will be invited to join after the war.

In the meantime, it has sought assurances of current and long-term security commitments to help it defend itself now and deter renewed aggression from Moscow once the war ends.

Nato has assiduously abstained from giving military assistance to Ukraine as an organisation, to avoid entering a direct conflict with Russia, and is keen to continue leaving that to member states and others.

Britain, France, Germany and the United States, known as the Quad, have been negotiating with Kyiv for weeks over a multilateral text that would create a broad framework for member states that want to provide, or keep providing, military aid including advanced weapons, as well as financial assistance.

The European Union, which would pursue its financing of weapons support through its Peace Facility, and Group of Seven (G7) powers including Japan, have also been privy to the discussions.
The multilateral framework makes it easier for countries to conclude detailed individual arrangements with Ukraine.

“The Americans do not want to mix discussions on Nato prospects with guarantees, so the guarantees may only be agreed after summit,” said one European diplomat. A second Quad diplomat also said it was heading in that direction.

A French presidency official told reporters on Friday that the discussions were “very advanced”. Two other diplomats said the hope was to complete them by the end of the summit.

A senior German official told reporters that there would be an agreement at the level of the G7, which comprises the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy and Britain, as well as the European Union.

US President Joe Biden, who is en route to Lithuania, told CNN on Sunday that Washington was ready to provide security to Ukraine in the mould of what it provides to Israel: “the weaponry they need, the capacity to defend themselves”.

The US’s military aid for Israel is worth about $3.5bn a year, but the relationship also entails a great deal of political support.

“The possible difference with Ukraine is that the American support is results-driven,” said an Israeli official.

“With Ukraine, the Americans will ask themselves ‘What did we get for $100 bln’ and whether this is sustainable in the long-term as this conflict may not end, may just stay frozen.”

·

·

Updated at 07.12 EDT

10h ago07.05 EDT

Reuters reports that Russia will continue to co-operate with Beijing and can count on China’s “friendly shoulder”, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament said on Monday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

“We can count on a firm and reliable friendly shoulder in China,” Valentina Matvienko said.

·

·

10h ago06.44 EDT

Putin met with Wagner leader just days after the rebellion

Associated Press reports that Putin has met with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner leader, just days after a short-lived rebellion by the mercenary chief and his private army.

According to the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, a three-hour meeting took place on 29 June, which also involved commanders from the military company Prigozhin founded.

Prigozhin has had a long standing conflict with Russia’s top military brass which on 24 June culminated in an armed mutiny in which he led his fighters into Russia.

The Wagner group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, will move to Belarus under a deal to end the armed mutiny he led against Russia’s military leadership, the Kremlin said on Saturday night.

The deal was brokered by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Vladimir Putin’s agreement, because he had known Prigozhin personally for about 20 years.

Peskov said the criminal case that had been opened against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, and that the Wagner fighters who had taken part in his “march for justice” would not face any action, in recognition of their previous service to Russia.

Although Putin had earlier vowed to punish those who participated in the mutiny, Peskov said the agreement had had the “higher goal” of avoiding confrontation and bloodshed.

Prigozhin and all of his fighters vacated the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don that they had previously taken over, the RIA news agency reported.

·

·

Updated at 06.46 EDT

10h ago06.23 EDT

According to Reuters, the Kremlin said today that Ukrainian membership of the Nato military alliance would have very negative consequences for Europe’s security architecture and that Russia would consider such a step a threat which demanded a harsh response.

This comes as Nato holds a summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in Lithuania, aimed at showing solidarity with Ukraine while not yet accepting Kyiv as a member of the alliance.

·

·

Updated at 06.24 EDT

Russia-Ukraine war: Nato chief ‘absolutely certain’ summit will have ‘unity and a strong message’ on Ukraine membership – as it happened

General secretary Jens Stoltenberg comments made at press conference in Vilnius ahead of Nato summit

· At a glance: what we know on day 502 of the invasion

 Updated 11h ago

· 3h ago

Evening summary

· 7h ago

Scholz: Turkey’s EU bid not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato

· 7h ago

Stoltenberg 'absolutely certain' Nato will have 'unity and a strong message' on Ukraine membership

· 10h ago

Putin met with Wagner leader just days after the rebellion

· 11h ago

Summary of the day so far …

· 16h ago

Ukraine makes 'a definite advance' to south of Bakhmut, deputy defence minister says

· 16h ago

Biden and Sunak to hold talks focusing on Ukrainian membership of Nato

· 16h ago

Opening summary

Tom Ambrose (now); Jamie Grierson, Tobi Thomas, Martin Belam and Helen Livingstone (earlier)

Mon 10 Jul 2023 13.56 EDT

11h ago06.13 EDT

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday that the EU should open the way for Ankara’s accession to the bloc before Turkey’s parliament approves Sweden’s bid to join the Nato military alliance.

Speaking ahead of his departure for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Erdoğan said Sweden’s accession hinges on the implementation of a deal reached last summer during the alliance’s summit in Madrid, adding that no one should expect compromises from Ankara.

Last week Jen Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Nato, said that as far as he was concerned Sweden had delivered on the deal.

Erdoğan also said that an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia would ease Kyiv’s Nato membership process.

Turkey was officially recognised as a candidate for full membership of the EU in 1999.

·

·

Updated at 06.16 EDT

11h ago06.05 EDT

Summary of the day so far …

· Ukrainian forces have registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar. In a Telegram post Maliar said there was no change in positions on the northern flank. She did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut. Earlier, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.

· A joint investigation by the Russian investigative journalism outfits Meduza and Mediazona released this morning estimates that about 47,000 Russian soldiers and contract fighters have died since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The figures were calculated based on data from the beginning of the war until 27 May 2023. Russia has not released official figures for those killed in action since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had died in what Moscow calls its “special military operation”. The numbers were widely seen as implausibly low. Ukraine’s military has claimed to have killed over 230,000 enemy combatants.

· Russia is “almost certainly struggling with a crisis of combat medical provision, after suffering an average of around 400 casualties a day for 17 months,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.

· Four people died and 11 were injured after Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region while distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, the governor of the region said on Monday. Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s.

· Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.

· Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba posted to social media to say “following intensive talks, Nato allies have reached consensus on removing MAP from Ukraine’s path to membership. I welcome this long-awaited decision that shortens our path to Nato”. The “membership action plan” (MAP) is a process by which the alliance enters negotiations with a prospective member about political, economic, defence and security issues.

· The US president, Joe Biden, has arrived in London for talks with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

· Turkey’s foreign ministry said that foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed the expansion of Nato in a phone call ahead of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania. Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify Sweden’s accession to the alliance.

· A substantial announcement on Germany delivering military hardware to Ukraine is expected over the course of this week’s Nato summit, a senior government official said in Berlin on Monday.

· Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted his daily operational update to Telegram. He listed a number of settlements in the region which he claims have seen cross-border shelling from Ukrainian forces. He reported no casualties, although he did detail some damage to power lines.

· Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Donetsk, has said that presently the Russian authorities in the region are unable to proceed with demining in the Bakhmut area due to shelling by Ukrainian forces.

·

·

Updated at 06.17 EDT

11h ago05.46 EDT

The US president, Joe Biden, has arrived in Downing Street to meet the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

·

·

Updated at 05.58 EDT

11h ago05.43 EDT

We are expecting a lot of positioning ahead of the Nato summit in Vilnius this week, and on Monday morning, Ukraine’s foreign minister stated that Nato would forgo the “membership action plan” element of Ukraine’s application to join.

Dmytro Kuleba posted to social media to say:

Following intensive talks, Nato allies have reached consensus on removing MAP from Ukraine’s path to membership. I welcome this long-awaited decision that shortens our path to Nato. It is also the best moment to offer clarity on the invitation to Ukraine to become member.

MAP is Nato’s “membership action plan”, a process by which the alliance enters negotiations with a prospective member about political, economic, defence and security issues.

The alliance itself describes it as a “programme of advice, assistance and practical support tailored to the individual needs of countries wishing to join the alliance. Participation in the MAP does not prejudge any decision by the alliance on future membership”.

Nato states that Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently participating in the programme.

12h ago05.12 EDT

Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed the expansion of Nato in a phone call ahead of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania, Reuters reports the Turkish foreign ministry as saying on Monday.

Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify Sweden’s accession to the alliance.

·

·

Updated at 05.17 EDT

12h ago04.49 EDT

A joint investigation by the Russian investigative journalism outfits Meduza and Mediazona released this morning estimates that about 47,000 Russian soldiers and contract fighters have died since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

The figures were calculated based on data from the beginning of the war until 27 May 2023, and the investigation claimed to have determined with 95% probability that the true figure was between 40,000 and 55,000.

Russia has not released official figures for those killed in action in Ukraine since September 2022, when it said 5,937 soldiers had died in what Moscow calls its “special military operation”.

The numbers were widely seen as implausibly low. Ukraine’s military has claimed to have killed over 230,000 enemy combatants.

If the 47,000 figure is correct, it would mean that three times as many Russian soldiers died in Ukraine in 15 months as Soviet soldiers in the war in Afghanistan over a decade.

The investigation used two parallel techniques: one using information from Russian inheritance registers and the other conducted by Dmitry Kobak, a professor at Tubingen University in Germany, who conducted work to calculate excess mortality rates in 2022.

·

13h ago04.04 EDT

A substantial announcement on a German delivery of military hardware to Ukraine is expected over the course of this week’s Nato summit, a senior government official said in Berlin on Monday.

Germany is also working on bilateral security guarantees for Ukraine, Reuters reports the official said, adding that it was not the right time for an invitation for Kyiv to join the defence alliance.

·

·

13h ago03.27 EDT

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has posted his daily operational update to Telegram. He listed a number of settlements in the region which he claims have seen cross-border shelling from Ukrainian forces. He reported no casualties, although he did detail some damage to power lines.

The claims have not been independently verified.

·

·

Updated at 03.39 EDT

14h ago03.04 EDT

Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Donetsk, has said that presently the Russian authorities in the region are unable to proceed with demining in the Bakhmut area due to shelling by Ukrainian forces.

Russian state-owned news agency Tass quotes him saying: “The enemy is delaying this process as long as possible.”

Russia spent months trying to claim the city of Bakhmut, with most sources suggesting they sustained considerable losses in besieging the now-ruined city.

Russia-Ukraine war: Nato chief ‘absolutely certain’ summit will have ‘unity and a strong message’ on Ukraine membership – as it happened

General secretary Jens Stoltenberg comments made at press conference in Vilnius ahead of Nato summit

· At a glance: what we know on day 502 of the invasion

 Updated 14h ago

· 3h ago

Evening summary

· 7h ago

Scholz: Turkey’s EU bid not linked to Sweden’s accession to Nato

· 7h ago

Stoltenberg 'absolutely certain' Nato will have 'unity and a strong message' on Ukraine membership

· 10h ago

Putin met with Wagner leader just days after the rebellion

· 11h ago

Summary of the day so far …

· 16h ago

Ukraine makes 'a definite advance' to south of Bakhmut, deputy defence minister says

· 16h ago

Biden and Sunak to hold talks focusing on Ukrainian membership of Nato

· 16h ago

Opening summary

By Tom Ambrose (now); Jamie Grierson, Tobi Thomas, Martin Belam and Helen Livingstone (earlier)

Mon 10 Jul 2023 13.56 EDT

14h ago02.27 EDT

Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.

In a video clip posted to the ministry’s official social media channels, Gerasimov is seen receiving reports about claimed attempts by Ukrainian forces to strike targets in Crimea, Rostov and other regions.

·

·

15h ago02.12 EDT

Four people died and 11 were injured after Russia’s bombing of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region while distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, Reuters reports the governor of the region as saying on Monday.

Yuriy Malashko said those killed included three woman and a man, all in their 40s. He added that Russia carried out 36 targeted strikes on 10 settlements of the Zaporizhzhia region.

The claims have not been independently verified.

· This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

·

·

Updated at 02.13 EDT

15h ago01.58 EDT

Russia is “almost certainly struggling with a crisis of combat medical provision, after suffering an average of around 400 casualties a day for 17 months,” the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.

It is also likely that civilian medical services have been affected, especially in regions near Ukraine, and that military hospitals are reserving space for officer casualties, it said.

It continued:

As claimed by the head of the Kalashnikov company’s combat medicine training division, it is likely that up to 50 per cent of Russian combat fatalities could have been prevented with proper first aid.

Very slow casualty evacuation, combined with the inappropriate use of the crude in-service Russian combat tourniquet, is reportedly a leading cause of preventable fatalities and amputations.

15h ago01.50 EDT

Poland has detained another member of a Russian spy network, bringing the total number of people rounded up in an investigation to 15, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski has said.

Reuters reports:

A hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, Poland says it has become a major target of Russian spies and it accuses Moscow of trying to destabilise it.

“The Internal Security Agency has detained another member of the spy network working for Russian intelligence,” Mariusz Kaminski said in a post on Twitter.

“The suspect kept surveillance of military facilities and seaports. He was systematically paid by the Russians.”

The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

In June, Poland detained a Russian professional ice-hockey player on spying charges.

In March, Poland said it had broken up a Russian espionage network and detained nine people it said were preparing acts of sabotage and monitoring rail routes to Ukraine.

The following month Poland said it was introducing a 200-metre exclusion zone around its Swinoujscie Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal, citing concerns about Russian espionage.

15h ago01.37 EDT

Vladimir Putin’s decision not to dismantle the Wagner mercenary group and prosecute those who took part in last month’s rebellion against Moscow is “placing himself and his subordinates in an awkward position,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.

It writes:

Wagner is still reportedly recruiting within Russia while the Russian MoD is reportedly conducting a competing effort to recruit Wagner fighters to sign contracts with the MoD.

Putin’s decision to not dispose of the Wagner Group – previously Russia’s most combat capable force – is making it difficult for Putin and other Russian power players to know how to interact with the Wagner Group and its leaders and fighters.

·

15h ago01.33 EDT

Joe Biden’s meeting in Downing Street on Monday with Rishi Sunak – their fifth in the past five months and the sixth since Sunak become prime minister – probably carries more significance than any other.

The two men are not just 37 years apart in age, but increasingly a long way apart on how to handle Ukraine. The disagreements will be kept from the public eye, and the hope is that the meeting can narrow the differences.

The US disapproves if the junior partner goes public on any disagreement, or is perceived to be trying to bounce Washington into action. Pushiness, some say, was the undoing of the Nato secretary generalship ambitions of Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, after he tried to force the pace on arms supplies. Similarly, the watchword of Nato, built on consensus, is unity.

But it is self-evident that the two countries lean towards different positions on the war in Ukraine, and its aftermath. At issue are the conditions set for the path for Ukraine’s future membership of Nato, and the security guarantees that Volodymyr Zelenskiy should be provided by an ad hoc alliance of states in the interim.

And behind that lie questions about escalation and Nato’s future relationship with Russia. At one extreme lies a nervous Germany and at the other, impatient Baltic States and Poland.

16h ago01.19 EDT

Expected negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan remain the only hope to extend the Black Sea grain deal that is set to expire next week, Russia’s RIA news agency has reported.

Reuters reports:

The Black Sea deal, brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain trapped by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from Black Sea ports.

Citing an unnamed source familiar with negotiations, RIA reported “there is no optimism” for the extension of the deal - a position that Moscow has reiterated frequently in recent weeks.

“Our practice shows that it is the negotiations between the two leaders that are able to change the situation, the current difficult period is no exception,” RIA cited the source as saying.

“Today, this remains the only hope.”

Erdogan said on Saturday he was pressing Russia to extend the grain deal, currently due to expire on July 17, by at least three months and announced a visit by Putin in August. The Kremlin said over the weekend there was no phone call scheduled and that there was no certainty about the two leaders meeting.

Ankara angered Moscow with its July 8 decision to release to Kyiv five detained Ukrainian commanders of a unit that for weeks defended a steel works in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, with the Kremlin saying Ankara violated agreements.

·

·

16h ago01.07 EDT

Ukraine makes 'a definite advance' to south of Bakhmut, deputy defence minister says

Ukrainian forces have registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar.

In a Telegram post Maliar said there was no change in positions on the northern flank. She did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut.

Earlier Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.

“Fierce fighting” continued in the southern areas of Melitopol and Berdyansk Maliar said, adding that “We are consolidating our gains in those areas.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meanwhile said he felt no “pressure at all” to see success more quickly. “Today, the initiative is on our side,” Zelenskyy told the US broadcaster ABC. “We are advancing, albeit not as fast [as we would like]. But we are advancing.”

·

Updated at 01.17 EDT

16h ago00.55 EDT

Biden and Sunak to hold talks focusing on Ukrainian membership of Nato

Joe Biden is set to hold talks with Rishi Sunak on Monday, the eve of a two-day Nato summit in Vilnius, with Ukraine set to dominate discussions both in London and in the Lithuanian capital.

The US and the UK are among Ukraine’s strongest supporters, but they differ on Ukraine’s wish to join the military alliance, with Washington much more reluctant than London due to concerns it may provoke Russia.

While all sides have agreed Ukraine cannot join until the war is over, and thus be covered by its guarantee that an attack on one is an attack on all, the UK has been pushing for Kyiv to receive fast-track membership, without the need for it to fulfil a Nato membership action plan.

Meanwhile, the US president on Sunday told CNN that Ukraine was “not yet ready” and made it clear that membership was conditional on more than the war’s end.

“Nato is a process that takes some time to meet all the qualifications – from democratisation to a whole range of other issues,” he said, adding that Nato needed to “lay out a rational path” for membership.

He suggested the US could provide military aid similar to the support it has long provided to Israel.

Updated at 01.19 EDT

16h ago00.45 EDT

Opening summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.

US president Joe Biden has landed in London and is set to hold talks with British prime minister Rishi Sunak, ahead of a two-day Nato summit in Vilnius. Ukraine is expected to feature high on the agenda, with discussions focusing on a path for Ukraine’s future membership of the military alliance, and security guarantees for Kyiv in the interim.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Ukrainian forces had registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut. Maliar did not give any further details but attention in recent days has focused on the village of Klishchiivka, lying on heights to the south of Bakhmut.

Earlier Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said they were “making progress” around the city. Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May but are thought to be struggling to maintain control of it.

In other key developments:

· Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he was hoping for “the best possible result” from the summit, after talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy has said he does not expect Ukraine to actually join Nato until after the war but that he hopes the summit will give a “clear signal” on the intention to bring Ukraine into the alliance.

· The US president spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, by phone on Sunday and “conveyed his desire to welcome Sweden into Nato as soon as possible”, the White House said. Washington has been increasing pressure on Ankara to drop its opposition to Sweden’s all-but-cleared Nato membership bid ahead of the Vilnius summit.

· Erdogan’s office said separately that the Turkish leader had reaffirmed to Biden his longstanding position that Sweden still needed to crack down harder on suspected Kurdish militants to win Turkey’s support. It said the two presidents would meet on the sidelines of the summit.

· The Nato meeting comes as members of Biden’s own Democratic party, rights groups and the UN raised questions about the US decision to send cluster bombs, which have been banned by more than 100 countries, to Ukraine. US senator Tim Kaine told Fox News he had “some real qualms” about the move because it “could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well”.

· Germany’s president has said the country should not “block” the US from sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, while maintaining its opposition to the use of the weapon. “Germany’s position against the use of cluster munitions is as justified as ever. But we cannot, in the current situation, block the United States,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German broadcaster ZDF on Sunday.

· Russian air defence systems shot down four missiles on Sunday, Russian officials said, one over the annexed Crimean peninsula and three over Russia’s Rostov and Bryansk regions that border Ukraine. Several buildings were damaged in Rostov and Bryansk but no casualties were reported. No casualties or damage were reported in Crimea.

· South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said next month’s Brics summit, which Vladimir Putin has been invited to attend, will be held in-person despite an arrest warrant on the Russian leader. “The Brics summit is going ahead and we are finalising our discussions on the format,” Ramaphosa told South African journalists on Sunday on the sidelines of a conference by the ruling ANC, adding it would be a “physical” meeting.

·

·

Updated at 01.13 

ATTACHMENT SIXTY TWO – From the Moscow Times

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN MET WITH RUSSIA’S WAGNER MERCENARY LEADER YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN AND HIS FIGHTERS AFTER THEIR FAILED MUTINY, THE KREMLIN CONFIRMED MONDAY.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin had welcomed Prigozhin and 34 Wagner commanders at the Kremlin on June 29.

“The commanders themselves outlined their version of events, emphasizing that they are soldiers and staunch supporters of the head of state and the supreme commander-in-chief,” Peskov said.

“They also said that they are ready to continue fighting for the motherland,” he added.

Earlier Monday, the French newspaper Libération, citing Western intelligence officials, first reported the Kremlin meeting, saying it had taken place on July 1. The head of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov and Russian spy chief Sergei Naryshkin were said to have been in attendance. 

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — who mediated a deal between Prigozhin and Putin to end the political crisis caused by Wagner’s mutiny — said the private army chief remained in Russia as of last week.

Reports citing flight tracking services suggest that a private jet linked to Prigozhin returned to Russia this week after flying to Belarus.

In the days following Wagner’s rebellion, Putin made several public appearances as part of an apparent PR campaign to shore up support for the Russian leader. 

At the June 29 meeting, Putin “assessed” Wagner’s actions on the Ukrainian frontline and their short-lived march toward Moscow from southern Russia, according to the state-run newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

The president offered the Wagner fighters “employment and combat options,” the publication added.

Peskov did not disclose whether Defense Ministry officials who had feuded with Prigozhin attended the talks.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Sunday that his Akhmat military unit has been deployed to the site of “difficult” fighting in the embattled eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

Fighting has picked up near Bakhmut, the site of the longest battle of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in recent days despite the Wagner mercenary group claiming to have captured the city in late May.

“The special operation’s command redeployed the Akhmat special forces under the command of Apty Alaudinov to the difficult Bakhmut area,” Kadyrov said.

“This rotation speaks of the General Staff’s trust and the unit’s high combat effectiveness,” Kadyrov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar corroborated Kadyrov’s account of heavy fighting around Bakhmut. 

Ukraine’s military said Monday it had liberated 24 square kilometers of territory surrounding Bakhmut since launching its counteroffensive in June.

Akhmat last month became the first Russian volunteer detachment to have signed a contract coming under the Defense Ministry’s formal command — contrasting with the Wagner Group, which balked at the ministry’s order.

Kadyrov said in May that the annexed and partially occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk fell under Akhmat’s area of responsibility.

The exact number of Chechen troops who make up Kadyrov’s Akhmat special forces is unknown.

Kadyrov, a Kremlin loyalist who has ruled over Chechnya with an iron fist since 2007, said last month that Akhmat is made up of three divisions.

Kadyrov has claimed that Chechnya had sent 26,000 fighters to Ukraine, 7,000 of whom were on the frontlines as of May 2023.

OLDER ATTACHMENTS (before July 3^rd)

OLD ATTACHMENTS from DJI.230703

ATTACHMENT ONE – From the New York Times

AS PUTIN’S TRUSTED PARTNER, PRIGOZHIN WAS ALWAYS WILLING TO DO THE DIRTY WORK

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the mercenary leader of the Wagner Group, had earned the trust of Vladimir V. Putin. Then he staged a mutiny that rattled the Kremlin.

By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Kyle Crichton June 24, 2023

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the mercenary leader who led an armed rebellion in Russia on Saturday, was never afraid of a dirty task, many say.

Emerging from jail as the Soviet Union was collapsing, he began his post-criminal career selling hot dogs on street corners in St. Petersburg, Russia. There, he befriended Vladimir V. Putin, then a minor official in the city government, developed a catering business and earned billions on government contracts when his friend Vladimir became prime minister and then president of Russia.

Mr. Prigozhin quickly earned the trust of his benefactor, who assigned him a number of important tasks that were best handled at arm’s length from the government. The first and most notorious of those was overseeing the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm founded in 2013 to flood the United States and Europe with disinformation that discredited liberal elites and promoted hard-right ideologies.

From there, he raised mercenaries to fight in Syria and Libya, and, most fatefully, founded the private military group Wagner, which emerged during Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. It quickly earned a reputation for ruthless violence in pursuit of lucrative diamond and gold concessions, while building political influence for the Kremlin in countries like the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Sudan.

Throughout those years, Mr. Prigozhin kept an extremely low profile, never even admitting to the existence of Wagner, let alone his having a role in it.

That began to change during the war in Ukraine, as the Russian military suffered setback after setback and Mr. Prigozhin became disgusted with the greed, corruption and ineptitude he claimed to see in the upper echelons of the military.

“These are Wagner guys who died today; the blood is still fresh,” Mr. Prigozhin said, addressing Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and the commander of the armed forces, Valery V. Gerasimov. “They came here as volunteers and they die so you can get fat in your mahogany offices.”

As his critiques of Russia’s top military leaders grew more frequent and intemperate, he began to emerge as a public figure, insisting that his forces could do the job far better than the Russian regulars.

He recruited thousands of convicts from Russian prisons and threw them into the bloody fight over the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, often with the ruthlessness and indifference to human life that he attributed to Russian commanders. Along the way he feuded with General Shoigu and General Gerasimov, accusing them of depriving his forces of ammunition to try to destroy Wagner, an action he said “can be equated to treason.”

For Mr. Prigozhin, a breaking point was reached on Friday night, when, he says, Russian forces attacked his men as they slept in their camps (something that Russia denies and that has not been independently confirmed). On Saturday, he led a force he claimed to number 25,000 out of Ukraine and into Russia, where he seized the city of Rostov-on-Don, a military hub, with virtually no resistance.

Always a complex figure, he was prone to vituperative outbursts and threats that were quickly forgotten or contradicted, as happened on Saturday. After first claiming he would march his forces all the way to Moscow, he reversed course later in the day. He had agreed to a proposal by the Belarusian leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, “to stop the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company” and move to Belarus. In return, the Russian government would drop the charges of treason against him and grant amnesty to his soldiers.

It remains unclear if he can return to Russia, but he has capitalized on his feud with the generals to fashion himself as a populist political figure, fighting for humble servicemen and others suffering at the hands of “unqualified scoundrels and intrigants.”

He has contrasted that with what he sees as the decadence of Russian elites and the injustice in society.

“The children of the elite smear themselves with creams, showing it on the internet; ordinary people’s children come in zinc, torn to pieces,” he said, referring to the coffins of dead soldiers, and adding that those killed in action had “tens of thousands” of relatives. “Society always demands justice,” he said, “and if there is no justice, then revolutionary sentiments arise.”

Where Mr. Prigozhin goes from here is hard to pin down, as is the fate of Wagner.

If he remains in control of the company, and that is by no means assured, he will still command considerable military assets, but they will be devalued if they cannot rely on the support of the Russian military.

Apart from his standing force, Mr. Prigozhin claimed this month that 32,000 former convicts who had served with Wagner in Ukraine had returned to their homes in Russia. Many of these veterans have expressed strong loyalty to Mr. Prigozhin and have considered returning to its ranks, according to interviews with survivors and their relatives, providing an additional pool of potential recruits to the rebel cause.

Yet most experts believe Wagner’s real strength is far below what Mr. Prigozhin claims, and that he is hoping more Russian soldiers and security agents disgusted by the corruption and mistreatment they see will respond to his populist critique of the leadership and join his ranks.

The U.S. government estimated in December that Wagner had 10,000 professional soldiers. That number most likely fell in recent months as Wagner was forced to throw its most experienced units into battle to finalize the capture of Bakhmut, according to Ukrainian and Western intelligence officials.

Mr. Prigozhin himself said this year that after the capture of Bakhmut, his force would “downsize” as it prepared for new missions.

Notably, Mr. Prigozhin had managed to run a force numbering tens of thousands of fighters largely on cash. Veterans and their relatives had received salaries, as well as death and injury compensations, through an elaborate network of nameless intermediaries spread across the nation.

The mutiny is likely to have erased that logistical support. And most experts believe that no personal wealth can maintain a large military force capable of challenging a regular army for long, especially without access to the state-controlled financial system.

Earlier on Saturday, videos circulating on social media showed purported Wagner convoys moving through Russia toward Moscow with mounted tanks, air defenses and self-propelled rocket launchers. Most of the rebels’ convoys, however, appeared to be made up of unprotected trucks carrying soldiers.

Mark Galeotti, a Russia military expert, said the limited amount of heavy weaponry would make it difficult for Wagner to operate independently of the Russian military.

“Without artillery you can’t really fight straight-up warfare,” he said.

Before the crisis on Saturday, many analysts had said that Mr. Prigozhin was looking to transition to the political sphere in Russia, though he had been careful not to pose any threat to Mr. Putin.

“He sees his future at risk, and he is scrambling to present a place for himself after Bakhmut within the larger war,” said Jack Margolin, a Washington-based expert on Russia’s private military companies.

ATTACHMENT TWO - From the Associated Press

THE MERCENARY CHIEF WHO URGED AN UPRISING AGAINST RUSSIA’S GENERALS HAS LONG TIES TO PUTIN

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER

The millionaire mercenary chief who long benefitted from the powerful patronage of President Vladimir Putin has moved into the global spotlight with a dramatic rebellion against Russia’s military that challenged the authority of Putin himself.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is the 62-year-old owner of the Kremlin-allied Wagner Group, a private army of inmate recruits and other mercenaries that has fought some of the deadliest battles in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Friday, Prigozhin abruptly escalated months of scathing criticism of Russia’s conduct of the war, calling for an armed uprising to oust the defense minister, and then rolling toward Moscow with his soldiers-for-hire.

As Putin’s government declared a “counterterrorism” alert and scrambled to seal off Moscow with checkpoints, Prigozhin just as abruptly stood down the following day. As part of the deal to defuse the crisis, he agreed to move to Belarus and was seen late Saturday retreating with his forces from Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia where they had taken over the military headquarters.

It was unclear what was next for Prigozhin, a former prison inmate, hot-dog vendor and restaurant owner who has riveted world attention.

‘PUTIN’S CHEF’

Prigozhin and Putin go way back, with both born in Leningrad, what is now St. Petersburg.

During the final years of the Soviet Union, Prigozhin served time in prison — 10 years by his own admission — although he does not say what it was for.

Afterward, he owned a hot dog stand and then fancy restaurants that drew interest from Putin. In his first term, the Russian leader took then-French President Jacques Chirac to dine at one of them.

“Vladimir Putin saw how I built a business out of a kiosk, he saw that I don’t mind serving to the esteemed guests because they were my guests,” Prigozhin recalled in an interview published in 2011.

His businesses expanded significantly to catering and providing school lunches. In 2010, Putin helped open Prigozhin’s factory, which was built on generous loans by a state bank. In Moscow alone, his company Concord won millions of dollars in contracts to provide meals at public schools. He also organized catering for Kremlin events for several years — earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef” — and has provided catering and utility services to the Russian military.

In 2017, opposition figure and corruption fighter Alexei Navalny accused Prigozhin’s companies of breaking antitrust laws by bidding for some $387 million in Defense Ministry contracts.

MILITARY CONNECTION

Prigozhin also owns the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-allied mercenary force that has come to play a central role in Putin’s projection of Russian influence in trouble spots around the world.

The United States, European Union, United Nations and others say the mercenary force has involved itself in conflicts in countries across Africa in particular. Wagner fighters allegedly provide security for national leaders or warlords in exchange for lucrative payments, often including a of gold or other natural resources. U.S. officials say Russia may also be using Wagner’s work in Africa to support its war in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, Prigozhin’s mercenaries have become a major force in the war, fighting as counterparts to the Russian army in battles with Ukrainian forces.

That includes Wagner fighters taking Bakhmut, the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. By last month, Wagner Group and Russian forces appeared to have largely won Bakhmut, a victory with strategically slight importance for Russia despite the cost in lives. Prigozhin has said that 20,000 of his men died in Bakhmut, about half of them inmates recruited from Russia’s prisons.

WHAT IS THE GROUP’S REPUTATION?

Western countries and United Nations experts have accused Wagner Group mercenaries of committing numerous human rights abuses throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.

In December 2021, the European Union accused the group of “serious human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings,” and of carrying out “destabilizing activities” in the Central African Republic, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

Some of the reported incidents stood out in their grisly brutality.

In November 2022, a video surfaced online that showed a former Wagner contractor getting beaten to death with a sledgehammer after he allegedly fled to the Ukrainian side and was recaptured. Despite public outrage and a stream of demands for an investigation, the Kremlin turned a blind eye to it.

RAGING AGAINST RUSSIA’S GENERALS

As his forces fought and died en masse in Ukraine, Prigozhin raged against Russia’s military brass. In a video released by his team last month, Prigozhin stood next to rows bodies he said were those of Wagner fighters. He accused Russia’s regular military of incompetence and of starving his troops of the weapons and ammunition they needed to fight.

“These are someone’s fathers and someone’s sons,” Prigozhin said then. “The scum that doesn’t give us ammunition will eat their guts in hell.”

CRITICIZING THE BRASS

Prigozhin has castigated the top military brass, accusing top-ranking officers of incompetence. His remarks were unprecedented for Russia’s tightly controlled political system, in which only Putin could air such criticism.

In January, Putin reaffirmed his trust in the chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, by putting him in direct charge of the Russian forces in Ukraine, a move that some observers also interpreted as an attempt to cut Prigozhin down to size.

Asked recently about a media comparison of him to Grigory Rasputin, a mystic who gained influence over Russia’s last czar by claiming to have the power to cure his son’s hemophilia, Prigozhin snapped: “I don’t stop blood, but I spill blood of the enemies of our Motherland.”

A ‘BAD ACTOR’ IN THE US

Prigozhin earlier gained more limited attention in the U.S., when he and a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies were charged with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord ahead of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.

They were indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference. The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned Prigozhin and associates repeatedly in connection with both his election interference and his leadership of the Wagner Group.

After the 2018 indictment, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Prigozhin as saying, in a clearly sarcastic remark: “Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see. I treat them with great respect. I’m not at all upset that I’m on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him.”

The Biden White House in that episode called him “a known bad actor,” and State Department spokesman Ned Price said Prigozhin’s “bold confession, if anything, appears to be just a manifestation of the impunity that crooks and cronies enjoy under President Putin and the Kremlin.”

AVOIDING CHALLENGES TO PUTIN

As Prigozhin grew more outspoken against the way Russia’s conventional military conducted fighting in Ukraine, he continued to play a seemingly indispensable role for the Russian offensive, and appeared to suffer no retaliation from Putin for his criticism of Putin’s generals.

Media reports at times suggested Prigozhin’s influence on Putin was growing and he was after a prominent political post. But analysts warned against overestimating his influence with Putin.

“He’s not one of Putin’s close figures or a confidant,” said Mark Galeotti of University College, London, who specializes in Russian security affairs, speaking on his podcast “In Moscow’s Shadows.”

“Prigozhin does what the Kremlin wants and does very well for himself in the process. But that’s the thing — he is part of the staff rather than part of the family,” Galeotti said.

ATTACHMENT THREE – From the National Review

BRUTAL MANIAC FAILS TO DEPOSE OTHER BRUTAL MANIAC

By JIM GERAGHTY June 25, 2023 12:12 PM

Think about all the things that must go right to pull off a successful coup.

You need to accurately sense that there is widespread discontent with the country’s ruler within the country, and in particular within the armed forces – often in a nation where speaking out against the ruler carries dire or fatal consequences. You absolutely must be a figure with the kind of official or unofficial stature to seize control of the armed forces. You need to either recruit, co-opt, or otherwise neutralize every other armed group within the country – the police, the domestic security services, the intelligence services. You must operate in absolute secrecy, while simultaneously recruiting more and more people to your cause. You need to make sure no one you speak to goes running to the ruler to rat you out, and everyone who joins the coup remains fully committed until it is complete. If anyone gets cold feet, you and your co-conspirators will likely be executed.

Oftentimes, in a dictatorial state like Russia, the leader has been paranoid about efforts to depose him since his first day ruling the country. State surveillance is ubiquitous; perhaps the best camouflage is an endless rumor mill where everyone is under suspicion all the time, so no particular act stands out as suspicious.

Once the operation begins, you must operate quickly – you must have already snatched as many levers of the state as possible – communications, key transportation routes and hubs, important government buildings — before the ruler or the general public realizes what is happening. You need the kind of access and power to suddenly either kill or isolate and imprison the ruler. And even if all that goes right, it’s still a giant gamble – which orders do the soldiers follow? What is a desperate ruler willing to do as hostile forces close in on him? And how does the general public react?

In this light, it’s surprising that coups ever succeed.

Maybe you must be a crazed maniac to try to launch a coup against a cold-blooded, paranoid dictator like Vladimir Putin. Then again, Yevgeniy Prigozhin meets most people’s definition of a crazed maniac. As a young man, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison for robbery, fraud, and involving minors in prostitution. After serving nine years, he turned a hot dog stand into the country’s largest catering company with government contracts. In 2019, his lucrative catering firm was accused of causing dysentery outbreaks at seven state-run day care catering and kindergartens in Moscow. He shrugged off a video of a “traitor” being executed by sledgehammer blows to the head, declaring, “a dog receives a dog’s death. . . . It was an excellent directional piece of work, watched in one breath.” He boasted that his forces were deliberately turning the battle of Bakhmut into a “meat grinder” to maximize the casualties to the Ukrainians.

And yet, Bellingcat calls Prigozhin “the Renaissance man of deniable Russian black ops.” Besides running the Wagner Group and sending retired Russian soldiers all around the globe to enforce Russia’s will without leaving government fingerprints, Prigozhin is the man behind the Russian Internet “troll factory,” the Saint Petersburg–based Internet Research Agency,. He was indicted by former FBI director Robert Mueller for a conspiracy to steal the identities of American citizens, posed as political activists in a plot to influence the 2016 election.

As the world learned this weekend, a man crazy enough to launch a coup against Putin is also crazy enough to say, “eh, nevermind” after a day and accept exile in Belarus because Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko asked him nicely to avoid starting a Russian civil war. Perhaps Prigozhin lost his nerve, or belatedly realized the odds were stacked against him. His short-lived upheaval left those of us in the West wondering how much control Putin really has over the Russian state.

More than a few foreign-policy wonks have warned that under Putin, Russia was devolving into something more akin to North Korea: irrational, unpredictable, provocative, a barely functional state by many measures, but still nuclear-armed and capable of threatening anyone. For decades, Russia watchers in the West convinced themselves that Russia was antagonistic but rational, and that President Biden was correct to seek a “stable and predictable” relationship with Russia. But as we’ve seen since the invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022, neither Putin nor Russia are all that stable or predictable.

If Putin died tomorrow — or he became incapacitated — the current prime minister would become acting president. The current prime minster is Mikhail Mishustin, a man who is in that job precisely because he has no ambition to replace Putin or any demonstrated capacity to disagree with him. According to the Russian constitution, after the president dies, an election to replace him should be called within 90 days. Mishustin would be eligible to run, but he doesn’t seem like a man with a burning hunger to run a nuclear-armed state that is now a global pariah.

The men who rise to the top of the Russian system tend to be like Putin and Prigozhin – egomaniacal, ruthless, brutal, paranoid, shameless – an odious combination of cold-blooded ambition and wicked comfort with violence. Maybe this weekend’s events signal the beginning of the end for Putin’s rule. But whoever replaces Putin isn’t likely to have a dramatically different geopolitical worldview or code of ethics from his predecessor. Russian leaders feel vulnerable and threatened, and so they seek to avert those threats by taking a bellicose stance toward the country’s neighbors and the West.

After two decades of Putin’s shameless provocations and aggression, the West yearned to see Russia’s leadership weakened. But there’s no guarantee that a weaker Russia will be a more stable Russia.

ATTACHMENT FOUR – From the Wall Street Journal

WHY WAGNER CHIEF PRIGOZHIN TURNED AGAINST PUTIN

Military infighting, financial pressures and personal political ambitions played into brash decision

By Benoit Faucon, Joe Parkinson and Thomas Grove June 25, 2023 4:29 pm ET

The grainy footage announcing the insurrection appeared on the Telegram messaging site at 7:24 a.m.: Yevgeny Prigozhin had gathered two of Russia’s most senior commanders to humiliate them on camera and threaten to march his mercenary army to Moscow.

“Our men die because you treat them like meat…no ammo, no plans,” said the founder of the Wagner Group private military company, flanked by masked fighters who had seized the Rostov-on Don command center. He demanded the base’s brass hand over their bosses, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov, whom he called “geriatric clowns.”

The video reverberated across the world, offering a partial explanation for the lightning insurrection that posed the gravest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s 23 years in power.

The full story behind why Prigozhin launched—then stunningly halted—his revolt isn’t yet known. But the elements include the culmination of military infighting, financial pressures and Prigozhin’s personal political ambitions, according to Russian defectors, military analysts and Western intelligence officials. 

After years of rapid growth that saw Wagner play a leading role in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the mercenary outfit was facing pressure. Russia’s defense ministry was tightening the noose around the company, starving it of recruitment, finance and weapons. Putin, who long promoted rivalries among his subordinates to prevent succession challenges, was siding with defense chiefs against Prigozhin, a former convict who had grown up in the same St. Petersburg streets as the president. 

A key trigger was the June 10 Russian defense ministry order that all volunteer detachments would have to sign contracts with the government by July 1, a move to bring Wagner under formal military control. Prigozhin refused. 

A video grab shows Yevgeny Prigozhin, center, speaking with Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, right, and Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Evkurov, left, inside the headquarters of the Russian southern military district in the city of Rostov-on-Don. PHOTO: TELEGRAM/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

“Prigozhin was driven to this by his understanding he was being driven into a corner,” said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a military think tank. “He simply didn’t want to sink into oblivion.”

A day after the deescalation agreement, which pledged that Prigozhin would head to Russia’s closest ally, Belarus, in exchange for the dropping of criminal charges against him, neither the Wagner chief nor Putin has spoken publicly about the mutiny. Shoigu and Gerasimov, whose removal was Prigozhin’s key demand, have remained out of sight. 

As of Sunday afternoon, Wagner remained in charge of the Millerovo military airfield in southern Russia, according to European intelligence officials. It wasn’t clear when and how Prigozhin would leave for Belarus, and how many of his men would follow suit. European intelligence officials said that if Prigozhin goes to Belarus he would be unlikely to stay long, fearing possible reprisals from the Kremlin, and could use the control of the airfields to fly senior Wagner loyalists to the relative safety of the company’s operations in Africa.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that Wagner troops who didn’t participate in Saturday’s mutiny would be eligible to sign contracts with the ministry of defense but didn’t say what will happen to the many thousands who did.

Opinion is still divided on whether Prigozhin’s aim was to leverage more influence within Putin’s security system or ultimately seize power. Also unclear is whether he coordinated his actions with factions within Russia’s sprawling security services or the Kremlin itself. His column initially faced little resistance and European intelligence officials noted that the Rosvgardia national guard, that reports directly to Putin and is stationed in every Russian Oblast, or state, didn’t have the means to challenge the mercenaries.

Neither the Kremlin nor Russia’s defense ministry responded to requests for comment. 

Prigozhin made his move after state support that once flowed to Wagner was diverted to new private mercenary groups established by state-owned companies such as gas giant Gazprom.

On Saturday, as Prigozhin addressed Russians through audio messages on Telegram, law-enforcement officials raided one of his hotels in St. Petersburg and paraded forged passports bearing his picture, pistols and some four billion rubles, or $48 million, in cash, according to independent Russian news outlets. Prigozhin later said on his telegram channel that the funds were earmarked for salaries and families of fallen soldiers but also secret operations in Ukraine and Africa where Wagner has fighters.

The uneasy truce struck on Saturday saw Wagner fighters roll out of the stronghold cities of Rostov and Voronezh which they had captured with little to no military resistance. Prigozhin himself drove out of Rostov in a black SUV, with admirers cheering him from the sides of the road.

It has not been confirmed that Prigozhin has left Russia. even if he does, he maintains an outsize base of support—not only among his fighters who have dispersed to Ukraine, Belarus and Wagner’s training base in Molkino, Russia—but also among the Russians who admire his courage for openly talking about the country’s endemic corruption. 

The fate of his fighters is less clear. The Kremlin has come out of the weekend’s events looking weaker, and tolerance for any known dissent will only likely shrink. While the agreement says all those who took part in Prigozhin’s uprising will be amnestied, Russia watchers believed the Kremlin is likely poised to root out pockets of Progozhin’s armed supporters quietly over time.

“They’ll get hung, just later,” said Pukhov, the military analyst.

Until recently it seemed unlikely that Prigozhin, a 62-year-old petty criminal-turned-businessman, whose influence was created and sponsored by the Kremlin, would raise the banner of rebellion.

He had entered Kremlin circles with his catering company, Concord, which threw lavish banquets for the St. Petersburg and Moscow elite. He personally poured wine for Putin’s guests such as then-President George W. Bush, and earned lucrative catering contracts for the Russian military. Those who knew him during his rise knew him as a political animal with wild ambitions for money and power. 

Prigozhin built a unit of armed men to protect his business interests and provide leverage against some of Putin’s acolytes in Russia’s almost-feudal political system. This group evolved into Wagner. He also set up the “troll farms” that sought to influence the 2016 U.S. elections. 

As Wagner chief, Prigozhin was crucial to Putin’s efforts to extend Russia’s global interests. Wagner helped pro-Russian forces in the Donbas region of Ukraine after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and helped secure territory for the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a Putin ally. In 2018, as Wagner forces advanced toward positions held by U.S. soldiers near Deir Ezzour, American commanders asked the Russian defense ministry to identify the soldiers. The defense ministry responded that it didn’t know. When U.S. troops opened fire, killing more than 100 mercenaries, Prigozhin blamed Shoigu, igniting their feud. 

Wagner’s forces deployed to several African nations, offering security for regimes in return for lucrative mining concessions. As Putin’s plans for a Blitzkrieg strike on Kyiv failed, he tapped Prigozhin to rapidly expand Wagner’s ranks and bolster Russia’s flailing conventional forces. Wagner’s relative successes on the battlefield prompted some U.S. officials to wonder if he could replace Putin. 

Until September last year, Prigozhin and the Kremlin denied the Wagner Group existed. The man who spent a total of nine years in Soviet prisons was hiring top London and New York lawyers to sue those who linked him to the firm. Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian organized crime and honorary professor at University College London, said Prigozhin is still driven by the precepts of the macho code of the vorovski mir, or “thieves world” he learned in jail: “To look after your own, never forget a slight and never back down.”  

Elite Fracture

The unseen tensions between Wagner and Russia’s military exploded into public view in February when Prigozhin publicly complained that the defense ministry had limited the provision of weapons and ammunition for his 50,000-strong force that had fought in Bakhmut, a small town that had become the most critical front line of the Ukraine invasion. 

Wagner’s forces led Bakhmut’s capture in May, Russia’s first material advance in 10 months, but the victory came at a cost of over 20,000 Wagner lives, according to Prigozhin’s public tally. As Wagner troops raised flags in the town center, Prigozhin appeared in a video among the devastation to address Shoigu and Gerasimov directly: “Because of their whims, five times more guys than had been supposed to die have died. They will be held responsible for their actions, which in Russian are called crimes.”

The news boosted Prigozhin in his clash with the defense ministry. Putin meanwhile kept switching between the two sides as military fortunes ebbed and flowed. He promoted generals who appeared to be aligned with Prigozhin, then fired them and appeared to move more decisively behind Shoigu and Gerasimov.

Ukrainian commanders meanwhile sought to widen the divide, with Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief, lauding Gerasimov’s military talents, while Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence, used TV interviews to compliment Prigozhin.

Wagner had shown “utmost effectiveness, unlike the Russian army, which has shown its utmost lack of effectiveness,” Budanov said, stressing that Shoigu was jealous of Prigozhin’s success. 

By early June, Wagner and Russia’s regular army were behaving as if they were enemy forces. 

Prigozhin said his fighters’ escape routes from Bakhmut were mined by Ministry of Defense troops. When Wagner came to clear the path, they were fired upon by the military, according to Prigozhin. Russian military officials said that wasn’t true.

In retaliation, on June 5, Wagner arrested and filmed a Russian army lieutenant colonel who said he had ordered his troops to shoot at its mercenaries. It was “due to personal hostility,” said the detained officer, his nose bloodied.

On June 10, Shoigu issued an order that openly tried to poach Prigozhin’s fighters, offering individual contracts to private volunteers directly with his ministry. “Prigozhin saw this move as an attempt at checkmate,” said one European intelligence official.

Five days later, a Russian paratrooper division showed pictures of Syrian volunteers, who long reported to Wagner, now fighting with regular forces.

When Prigozhin mounted his stunning Saturday takeover of the Rostov military command post, he dispatched a 5,000 strong column led by a key commander named Dmitry Utkin, known for his tattoos of Nazi symbols, toward the capital. By then Prigozhin said Wagner’s strength had been whittled down to 25,000 men. 

Wagner forces shot down six Russian helicopters and an IL-22 airborne command-center plane, killing 13 airmen, according to Russian military analysts—deaths that will not be quickly forgotten, particularly inside the Russian air force, which is commanded by Prigozhin’s onetime ally Gen. Sergei Surovikin. 

Damage included bridges and roads destroyed by authorities that aimed to stop Wagner’s march, and a jet-fuel depot that was hit and burned down in the city of Voronezh.

Prigozhin late Saturday night left the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov, to an unknown destination. Analysts said the efforts to absorb the Wagner fighters into conventional forces and strip Prigozhin or cash and influence would now accelerate.   

Analysts said Putin’s silence suggested he was focused on shoring up support among the fractured elite. One intelligence official said the president’s power had been weakened to such an extent that it had reduced the threat of nuclear conflict, since subordinates would be less likely to enact his orders. 

A photo from a highway in Moscow, posted onto Twitter by the BBC’s Russia correspondent, was widely d on Sunday, as it seemed to sum up some residents’ feelings: a car’s back window painted with large white letters in English: “WTF WAS THAT?”

ATTACHMENT FIVE – From CNN (attached to dji.230703, embedded in timeline, below)

PRIGOZHIN SAYS HIS FORCES "ARE TURNING OUR COLUMNS AROUND," AMID CLAIMS OF DEAL BROKERED BY LUKASHENKO

From CNN's Katharina Krebs and Nathan Hodge, 1:57 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin published a new audio recording Saturday claiming he was turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow. 

“We turning our columns around and going back in the other direction toward our field camps, in accordance with the plan,” he said in a message on Telegram.

The announcement comes as the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Wagner boss to halt the march of his forces on Moscow. 

AND OUR COMBINED TIMELINES – From Time, the New York Times, the Guardian U.K., the Washington Post, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the Associated Press... partisan mouthpieces ranging from the Huffington Post (on the left), Newsmax and the Washington Times (on the right) and, in between numerous other media suppliers, large and small, American and global; as, for example, the Independent U.K. and BBC, Al Jazeera (Qatar), Meduza (Latvia) and the Moscow Times (presumably published from some place other than Moscow).

The selections, including excerpts embedded within larger articles, have been arranged in chronological order... sort of, given that some were published in reverse order in the original format, some were dated but untimed, a few neither time, nor dated; and there is also some potential for confusion where it was not noted whether the placement was according to EDT (New York) time, Greenwich Mean (mostly the English) and a few that were posted according to Moscow time. Be forwarned.

Many, especially from the larger mediots, containd charts, graphs maps and many, many photographs, which can be accessed by going back to the original websites.

We begin with a few older selections from BEFORE the INSURRECTION, including historical excerpts from larger, current articles:

From the BBC

Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner chief blames war on defence minister

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has been blamed for starting war

By Steve Rosenberg. Russia Editor, Moscow – Untimed and Undated

We're used to hearing Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin ranting and raving at Russia's military leadership - particularly at defence minister Sergei Shoigu - for problems on the battlefield.

Public infighting between the Wagner mercenary group and the Ministry of Defence isn't new.

But this is.

In his latest video tirade via Telegram, Prigozhin blames Shoigu for starting Russia's war in Ukraine in February last year.

Speaking first about the fighting in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014 after Russia's military intervention, Prigozhin said: "We were hitting them, and they were hitting us. That's how it went on for those eight long years, from 2014 to 2022. Sometimes the number of skirmishes would increase, sometimes decrease."

"On 24 February [2022] there was nothing extraordinary happening there. Now the Ministry of Defence is trying to deceive the public, deceive the president and tell a story that there was some crazy aggression by Ukraine, that - together with the whole Nato bloc - Ukraine was planning to attack us.

"The war was needed... so that Shoigu could become a Marshal, so that he could get a second Hero Star… the war wasn't for demilitarising or de-nazifying Ukraine. It was needed for an extra star."

Prigozhin also blamed the war on oligarchs, condemning "the clan which in practice rules Russia today".

Strong words. But will they have consequences?

That depends on the nature of Prigozhin's current relationship with President Vladimir Putin. And no-one's quite sure what that is right now.

· Russia and Wagner clash over Ukraine attack claims

· From Putin's chef to head of Russia's private army

Is the tough-talking angry Prigozhin we see and hear on Telegram a fully-fledged Kremlin project? If so, his blame the war on Shoigu and oligarchs rant could be designed to shield Putin from public criticism, while offering the Kremlin a possible way out of a conflict that hasn't gone to plan, without damaging the president or the political system.

Prigozhin has named the fall-guys… and they don't include Putin.

But would that work?

After all, Putin is so closely associated with this war. In his address to the nation on 24 February 2022, the Kremlin leader made it clear that it was his decision to launch the so-called "special military operation", the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Plus, arguing that the president has been woefully deceived by a minister he appointed doesn't reflect glowingly on the man at the top.

True, in Russia the Kremlin controls the media landscape and the messaging. If TV channels and pro-Kremlin military bloggers here were to transmit such an interpretation, many Russians would accept it.

But what if Yevgeny Prigozhin's outburst wasn't coordinated with the Kremlin?

What if he's acquired political ambitions of his own? Or concluded that, having made powerful enemies within the Russian elite (especially the military) for him attack is the best form of defence? Even if it means going off-message.

A 'rogue' Prigozhin risks rocking the boat - and Russia's political system - by undermining the Kremlin's messaging.

Only last week Putin repeated the need (as he sees it) to "demilitarise" and "de-nazify" Ukraine. Prigozhin's latest comments contradict that argument.

AND...

From the BBC: 2022: Ros Atkins on... Putin’s false Nazi claims about Ukraine

I've written before that making sense of Russian politics is like trying to do a giant jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. You attempt to connect the clues, but you're never quite sure what the final picture will be.

I'm still puzzling out Prigozhin.

But, aside from the Wagner chief, there are other interesting pieces of the Russian jigsaw which hint at a different outcome.

For example, as badly as things have gone for the Kremlin in Ukraine, might Moscow declare "mission accomplished"?

President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently claimed that "the aim [of demilitarising Ukraine] has largely been achieved", arguing that Ukraine has less and less of its own armaments and is increasingly reliant on weapons from abroad.

And earlier this month more than 20 Ukrainian soldiers, members of the Azov regiment, went on trial in southern Russia. Russia calls Azov a "terrorist group" that harbours neo-Nazis. Could it portray the case as "de-nazification" and stop there?

But there are other indications that "stopping" is not in Putin's plans. In recent appearances on TV, he's come across as confident of victory and dismissive of Ukraine's counter-offensive.

"The enemy is suffering major losses," Putin told a Russian TV reporter this week, adding: "The enemy has no chance."

From the SDOC News (san diego)

PUTIN NOW SAYS THAT FEMALE CONVICTS BEGGED TO AID IN THE WAR IN EXCHANGE FOR THE PARDONING OF THEIR CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS

From SDOC News 2023-01-26

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia's notorious mercenary organization, the Wagner Group, has indicated he supports allowing convicted women to serve on the front lines in Ukraine. In a letter from Vyacheslav Wegner, Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk region, Prigozhin indicated that he is now prepared to send female inmates into Ukraine. His support extends to positions other than combat support roles. [i]

According to Wegner’s letter published by Prigozhin’s press service, a team of women inmates recently approached Wegner. The women are serving sentences in Russia’s penal colony number 6, IK-6, also known as Black Dolphin prison. Black Dolphin prison is known for housing Russia’s most dangerous killers. [ii]

Despite this, Wegner confidently says that women are,

Ready to go to the zone of a special military operation as signalmen, doctors, nurses, to provide all possible assistance to our servicemen there. [iii]

Prigozhin not only agreed that women should be able to serve in exchange for commuted sentences, but he also took it one step further, stating,

I absolutely agree with you. Not only nurses and signalmen but also in sabotage groups and sniper pairs. Everyone knows that it was widely used. We are working in this direction. There is resistance, but I think we will press on. [iv]

The stipulations for female prisoners would mirror those of males in that Prigozhin says those who agree to fight in the ongoing war shall have their sentences commuted. Some believe the effort to be a desperate attempt to boost Russia’s troop numbers. [v]

Watch the video below for more on the Black Dolphin prison.

Specifically, Olga Romanova, who heads a Russian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that protects convicts’ rights, spoke against using inmates. Romanova asserts that many male prisoners who agreed to sign up and fight for 180 days to receive a pardon from Putin have either been “killed, gone missing, or deserted.” [vi]

The recent request to allow women to serve follows the November 2022 revelation by Ukraine’s Head Office of the President, Andrii Yermak. Yermak indicated that many criminals had been sent straight into battle without appropriate protection or weapons, being used as “expendable soldiers” or “cannon fodder.” [vii]

Many say Wagner will “have as little regard for their [female inmates'] lives as they do for the lives of the convicted male criminals currently serving on the front lines in Bakhmut.” Ukrainians assert that Russian ‘camels’ are equipped only with machine guns, no armor or helmet, to raid the Ukrainian’s positions. [vii]

Women's willingness to sign-up may also be a result of the much-discussed conditions of Russia's prisons, particularly for women. One former inmate, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, d that women had to work 16 to 17 hours a day while incarcerated. In addition, they were only allotted a single day off every eight weeks. Many inmates suffer abuse and beatings. [viii]

From the Economist, Jun 8th 2023

How drugs and alcohol have fuelled soldiers for centuries

Russians in Ukraine seem to rely on copious amounts of liquor and, in some cases, hard drugs

Ukrainian forces have often attributed the poor performance of Russian soldiers since the invasion last year to drunkenness. Armies reflect their societies and alcoholism caused by excessive vodka consumption has long been a reason for the chronically low life expectancy of Russian men (about 64). But there is nothing unusual about soldiers hitting the booze—or even something stronger. Since ancient times, when Greek hoplites and Roman legionaries went into battle fuelled by wine, alcohol has been both the soldier’s best friend and sometimes his mortal enemy.

As Lukasz Kamiensky argues in his wide-ranging “Shooting Up: A History of Drugs in Warfare”, front-line soldiers experience a degree of stress that is almost unimaginable to civilians. They are expected to cope with the fear of their own demise, the horror of death around them and the obligation to kill.

RUMOURS of REVOLUTION: Monday, June 19 to Friday, June 24

Monday, June 19th

From UnHerd

The pantomime is over for Prigozhin

The Wagner Group leader won't survive on theatrics

BY IAN GARNER

"Prigozhin is a busted flush." Prigozhin/Telegram

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the vitriolic and confrontational leader of the Wagner “Private Military Company”, has come to play a leading role in the bitter war of words between the country’s nationalists and armed forces. For months, he has been lobbing increasingly fiery rhetorical grenades at defence chief Sergei Shoigu’s Army and Ministry of Defence, which he accuses of incompetence and corruption, and blames for Russia’s floundering war effort.

Western pundits were agog when Prigozhin appeared to go so far as to criticise Putin, promising to his forces from the line and threatening Shoigu with execution. He even appeared to label Putin “grandpa” — a nickname made popular by jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny — in a caustic video. Many wonder whether Wagner’s leader might attempt to seize control of the military leadership or even launch a coup. But recent developments suggest that this pantomime is about to end. Prigozhin’s power is to be curtailed — and there’s little he can do about it.

Prigozhin, an ex-convict known as “Putin’s chef”, has long been a master self-publicist. His Wagner Group, whose state connections were until recently officially denied, is an exquisitely branded enterprise housed in a glass office tower in St. Petersburg. The group’s social media presence is no less brazen. The online world of the Wagner “musicians”, as the organisation’s soldiers are known, is made up of thousands of gloomy TikTok videos displaying balaclava-wearing, skull-emblazoned troops rattling off machine gun rounds and rockets. Wagner musicians and their online fans soundtrack videos of war crimes and violent fighting with uber-macho hip hop beats and ceaseless nationalist and racist commentary about the Ukrainian enemy. In this world, morality and ethics seem to have been cast aside in favour of macabre destruction for its own sake.

Prigozhin channels this violence in selfie videos released to Telegram channels with hundreds of thousands of followers, promising to wreak havoc against the state’s enemies and — if he doesn’t get the arms, troops, and control he wants — against the state itself. The threat of internecine violence is not rhetorical. Last week, Wagner forces in occupied Ukraine “arrested” a senior Russian Army officer who had purportedly ordered his forces to fire on Wagner positions. The officer’s interrogation was published on Prigozhin’s channel: he was brazenly baiting his nemesis. Wagner and the Army, it seemed, were at war.

The Russian state’s elite cliques and power blocs have long engaged in bitter power struggles to position themselves to reap financial rewards, curry favour with Vladimir Putin, and cement their own status. Typically, Putin has watched on from the sidelines while his underlings tear chunks out of one another. Eventually, the conflict ends in a moment of public political theatre as the losing “villain” is publicly shamed. Such has been Putin’s modus operandi since the arrest and televised trial of the oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003. Rarely does the show begin, however, before the outcome is determined.

Prigozhin, though, has pre-emptively brought the battle into the open. The nature of social media allows Prigozhin’s fans — and enemies — to participate in these conflicts in a way that would not have been possible two decades ago. Russia’s nationalists form a baying crowd that watches on and even — by liking, sharing, and commenting on materials — amplifies elite splits. On Grey Zone, a Russian Telegram channel associated with Wagner, any mention of Shoigu — Putin’s long-time ally — is received by users with raucous mockery: “What’s he smoking?”; “F*cking liar”; “What a clown!!” Meanwhile, the channel’s almost 500,000 followers pour adulation on the muzhiki — macho men — who have died fighting or committed acts of vandalism or criminality at the front. The overwhelmingly male and young audience of this sort of content thrives on violence and macho adulation.

Almost every man in the Wagner Group owes Prigozhin a personal debt. By offering prisoners a means to escape from jail, and the rural poor hefty salaries in return for service, he has cultivated a sense of obligation among his troops. And by releasing materials directly to the online public, he strives to build a broader base of public support, as well as to strengthen the loyalty of his acolytes, The strategy is not necessarily misguided: the Russian public delights in such pantomime political theatrics.

However, Prigozhin may be about to discover the limits of the support that can be built through memes and virality. Shoigu might be the online nemesis of Wagner followers, but Prigozhin himself barely features in their discussions. At best he will sometimes be referred to as muzhik, but he is often derided as vain, foolish, or arrogant. His followers prize manhood, masculinity, and violence more than any particular leaders: they are nihilists out for themselves, not the sort of citizens who will die for their leader’s cause.

This self-interested support has given Putin an easy means to drop the final curtain on Prigozhin’s theatrics. In a meeting last week, he confirmed that all frontline troops — including those attached to Prigozhin and Wagner — will be forced to sign a contract with the state by 1 July. “If there’s no contract with the state,” explained Putin, “there can be no social guarantees [for the troops].” In other words, the state is about to usurp Prigozhin’s sole hold over Wagner: the promise that he can provide money, support, and freedom to the men under his command.

Prigozhin has responded with total denial, declaring that “Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoigu”. Fellow nationalist leaders who have been critical of the MoD have accused him of “mutiny” for this refusal, and other elite powerbrokers have sided against him. While his troops are tied up at the front in Ukraine, sustaining enormous casualties and consuming vast resources as they do Putin’s dirty work, Prigozhin has no recourse. There is no hope of a mass mutiny without broader public support or the promise that Prigozhin can give his men something the state cannot. Simply put, neither Prigozhin’s soldiers nor the wider public have any reason to go into battle for him. If a power grab was ever on the cards, the chance is gone: Prigozhin is a busted flush.

In some senses, Prigozhin is an embodiment of the Putin era’s postmodern culture, in which reality is created, distorted, and destroyed momentarily by an arbitrary state. He stands for no ideas, cannot build elite coalitions, and alienates the general public. Through money, force of will, and outlandish PR, he has turned himself into a heavyweight — but his importance will likely diminish now the state has started to turn the screws. Distracted by the next scene in Russia’s pantomime of the absurd, sympathetic nationalists will move onto the next man to promise them an outlet for their frustration and rage. For now, Putin, the conductor of a cacophonous orchestra that plays far louder than Wagner’s “musicians” ever can, remains above the fray. If there have been questions raised about the Russian president’s ability to control the narrative of his war in Ukraine, he is showing that he remains — for now — in full control.

Thursday, June 22nd

From the Kyev Post (Ukraine)

‘We Wake Up, and Crimea Is Already Ukrainian’ – Wagner Сhief Prigozhin

Wagner PMC chief confirms Ukrainian Army’s successes in its counteroffensive, accuses Russian army boss of negligence and direct betrayal of the Kremlin.

by the Kyiv Post | June 22, 2023, 2:22 pm | 

Yevheniy Prigozhin, head of the Wagner PMC mercenary group, loosed a rhetorical salvo against Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Thursday, claiming Ukraine’s army is pushing the Kremlin’s forces back at multiple locations and that top military leaders in Moscow are criminally negligent and threaten the security of the Russian state.

Prigozhin made the comments published on internet platforms on June 21 in response to Wednesday announcements by Ukrainian officials that Kyiv’s summer offensive was “going according to plan.” The Russian state media has widely reported that Ukrainian attacks are, purportedly, failing with heavy losses.

Prigozhin contradicted that official Russian narrative, saying the Ukrainian army has in fact seen successes infighting in the Zaporizhzhia Region, and named three villages recently lost by Russian forces.

"I cannot comment in any way on how the offensive is going by the Ukrainian armed forces. I can tell what is happening at our line of contact,” Prigozhin said. Ukrainian troops had recently taken control of the villages Pyatykhatky, Rabotyne and Urozhaine, he said.

Ukraine’s government by Thursday morning had not confirmed the liberation of Rabotyne and Urozhaine. Independent Ukrainian news reports of the capture of Pyatykhatky surfaced over the weekend and were confirmed by Ukraine’s Joint Forces South on Monday. 

Prigozhin claimed, without offering evidence, that “above Tokmak” (a city deep behind Russian lines and 30 km to the rear of frontline positions in the Zaporizhzhia sector) a Ukrainian unit of 50-100 men was operating without much interference by the Russian military.

He likewise asserted that Ukrainian army commandos had crossed the Dnipro River in the vicinity of the town Hola Prystan and that Ukrainian regular army units would follow in due course. Russia’s high command was failing to deliver sufficient weapons and ammunition to frontline troops, Prigozhin said.

Russian losses of tactically important villages would, if not halted, reverse most territorial gains managed by Russian forces since the Kremlin invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022, Prigozhin warned. 

“Russia will wake up one day and discover that Crimea has also been handed over to the Ukrainians. There is a direct betrayal of Russian interests. It is all happening against the backdrop of losses,” Prigozhin said.

“Troops need to be replenished. One man cannot stand in the line where two or three should stand. All these figures are being concealed. If this goes on, we will be left without the main thing – without Russia.”

Prigozhin singled out Shoigu as particularly responsible for the army’s shortcomings and called Shoigu out for, Prigozhin alleged, professional negligence.

"At what cost are we carrying out ‘special operation’ – at the cost of destruction of the Army…

"For what – so that some ‘Shvonder’ (Shoigu) could get a marshal's star, and his family members would be untouchable? The counterattack by the Ukrainian forces is causing us serious problems and losses. When trouble comes, we may be left without an army and Russia,” Prigozhin said.

Shvonder, a fictional character invented by Russian early 20th-century novelist Mikhail Bulgakov, is well-known across the former Soviet space as the literary archetype of an uneducated and recently appointed Communist boss owing his job solely to mindless and vociferous support of the party line.

Although obscure to most readers of fiction outside Russia, the works of Bulgakov – a member of the Russian aristocratic class displaced by Communist revolutionaries - are still taught in Russian schools as an important piece of Russia’s cultural heritage. Bulgakov was educated in Kyiv but forced to leave his family home there during the Russian Civil War.

From Fox News

TIMELINE OF WAGNER MERCENARY GROUP'S STANDOFF THAT SHOOK PUTIN'S RUSSIA

Wagner mutiny rocks Putin's 20-year rule

By Caitlin McFall 

Wagner Group leader resurfaces for first time since attempted rebellion (Video)

The world watched in shock this weekend as Russian President Vladimir Putin faced the greatest threat to his leadership since he assumed the role more than 20 years ago as Wagner mercenary forces mutinied and looked to storm Moscow. 

But just as quickly as the situation escalated, the threat against Moscow appeared to evaporate after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered his men to stop their march and instead reportedly head for Belarus following an obscure deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. 

Prigozhin resurfaced for the first time since the agreement was reached Saturday in a Monday audio message posted to his Telegram, though his location remains unclear. 

See how the events unfolded from Friday to Monday (below):

Friday, June 23rd

From Fox News

– Tensions erupted Friday after Prigozhin released a video on Telegram that directly contradicted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for his illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

· The mercenary leader not only said there was no threat from Ukraine against Russia, but that Kyiv had no plans to join the NATO alliance to take up arms against Moscow. He also claimed this misinformation was down to lies supplied by the Ministry of Defense to deceive Putin and Russian society.

– The Wagner leader posted a series of clips in which he also accused the Russian defense ministry of firing a rocket strike upon Wagner mercenaries in Ukraine. 

· Prigozhin called for the ousting of Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and said his troops would punish them for their actions.

From Reuters

Russia says West is trying to drive a wedge between it and Kazakhstan, TASS reports

June 23, 20231:27 AM EDTUpdated 6 days ago

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev address the participants of the Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum via a video link in Moscow, Russia November 28, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS/File photo

June 23 (Reuters) - Russia's security council accused the West on Friday of trying to drive a wedge between Russia and Kazakhstan by interfering in the affairs of sovereign nations, Russia's TASS reported.

The comments reported by TASS came on the day security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev visited Kazakhstan to meet counterparts from across the former Soviet Central Asian region.

"The United States and their allies are trying to support nationalist sentiment, spreading lies, manipulating public opinion, including through the internet and social networks," TASS quoted Patrushev's deputy, Alexander Shevtsov, as saying in Almaty.

Oil-rich Kazakhstan, Russia's long-time ally and close economic partner, has refused to support Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and has said it would comply with Western sanctions against Russia.

From Meduza.io (Latvia) Friday, 6/23/23 1626

Late on Friday, June 23, 2023, Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin released a video on Telegram purportedly showing the aftermath of a Russian Defense Ministry missile attack against his fighters at a “rear base.”

In a series of audio clips, Prigozhin subsequently announced that he would lead an armed campaign to “punish” the Defense Ministry officials supposedly responsible for the attack.

Prigozhin insists that he is waging a “march of justice,” not a coup, but the FSB soon announced a criminal case to investigate his “incitement to armed insurrection.”

MARCH of the MERCENARIES:

Saturday, June 24th

From Fox News

– By early Saturday Prigozhin said his forces had crossed the Ukraine-Russia border and had taken control of the military headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

· Images and videos surfaced showing Wagner mercenaries, tanks and vehicles in the city that it apparently took without a fight from Russian citizens or forces.

· The city was a significant take for Prigozhin as it is not only the largest city in southern Russia but also the headquarters of the Russian southern military district command, whose 58th Combined Arms Army is fighting in southern Ukraine.– As many as 25,000 Wagner mercenaries were alleged to have followed Prigozhin into Russia to not only take the southern city but to push north towards the Voronezh region on their eventual way to Moscow. 

· Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) responded by launching a criminal investigation against Prigozhin and accused him of launching what amounted to a mutiny.

· In a statement the FSB called Prigozhin’s actions a "stab in the back" to all Russian soldiers and urged Wagner troops "not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forceful actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and treacherous orders of Prigozhin, and to take measures to detain him."

· Prigozhin insisted his rebellion was not "a military coup" but a "march of justice."– By 10 a.m. Putin gave a televised address calling Prigozhin’s actions an "armed mutiny" and a "knife in the back of our country and our people," though he never named Prigozhin directly. 

· "Inflated ambitions and personal interests have led to treason — treason against our country, our people and the common cause which Wagner Group soldiers and commanders were fighting and dying for shoulder to shoulder, together with our other units and troops," he said.  "Their memory and glory have also been betrayed by those who are attempting to stage a revolt and are pushing the country towards anarchy and fratricide — and ultimately, towards defeat and surrender."

– Reports began to surface that Wagner forces had entered the Voronezh region and shortly after 11:40, and the governor of the region, Aleksandr Gusev, took to Telegram to say that Russian forces were "conducting necessary operational and combat activities" in a "counterterrorism operation," reported the Kyiv Independent. 

– Chechen leader and Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov said that Chechen forces had been sent to the "conflict zones" in Russia.

· Reporting later suggested some 3,000 Chechen forces in Ukraine had been dispatched to Russia.– Prigozhin responded to Putin’s address in a video message posted to his Telegram and said his Wagner forces would not back down "because we don't want the country to continue living in corruption, deceit, and bureaucracy."

· Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin urged residents to stay indoors and declared Monday a day off work as the Russian National Guard worked to defend the city from a possible attack.

· A machine gun position was set up by Russian soldiers on the southwest edge of Moscow as armed police gathered south of the city on the M4 highway, which was being used by Wagner mercenaries to advance.

– The U.S. and its NATO allies said they were closely monitoring the situation.

– By 1:30 p.m., Putin's office announced he had held phone conversations with the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan regarding the "situation" in Russia.

– Around 4 p.m., reports began to surface alleging that Russian military helicopters had opened fire on a convoy of Wagner mercenaries that were reportedly more than halfway towards Moscow.

· Russian news outlet Tass reported that Wagner forces were offered amnesty if they laid down their weapons, though the report has since been taken down.– By 4 p.m., Lukashenko claimed he brokered a deal between Putin and Prigozhin as Wagner forces were reported to have reached an area known as Yelets, roughly 250 miles south of Moscow.

– Around 8:30 p.m. Moscow time, Prigozhin released an audio message through his press service’s Telegram account that said that he had decided to end the mutiny and turn his troops around to avoid more bloodshed.

· "They wanted to disband the Wagner military company. We embarked on a march of justice on June 23. In 24-hours we got to within 200 km [125 miles] of Moscow. In this time we did not spill a single drop of our fighters' blood," he said according to a translation by Reuters. "Now the moment has come when blood could be spilled. Understanding responsibility [for the chance] that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and going back to field camps as planned."

· Prigozhin and his Wagner forces that joined in the rebellion have allegedly been offered safe heaven in Belarus, though the terms of the agreement remain unclear.

· Remaining Wagner forces in Ukraine that did not join the mutiny will be absorbed in Russia's military.

Reuters contributed to this report. 

From Al Jazeera

TIMELINE: HOW WAGNER GROUP’S REVOLT AGAINST RUSSIA UNFOLDED

Feud with Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin is seen as the biggest threat Russian President Vladimir Putin has faced to his 22-year rule.

Published On 24 Jun 2023

Mutinous Russian mercenary fighters from the Wagner Group were making their way to the capital before their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered their to return to base to avoid bloodshed.

This latest incident with Prigozhin in a months-long feud with Russia’s defence ministry over the fight in Ukraine was the biggest threat President Vladimir Putin has faced in his 22-year rule.

See also:

Wagner mutiny reflects fault lines in Russia: Analysts

Wagner revolt in Russia dims outlook for its operations in Africa

Wagner boss calls off march on Moscow, agrees to exile in Belarus

Ukraine responds to Wagner mutiny in Russia with caution, hope

The group rose to prominence after taking an increasingly visible role in the war in Ukraine, including hoisting the Russian flag in the city of Bakhmut after a months-long battle.

Here is Al Jazeera’s timeline of how the events unfolded since Friday:

Friday, June 23

· Prigozhin releases a video stepping up his feud with Russia’s military top brass and for the first time, rejects Putin’s core justification for invading Ukraine.

· In a series of subsequent audio recordings posted on Telegram, Prigozhin says the “evil” of Russia’s military leadership “must be stopped” and his Wagner mercenary force will lead a “march for justice” against the Russian military. Who is Prigozhin, the Wagner chief taking on Russia’s military?

· Russia’s FSB security service responds by opening a criminal case against Prigozhin, announcing the 62-year-old called for armed mutiny against the state.

· The deputy commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, General Sergey Surovikin, urges Wagner’s forces to give up their opposition to the military leadership and return to their bases.

Saturday, June 24

· Prigozhin says his men crossed the border from Ukraine into Russia and are ready to go “all the way” against the Russian military.

· Wagner fighters entered the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, Prigozhin said in an audio recording posted on Telegram.

· The governor of southern Russia’s Rostov region adjoining Ukraine tells residents to remain calm and stay indoors as it becomes clear that Wagner forces have taken control of the city.

· Prigozhin says his fighters captured the army headquarters in Rostov-on-Don “without firing a single shot” and claims to have the support of locals.

· Russian’s defence ministry issues a statement appealing to Wagner fighters to abandon Prigozhin, saying they have been “deceived and dragged into a criminal adventure”. Putin makes a televised address promising to crush what he calls an “armed mutiny”. He accuses Prigozhin of “treason” and a “stab in the back”.

· Russian military helicopters open fire on a convoy of rebel mercenaries already more than halfway to Moscow in a lightning advance after seizing Rostov overnight.

· Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, says it is clear that Prigozhin’s attempt to destabilise society and ignite a fratricidal civil war has failed, TASS news agency reports.

· Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin ally, says his forces are ready to help put down the revolt by Prigozhin and to use harsh methods if necessary.

· Russian soldiers set up a machine gun position on the southwest edge of Moscow, according to photographs published by the Vedomosti newspaper.

· The White House says US President Joe Biden has spoken with the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and that they have affirmed their support for Ukraine.

· Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the armed uprising led by Wagner a clear sign of the weakness of Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.

· Putin signs a law permitting 30-day detentions for breaking martial law in places where it has been imposed, the RIA news agency reports.

· Wagner mercenaries are promised an amnesty if they lay down their weapons “but they should do it fast”, the TASS news agency cites lawmaker Pavel Krasheninnikov as saying.

· The Russian foreign ministry cautioned Western countries against using the “internal situation in Russia for achieving their Russophobic goals”.

· The office of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says he brokered a deal with Prigozhin who has agreed to de-escalate the situation.

· Prigozhin and all of his fighters vacate Russia’s military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don.

· Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov says a mutiny attempt by Wagner will not affect the military offensive in Ukraine.

· Prigozhin will now go and live in Belarus and no charges will be brought against him. Wagner fighters who did not participate in the march on Moscow will be offered military contracts.

From the Moscow Times

TIMELINE: PRIGOZHIN’S ESCALATING STANDOFF WITH RUSSIA’S MILITARY

Updated: June 24, 2023

A former convict turned Kremlin caterer, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his shadowy private military group Wagner have taken a prominent role in Russia’s 16-month offensive on Ukraine.

Friction between Prigozhin and the Russian Defense Ministry has risen as the war has dragged on, ultimately reaching a breaking point Friday when Prigozhin accused military leaders of striking Wagner camps and launched an armed insurrection.

Below is a timeline of Prigozhin’s often expletive-laden confrontations with the Russian military that have boiled over into the currently unfolding rebellion against the Defense Ministry.

September-October 2022

Prigozhin issued his first criticism of Russia’s Defense Ministry after he publicly admitted to being the founder of Wagner and President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilization.

Prigozhin joined the Kremlin-allied Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov in arguing that Russia’s military should primarily mobilize members of the security and state services instead of civilians.

“Ramzan, you’re the man, fire away,” Prigozhin said through his press service in an Oct. 1 post slamming the Russian forces’ withdrawal from occupied Ukrainian territories. And then, betraywl!

“All these scumbags [in the Russian military should be sent] to the frontline with guns and bare feet,” Prigozhin said.

The discontent was deemed significant enough to be included in U.S. President Joe Biden’s daily intelligence briefing, The Washington Post reported in October, citing anonymous sources.

It said Prigozhin had felt comfortable enough to voice his frustration about the Defense Ministry and Shoigu directly to Putin, in a sign of his rising influence. Prigozhin denied communicating personally with Putin at the time.

January-February 2023

After briefly feuding with the governor of Russia’s second city of St. Petersburg where Wagner later opened its headquarters, Prigozhin stepped up his criticism of the military’s war effort.

The Wagner founder raised concerns about the Russian forces’ slow progress amid heavy battles in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Soledar. He also accused the Russian military of attempting to “steal” victories from Wagner.

Prigozhin had spearheaded Wagner’s months-long efforts to capture Bakhmut, a key symbolic prize for Russia despite its relative lack of strategic importance. 

In February, after announcing the end of Wagner’s prisoner recruitment, Prigozhin slammed Russia’s “monstrous” military bureaucracy and leadership for low supplies of munitions that had slowed progress in Bakhmut.

"This can be equated with high treason," Prigozhin said in one of the first direct accusations.

After calling on Russians to press the top brass for stockpiles, Prigozhin said the Defense Ministry had relented and announced the shipment of ammunition.

March-April 2023

The truce appeared to be short-lived as Prigozhin again claimed “betrayal” over the military’s continuing lack of deliveries to Wagner mercenaries.

“In order to stop me from asking for ammunition, [Russia’s government] turned off all special phone lines […] and blocked all passes to the decision-making offices,” Prigozhin said.

Wagner Boss 'Cut Off' From Official Channels After Public Ammo Plea

Russian lawmakers passed legislation introducing long jail terms for anyone criticizing mercenaries in a move dismissed by Prigozhin, who argued that Russians should be free to criticize top military commanders.

May-June 2023

The arms delivery saga has escalated after Prigozhin — surrounded by the bodies of dead Wagner soldiers — threatened to pull out of Bakhmut.

“Shoigu, Gerasimov, where the f*ck is the ammunition?” he fumed, claiming days later that the Russian army had “promised” him armaments.

Prigozhin later claimed that Russia’s Defense Ministry broke that promise and threatened to charge Wagner with treason if they withdrew from Bakhmut.

He accused the Russian army units of fleeing their positions due to “stupid” and “criminal” senior military commanders’ orders.

As one of his last stands, Prigozhin refused the Defense Ministry’s orders for “volunteer detachments” to sign contracts with the military by July 1. The Akhmat military unit was the first to sign that contract, signaling the Chechen leader Kadyrov shifting alliances away from Prigozhin and back into the Kremlin’s fold.

Finally, hours before announcing the rebellion against military leadership on Friday night, Prigozhin questioned the leadership’s casus belli for invading Ukraine and escalated his criticism of Shoigu for “poorly planning” the war and “embarrassing” Russia’s military.

“Shoigu killed thousands of the most combat-ready Russian soldiers in the first days of the war,” he charged.

“The mentally ill scumbags decided ‘It’s okay, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as ‘cannon fodder.’ ‘They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want’,” Prigozhin continued.

“That’s why it has become a protracted war.”

From ABC News (Australia)

WAGNER MERCENARIES TURN AWAY FROM MOSCOW AFTER BELARUS BROKERS DEAL BETWEEN PUTIN AND PRIGOZHIN — AS IT HAPPENED

By Tom Williams, Dan Nancarrow, Claudia Williams, Brianna Morris-Grant and Jacqueline Howard

A timeline of the crisis (times reversed as is not uncommon Down Under)...

Sat. 4:55pm

By Jacqueline Howard

Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin says he has ordered his forces to turn back from Moscow due to the risk of bloodshed after talks with Belarusian president and Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko.

Sat. 3:34pm

By Jacqueline Howard

While we wait to hear from Putin, let's take stock of what happened in Russia in the last 24 hours or so.

· On Friday, the leader of Wagner, a private mercenary group,  released a video stepping up his feud with Russia's military top brass, calling for a "march for justice" against the Russian military.

· Russia's FSB security service responded by opening a criminal case against Prigozhin, saying he had called for armed mutiny.

· By Saturday morning, Prigozhin said his men had crossed the border from Ukraine into Russia and were ready to go "all the way" against the Russian military.

· Wagner fighters took control of the southern Russian city of Rostov, including the military base which plays a significant role in the support of Russian forces on the frontline in Ukraine.

· Later, Wagner fighters are reported to have taken control of all military facilities in the city of Voronezh, about 500km south of Moscow.

· Putin vowed to crush the "armed mutiny" in a televised address. He accused Prigozhin of "treason" and a "stab in the back".

· A counter-terrorism operation is announced, and roadblocks were set up around Moscow. Authorities advised citizens to remain home and mass outdoor events for the next week were cancelled.

· The office of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced a deal had been brokered with Prigozhin who agreed to de-escalate the situation to avoid bloodshed.

· Prigozhin said his forces had turned back and were heading to their field camps, after marching to within 200km of Moscow.

Sat. 2:48pm

By Jacqueline Howard

Precisely what went down in the negotiations between Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko is not yet clear.

Mr Lukashenko's office said he was brokering a deal with Prigozhin with the agreement of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to the Google translation of the statement on the Belarusian presidential office Telegram post announcing the deal, an element of the the talks included "security guarantees for the Wagner fighters".

A further announcement says Lukashenko has informed Putin of the outcomes of the talks.

At this stage, we are yet to hear from the Russian president himself.

The BBC has read out an English translation of Prigozhin's audio message that he posted to Telegram, in which he announces the halt of the march on Moscow.

"They wanted to disband the Wagner. On the 23rd of June, we went out on a 'Justice March'," Prigozhin says.

"Within a day we were just 200km away from Moscow. During that time, we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters."

"Now the moment has come when blood can be spilled. Therefore, understanding all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be spilled on one of the sides, we are turning our columns around and leaving in the opposite direction, to our field camps according to the plan."

Prigozhin orders end to march on Moscow

Sat. 1:35pm

By Jacqueline Howard

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has recorded an audio message posted to his Telegram channel in which he says he has ordered his mercenary forces to turn back from its approach to Moscow.

Prigozhin said he gave the order because of the risk of blood being spilled.

He said his forces had advanced to within 200km of Moscow in the last 24 hours.

Prigozhin agrees to de-escalation, Belarus says

Sat. 1:27pm

By Jacqueline Howard

The office of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is reporting that conversations with the Wagner leader have resulted in an agreement to de-escalate the situation in Russia.

A statement, published on the president's Telegram channel, said Mr Lukashenko was "acting in agreement with the Russian President" to broker a deal with Prigozhin.

"Negotiations continued throughout the day. As a result, they came to agreements on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloody massacre on the territory of Russia," the statement read.

Lukashenko is a close ally of Mr Putin. The Belarusian border with Ukraine was an entry point to Ukraine for Putin's troops when the war began back in February 2022.

We are yet to hear from Prigozhin or Putin on the matter.

Roadblock at a highway offramp in Moscow

Sat. 12:57pm

By Jacqueline Howard

Russian authorities have set up a roadblock at a highway entrance to Moscow, the Associated Press reports.

Outdoor events in Moscow suspended

Sat. 12:41pm

By Jacqueline Howard

The Moscow region has suspended all mass outdoor events until 1 July.

Authorities earlier warned citizens to avoid travelling around the capital.

Recruitments for Wagner taken down

Sat. 12:18pm

By Jacqueline Howard

Roadblocks erected on outskirts of Moscow, mayor warns citizens to stay home

Sat. 11:38am

By Jacqueline Howard

Military roadblocks have popped up on the outskirts of Moscow as the Wagner convoy approaches, Reuters reports.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has advised citizens of the capital to refrain from trips around the city, given a counter-terrorism operation had been declared in the Moscow region.

That declaration gives authorities special powers, such as restricting the movement of people and vehicles and conducting searches. It also allows authorities to evacuate civilians.

In a statement, Mr Sobyanin said Monday would be a non-work day, with some exceptions, in order "to minimise risks".

Russia issues warning to West over Wagner mutiny

Sat. 11:00am

By Jacqueline Howard

Russia's foreign ministry has released a statement warning Western countries against using the Wagner group's mutiny "to achieve their Russophobic goals", Reuters reports.

Over on the ministry's Twitter account, it announced that Putin has been on the phone to the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

It said the Russian leader had been informing his counterparts of the "situation in the country".

In the last few minutes, Russian news agency TASS has reported the "top Russian leadership", which includes Putin, remains in the capital despite rumours on social media the top brass had left Moscow.

Sat. 10:41am

By Claudia Williams

More photos have come through of the fuel tank on fire at an oil depot in Voronezh. 

Governor Alexander Gusev said more than 100 firefighters and 30 units of equipment were working at the site.

He said one reservoir was damaged.

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed a ball of fire erupting after a helicopter flew near a residential area.

The Voronezh location was verified by Reuters by buildings and road characteristics that matched satellite imagery.

How concerning are events in Russia for European leaders?

Sat. 10:39am

By Claudia Williams

We have put some more questions to Michelle Rimmer,who is supervising producer for the ABC's London bureau.

What could this mean for Europe more broadly? And how concerned do you believe European leaders will be about this development?

European leaders and their western allies will be watching very closely to see how the situation in Russia develops.

The key language we are hearing from European leaders and the NATO security alliance right now is that they are "monitoring" the fast-moving situation.

They have resisted making any predictions as to how the current turmoil in Russia will play out and what the wider implications for the region may be.

In an intelligence update, the British Defence Ministry said the current situation represents "the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times" and that "the loyalty of Russia's security forces" will determine how the crisis unfolds.

A number of countries directly neighbouring Russia, including Estonia and Latvia, have strengthened the security at their borders.

While France and Lithuania say their focus is on Ukraine and seeing an end to Russia's conflict there.

Lithuania's Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said his country is not distracted by the alleged mutiny in Russia and that "the goal, as ever, is victory and justice for Ukraine".

Wagner 'a force to be reckoned with', says expert

Sat. 10:31am

By Brianna Morris-Grant

The success or failure of Prigozhin may largely depend on how many allies he has and if he can mobilise Russians to join him, says Russian expert and London's King's College academic Anna Matveeva.

Ms. Matveeva told Reuters ifPrigozhin manages to garner the backing of those "within the power and security structures" including police and military intelligence, the situation could descend into "a much wider crisis".

"I think the development which we are to watch is to see whether Wagner and Prigozhin have any allies," she said.

She added Wagner made up "a very good part of the Russian armed forces".

"And certainly, they have been doing a heavy lift at the frontlines in the recent months. So yes, they are a force to be reckoned with."

Russian media says Wagner fighters promised amnesty to disarm

Sat. 10:26am

By Brianna Morris-Grant

Wagner mercenaries have been promised an amnesty if they lay down their weapons but they need to act fast, state-owned Russian news agency TASS has cited a politician as saying.

"Wagner fighters can still lay down their arms and avoid punishment given their achievements during the special military operation [in Ukraine], but they should do it fast," Pavel Krasheninnikov was quoted as saying.

Krashennikov is a former Russian Justice Minister, and is now a Deputy of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's Federal Assembly.

Wagner moving through area less than 400km from Moscow, says governor

Sat. 10:00am

By Brianna Morris-Grant

The governor of the Lipetsk region, north of Voronezh, has confirmed Wagner is moving through the area, according to BBC reports.

Governor Igor Artamov earlier urged residents to stay indoors and "avoid travelling by any means".

Lipetsk is less than 400km from Moscow.

Here's what it looks like on the ground in Russia

Sat. 9:57am

By Claudia Williams

Entrance to Wagner's headquarters cordoned off

Sat. 9:50am

By Brianna Morris-Grant

The entrance to the PMC Wagner Centre, headquarters of the private military group in St. Petersburg in Russia, has been blocked, according to China Central Television (CCTV). 

Reporter Alexey Ryabkov said things are "relatively stable" in the city: "We can see that the entrance to the building has been blocked, but there is nothing else special there.

"According to the latest reports, Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, has been placed on the wanted list. Though the situation is changing, all is calm in St Petersburg for now."

Where is Vladimir Putin?

Sat. 9:35am

By Claudia Williams

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian president was working in the Kremlin on Saturday, the RIA news agency reported.

He has reportedly spoken with muliple leaders including Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

In an address earlier, Putin vowed to crush an armed mutiny by the Wagner group.

There have also been reports that Putin's presidential plane took off from Moscow to St Petersburg on Saturday.

However, it is not known whether Putin was on board the plane.

How many soldiers are Wagner likely to come up against in Moscow?

Sat. 9:22am

By Claudia Williams

We have put another one of your questions to Europe correspondent Isabella Higgins. 

Wagner is meant to be 25,000 with another 25,000 in Russia. How many soldiers are they likely to come up against stationed in Moscow?

Isabella: It will be a major feat for Wagner if their troops are even able to reach Moscow.

They are outnumbered and geographically disadvantaged — but they are making ground.

The majority of Prighozin's men are still close to the Russia-Ukraine border, and will need to travel hundreds of kilometres and come up against Russia's counter-terrorism activities in several regions.

In theory, Wagner's 25,000 fighters could be quickly outnumbered by the professional military in Moscow.

But Russia is an unpredictable place.

The question is — where will the allegiance of ordinary Russians fall?

Prighozin is said to be a popular figure and he is trying to persuade Russian army personnel to turn against their leadership and fight with him. If more people decide to join his cause, that would further throw the balance of power.

This level of insurgency has not be seen in Russia for many years.

There are whispers of a civil war. For now they are just that, whispers. The next 24 hours will be critical.

Hourly Timeline, Saturday, June 24^th

0100

From ABC News (U.S.) 1 a.m.

Putin is briefed on 'armed rebellion'

Putin was briefed on an "attempted armed rebellion" overnight, according to Russia's state-run media.

A late-night statement from Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov suggested that the Kremlin considered Wagner Group's move into Rostov-on-Don, a key Russian city close to the border with Ukraine, to be a "rebellion." The statement did not mention Prigozhin by name.

0700

From ABC News (U.S.) 7:30 a.m.

Wagner Group claims control over Rostov military facilities, airport

Prigozhin said at about 7:30 a.m. on Saturday that his forces had taken control of the Southern Military District and all military facilities in Rostov-on-Don, a key Russian city near the southern border with Ukraine.

"We will destroy anyone who stands in our way," he said in one of a series of video and audio recordings posted on social media.

He threatened he would go to Moscow, the capital, saying, "We are moving forward and will go until the end."

0900

ABC News (US) 9:30 a.m.

Wagner Group marches toward Moscow

Wagner Group forces were roaming the streets of Rostov-on-Don, gathering outside the Southern Military District headquarters, when Prigozhin made his announcement.

Forces loyal to Prigozhin began traveling north "almost certainly aiming to get to Moscow," the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Twitter about two hours later.

Prigozhin's rebellion amounted to the "most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times," the ministry said.

"Over the coming hours, the loyalty of Russia's security forces, and especially the Russian National Guard, will be key to how the crisis plays out," the ministry said.

1000

ABC News (US) 10:00 a.m.

Putin addresses nation on TV, calling the acts 'treason'

Putin in a televised address that aired at about 10 a.m. said actions taken by Prigozhin, who was a longtime ally, amounted to a "stab in the back."

Putin didn't mention Prigozhin by name, but said that "necessary orders have been given" to defend Russia.

"Actions that divide our unity are in essence defeatism before one's own people," he said. "This is a stab in the back of our country and our people."

The powerful head of Chechnya, the semi-independent Russian region, Ramzan Kadyrov, said in a statement that he would support Putin.

He said his forces were already moving to "zones of tension."

1100

ABC News (US) 11:00 a.m.

Ukraine says there's 'so much chaos' in Russia

By Efrem Lukatsky/AP

An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there was a "deafening" silence from Russia's elites.

"The next 48 hours will define the new status of Russia," Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter at about 11 a.m. Moscow time. "Either a full-fledged Civil War, or a negotiated Transit of Power, or a temporary respite before the next phase of the downfall of the Putin regime."

Zelenskyy said later that Russia appeared to be suffering "full-scale weakness."

"Russia used propaganda to mask its weakness and the stupidity of its government. And now there is so much chaos that no lie can hide it," he said on Twitter.

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From CNN

12:36 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Governor of southwestern Russian region of Lipetsk says Wagner is moving through territory

From CNN's Darya Tarasova and Tim Lister

Equipment of the Wagner private military company is moving across territory in the southern Russian region of Lipetsk, according to the region's governor, Igor Artamonov.

He said authorities are "taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the population," adding that "the situation is under control" and that "there are no failures in the operation of critical infrastructure."

“Since night, we have been at the operational headquarters with the team and representatives of all departments," Artamonov said. "In touch with all heads of districts and services. Everyone works well and smoothly. … Residents are strongly advised not to leave their homes and should not travel by any means of transport. I understand all the inconvenience, but I earnestly ask you to help us and follow these recommendations.”

From CNN

12:42 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Cash uncovered in search of Prigozhin's St. Petersburg office, according to Russian news outlet

From CNN's Darya Tarasova and Nathan Hodge

The Russian investigative outlet Fontanka on Saturday reported that a van stacked with boxes with cash was found parked near what is alleged to be an office of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin at the Hotel Trezzini in St. Petersburg. 

According to Fontanka, the amount of cash uncovered in an apparent search by authorities totaled 4 billion rubles, or approximately $47 million.

1300

From CNN

1:03 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Biden reaffirms support for Ukraine during call with France, Germany and the UK

From CNN’s Jasmine Wright

President Joe Biden and US allies on Saturday reaffirmed their “unwavering support for Ukraine” in a call with leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom about the unfolding situation in Russia between the military and Wagner private military company.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have all remained closely aligned with Biden over the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden has frequently spoken and met with the trio over the last year.

From CNN

1:57 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Prigozhin says his forces "are turning our columns around," amid claims of deal brokered by Lukashenko

From CNN's Katharina Krebs and Nathan Hodge

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin published a new audio recording Saturday claiming he was turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow. 

“We turning our columns around and going back in the other direction toward our field camps, in accordance with the plan,” he said in a message on Telegram.

The announcement comes as the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Wagner boss to halt the march of his forces on Moscow. 

1400

From CNN

2:01 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Medvedev calls developments in Russia "a staged coup d'état," state media reports

From CNN's Mariya Knight

Members of Wagner group stand on a balcony in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on June 24. Roman Romokhov/AFP/Getty Images

Former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, accused Wagner of a "staged coup d'état," Russian state media RIA Novosti reported on Saturday. 

“The development of events shows that the actions of the people who organized the military rebellion fully fit into the scheme of a staged coup d'état,” RIA Novosti reported, quoting Medvedev. 

From CNN

2:27 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

US intel saw signs Prigozhin was planning challenge to Russian military, sources say

From CNN's Alex Marquardt, Jim Sciutto, and Natasha Bertrand

United States intelligence officials believe Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had been planning a major challenge to Russia’s military leadership for quite some time, three people familiar with the matter tell CNN — but it was unclear what the ultimate aim would be.

Intelligence officials briefed congressional leaders known as the Gang of Eight earlier this week concerning Wagner movements and equipment buildups near Russia, two of the people said.

US and Western intelligence officials saw signs Prigozhin was making preparations for such a move, including by massing weapons and ammunition, one western intelligence official and another person familiar with the intelligence said.

From CNN

2:48 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Zelensky claims Putin is “very afraid” following Prigozhin's threats

From CNN's Mariya Knight

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin is “very afraid,” after Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said he was turning his fighters around from a march toward Moscow. 

“I will say it in Russian: The man from the Kremlin is obviously very afraid and probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself,” Zelensky said.

Zelensky also said Putin's own actions were to blame for the situation facing him.

“He knows what he is afraid of because he himself created this threat. All evil, all losses, all hatred – he himself who spreads it,” Zelensky said. 

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From CNN

3:05 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Putin and Lukashenko discuss results of negotiations with Wagner, Belarusian presidential press service says

From CNN's Katharina Krebs and Nathan Hodge

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko had a phone call to discuss "the results of negotiations" with Wagner private military company chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to the Belarusian presidential press service.

"The President of Belarus informed the President of Russia in detail about the results of negotiations with the leadership of PMC [private military company] Wagner," the press service said in a statement Saturday. "The President of Russia supported and thanked the Belarusian colleague for the work done."

From CNN

3:23 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Ukraine launches simultaneous counteroffensives against several Russian fronts, defense official says

From CNN's Mariya Knight

Taking advantage of the unfolding turmoil in Moscow on Saturday, Ukrainian forces launched simultaneous counteroffensives in multiple directions, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar. 

"The eastern grouping of troops today launched an offensive in several directions at the same time," Maliar said in a Telegram post, naming several cities and towns, including Bakhmut and Yahidne, among the places where the offensive was launched.

From CNN

3:50 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Wagner head says he ordered fighters to turn back to avoid Russian bloodshed

From CNN's Mariya Knight

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio recording Saturday that he had turned his private mercenary forces around from a march toward Moscow to avoid bloodshed. 

“Now is the moment when blood can be shed. Therefore, realizing all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one of the sides, we turn our columns around and leave in the opposite direction to the field camps according to the plan," Prigozhin said. 

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From CNN

4:03 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Prigozhin says he turned his forces around from a march toward Moscow.

After previously refusing to surrender, Wagner private military company chief Yevgeny Prigozhin announced his forces were turning around from a march toward Moscow.

The announcement comes as the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with the Wagner boss to halt the march of his forces on Moscow. Prigozhin said the move was in accordance with an unspecified plan and intended to avoid Russian bloodshed.

From CNN

4:34 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Case against Prigozhin will be dropped and he will be sent to Belarus, Kremlin spokesperson says

From CNN's Anna Chernova

Criminal charges against Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin will be dropped and he will be sent to neighboring Belarus, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

"You will ask me what will happen to Prigozhin personally?" Peskov said in a conference call with reporters Saturday. "The criminal case will be dropped against him. He himself will go to Belarus."

From CNN

4:29 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Kremlin says Wagner fighters will return to base and sign contracts with military

From CNN's Anna Chernova

In a conference call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov provided details about what he described as an agreement struck with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner private military company, to halt a march of his forces toward Moscow.

"An agreement was reached on the return of PMC Wagner to their locations. Part of those who will wish to do so, will sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense — this concerns those who did not take part in the march, indeed, there were such formations which, from the very beginning, changed their minds and returned. They even requested to be escorted by the traffic police and other assistance in order to return to their permanent locations," he said.

Wagner fighters will not face legal action for taking part in the march, Peskov added, saying that the Kremlin has "always respected their heroic deeds" on the front lines in Ukraine.

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ABC News (US) 5:00 p.m.

Wagner forces continue march to Moscow

A column of Wagner forces drove through the Voronezh region, about 300 miles south of Moscow, in the early afternoon, a local governor said.

Russia's armed forces were conducting "operational combat operations" there as part of "counter terrorism operation," the official said.

The column later passed through the Lipetsk region, farther north, Russian state media reported.

From CNN

5:00 p.m. ET, June 24, 2023

Prigozhin was never real threat to Putin, former Russian parliament member says

From CNN’s Sofia Cox

Former Russian member of Parliament Sergey Markov described Wagner private military company boss Yevgeny Prigozhin as "extremely aggressive" but said he was never a threat to Putin.

“They support Prigozhin fighting against Ukrainian army but not against Vladimir Putin,” Markov told CNN's Christiane Amanpour late Saturday local time, citing Putin's popularity now being at “about 80%."

Markov said that it was "really good news" that Prigozhin had ordered Wagner mercenary columns to turn back from an advance toward Moscow, adding that "a lot of Moscow are happy about this.”  

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24 1908 WashPost reports Wagner Group fighters are seen near the headquarters of Russia's Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don on Saturday. (Reuters)

For the moment, things appear to be calming down, as the forces answering to Prigozhin, the Wagner Group chief, have halted their march toward Moscow and turned around. The development came after an agreement between Prigozhin and Putin was brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

From WashPost

What just happened in Russia? The Wagner crisis, explained.

By Washington Post Staff

June 24, 2023 at 7:08 p.m. EDT

A fast-moving crisis unfolded in Russia on Saturday as Vladimir Putin faced an apparent insurrection from a former ally, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and the Russian mercenary fighters he leads.

For the moment, things appear to be calming down, as the forces answering to Prigozhin, the Wagner Group chief, have halted their march toward Moscow and turned around. The development came after an agreement between Prigozhin and Putin was brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Criminal charges previously started against Prigozhin will be dropped, and the Wagner boss will go to Belarus, Peskov said.

Still, the dispute represents a significant challenge to Putin’s leadership, the potential loss of one of Putin’s most successful field commanders, and a possible shift in the course of the war in Ukraine.

Here’s a summary of what we know about the conflict.

WHAT TO KNOW

· Who is Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and why is he so important?

· How did the dispute start?

· Who are the other key players here?

· What exactly did Prigozhin do?

· What deal was brokered?

· How is Ukraine responding?

Who is Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and why is he so important?

The 62-year-old Prigozhin had been a fervent supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine and is in charge of the Russian private military contractor known as the Wagner Group. Prigozhin had played a central role in the war, first by deploying his mercenaries on the front lines and later by recruiting heavily from prisons to bolster Moscow’s depleted forces.

Wagner led the onslaught in Bakhmut, which culminated in Putin declaring the city under Russian control — his first significant territorial gain since last summer.

Americans may remember Prigozhin as the financier of the Internet Research Agency — the Russian “troll farm” that the Justice Department named in a 2018 indictment over interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election through weaponized social media.

How did the dispute start?

Internal tensions between Prigozhin and Russian military leaders have been simmering for months over what Prigozhin believed were leadership failures within the military. Prigozhin accused Russian generals of stonewalling his ammunition requests and, as a result, blamed them for his fighters dying “in heaps” in Ukraine.

The dispute reached a boiling point Friday when Prigozhin accused Russian forces of conducting a strike on his fighters at an encampment in Ukraine.

Who are the other key players here?

Two of Putin’s top military leaders — Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff — have been on the receiving end of Prigozhin’s vitriol. At one point, he called for Shoigu and Gerasimov to face a firing squad.

Shoigu recently decreed that all “volunteer formations” must sign a contract with the Defense Ministry by July 1, which would place Prigozhin’s mercenaries under Shoigu’s control. Prigozhin said Wagner would not sign.

The appointment of Gerasimov as overall commander of the war in Ukraine also was viewed as a blow to Prigozhin, who lost his main source of manpower when the Defense Ministry barred him from recruiting in prisons.

What exactly did Prigozhin do?

Prigozhin said he had taken control of the main Russian military command base in the southern region of Rostov and told two Russian military commanders that he would blockade Rostov and send his forces to Moscow unless he could confront his enemies: Shoigu and Gerasimov.

Prigozhin called for Russians to join Wagner against Shoigu and Gerasimov. He also accused the pair of lying about the war in Ukraine and undercounting casualties. “This is not a military coup, but a march of justice,” Prigozhin declared.

By Saturday, Prigozhin had agreed to turn his forces around and not march to Moscow.

What deal was brokered?

Many analysts predicted that Prigozhin would be killed or arrested as Wagner forces moved toward Moscow. But the sudden about-face of Prigozhin’s troops appeared to have eased the crisis for now.

The agreement for Prigozhin’s forces to turn around was brokered by the Belarusian president, who spoke with Putin before negotiating with Prigozhin, according to the Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta and the Kremlin. With security guarantees for Wagner on the table, Prigozhin reportedly agreed to stop his dash to Moscow.

Russian media outlets reported Wagner forces leaving the city of Rostov-on-Don after the Kremlin said that charges will be dropped against the Wagner chief and that he will be sent to Belarus.

Prigozhin has often been seen as the most credible of Russia’s field commanders. His disappearance from the battlefield will be watched closely.

How is Ukraine responding?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address Saturday that the events inside Russia show “that the bosses of Russia do not control anything.”

“Nothing at all. Complete chaos,” Zelensky said. “And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons.”

The Ukrainian military continued pressing its offensive Saturday, though there were no immediate signs that the rebellion next door had eased the Ukrainian path to victory.

Valeriy Shershen, an armed forces spokesman in eastern Ukraine, said Saturday that Kyiv’s troops had liberated “several positions” in the Donetsk region in the country’s east, recapturing territory that had been under the control of Russian forces and Moscow-backed separatists since hostilities broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Shershen said that the territory was retaken a week ago but that the news was withheld for “certain tactical considerations.”

How are Western officials responding?

The United States and many NATO allies have said they have been closely monitoring the situation in Russia. The U.S. National Security Council said President Biden was briefed Friday night, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke Saturday with allies from Canada, France, Germany, Poland and Britain.

The Pentagon’s top military officer, Gen. Mark A. Milley, canceled a trip to the Middle East in light of the crisis, an official said Saturday. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was to leave Washington on Saturday to visit Israel and Jordan, said his spokesman, Col. David Butler. Milley instead spoke Saturday with his Ukrainian counterpart, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Butler said in a separate statement.

What do I need to know about the Wagner Group?

The Wagner Group is not a single, traditional company, but a shadowy network of organizations providing fighters for hire — with the approval of the Kremlin.

According to research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the group has probably operated in as many as 30 countries and has two training camps in Russia.

It is ostensibly private, but according to CSIS, “its management and operations are deeply intertwined with the Russian military and intelligence community” under Putin.

Prigozhin made billions through government catering contracts. While the Wagner Group appears to be partly bankrolled by Prigozhin’s ties to the Kremlin, it has also used violence and extortion in an effort to corner the extremely lucrative diamond industry in the Central African Republic.

Russian mercenaries accused of using violence to corner diamond trade

Who are the mercenaries who fight as part of the Wagner Group?

The United States estimated earlier this year that about 50,000 of Prigozhin’s Wagner fighters had deployed to Ukraine, the majority of them recruited from inside Russian prisons.

The United States has imposed rounds of sanctions on the group and designated it a “significant transnational criminal organization.”

The mercenary outfit has been accused of “mass executions, rape, child abductions, and physical abuse in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement earlier this year.

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ABC News (US) 8:00 p.m.

Prigozhin orders halt on march to Moscow

Prigozhin said he ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and return to their field camps, saying he wanted to avoid shedding Russian blood.

The reasons the rebellion ended was a mystery, given that Prigozhin appeared to have been in a dominant position, a senior U.S. official told ABC News.

As part of a deal struck with Putin, Prigozhin would relocate to Belarus and would not be prosecuted, the Kremlin said.

From CNN

19 hr 11 min ago

"Putin doesn't forgive traitors," says former CNN Moscow bureau chief

Former CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty speaks to CNN's Anderson Cooper. CNN

Russian President Vladimir Putin "doesn't forgive traitors," said former CNN Moscow bureau chief, Jill Dougherty.

Even though Putin has told Prigozhin to go to Belarus, according to the Kremlin, the Wagner chief remains a "traitor," Dougherty told CNN's Anderson Cooper Saturday.

"I think Putin will never ever forgive that," she added. "I think it is a real dilemma because as long as Prigozhin is acting the way he does and has some type of support, he is a threat. Regardless of where he is."

Dougherty said the turmoil and chaos that transpired on the streets of Russia did not make Putin look like the strongman leader he has positioned himself to be.

"Putin himself looks really weak. If I were Putin, I would be worried about those people on the streets of Rostov cheering the Wagner people as they leave," she said.

"Why are average Russians on the street cheering people trying to carry our a coup? That means that maybe they support them but they might like them. Whatever it is, it is really bad news for Putin."

From CNN

19 hr 12 min ago

US has not seen a change in Russia's nuclear posture during insurrection, two officials say

From CNN's Kylie Atwood

The United States has not seen a change to Russia's nuclear posture since Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin began his insurrection challenging the Kremlin's leadership, two US officials told CNN. 

"We have not seen any changes in the disposition of Russian nuclear forces," a State Department spokesperson said, adding that the US has "no reason to adjust our conventional or nuclear force posture. We have long-standing, established communication channels with Russia on nuclear issues."

President Putin has repeatedly engaged in nuclear saber-rattling over the course of the Ukraine war. Putin said earlier this month that the first tactical nuclear weapons to be stored in Belarus had arrived. US President Joe Biden called the move "absolutely irresponsible."

The US has continued to monitor Russia's nuclear posture throughout the Ukraine War despite Russia this year suspending participation in the single lasting nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia. This has meant that the two nations are no longer sharing certain notifications with one another which were required under the treaty, including updates on the status or location of treaty-accountable items such as missiles and launchers. 

"As a nuclear power, Russia has a special responsibility to maintain command, control, and custody of its nuclear forces and to ensure that no actions are taken that imperil strategic stability," the State Department spokesperson said. 

And as the US continues to monitor the situation in Russia the US diplomatic presence in the country has remain unchanged. 

“Our embassy in Moscow remains open, we are in regular communication with it, and its operating posture remains the same at this time,” the spokesperson said. 

From CNN

19 hr 12 min ago

"Bloodshed could have happened,” says Chechen leader Kadyrov

From CNN's Mariya Knight

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, condemned the actions of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a Telegram post on Saturday, saying, “bloodshed could have happened." 

“Now everything ended peacefully, without bloodshed, but it could have happened," Kadyrov said.

Kadyrov added that "extreme measures" would have been needed to stop any Wagner rebellion requiring "harsh suppression and destruction of anyone who encroaches on the integrity of the Russian Federation.”

Condemning Prigozhin for his actions over the last 24 hours, Kadyrov said: “The arrogance of one person could lead to such dangerous consequences and draw a large number of people into the conflict,” he added. 

Kadyrov blamed Prigozhin for “mixing business ambitions with matters of national importance.” 

Some context: Chechen State media Grozny reported earlier Saturday that “3,000 fighters of elite units were sent from Chechnya, and they have been holding their positions since early morning ready to fulfill any order of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” 

From CNN

19 hr 13 min ago.2052

What's next for Wagner fighters?

A retired major in the the US Army said there are many questions to be asked about the future facing Wagner fighters after their short-lived uprising.

"They're an independent fighting company. They were given better rations. They dressed differently," said Major Mike Lyons (Ret.) US Army. 

"I don't think they'll be easily assimilated into the Russian military and sent back to the front there. So I think there is going to be an issue."

He added: "Maybe some will splinter off. Maybe some will decide to defect and provide information to Ukraine. Those people are loyal to the man, Prigozhin, not to the country, not to the mission. I think we've got a lot more questions that are not answered right now."

Earlier Saturday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wagner fighters will not face legal action for taking part in the march toward Moscow, saying that the Kremlin has "always respected their heroic deeds" on the front lines in Ukraine. 

2100

20h GUK21.19 EDT

Opening summary

Events in Russia have been unfolding at breakneck pace over the past 24 hours after Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin launched a march on Moscow aiming to oust the country’s military leadership, only to call it off on the same day and agree to leave the country for Belarus.

Here’s a roundup of the key developments:

· 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.

20h GUK21.31 EDT

Wagner boss Prigozhin agrees to call off march on Moscow and leave the country

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has agreed to leave Russia and ordered his fighters to withdraw from Rostov and halt their march on Moscow, under the terms of a deal negotiated by Belarus.

At the end of an extraordinary day, during which a visibly angry Vladimir Putin had made an emergency television broadcast railing against the “deadly threat to our state”, Progozhin said that he wanted to avoid shedding Russian blood and would order his troops back to their bases instead.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the criminal case that had been opened against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, and the Wagner fighters who had taken part in his “march for justice” would not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.

Videos later showed Prigozhin, who said his men had reached within 125 miles (200 km) of the capital, and his fighters leaving Rostov.

Here’s our full report by Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer:

Wagner rebel chief halts tank advance on Moscow ‘to stop bloodshed’

19h GUK21.46 EDT

US suspected Prigozhin plan to launch action against military leadership, US media reports

US spy agencies picked up information suggesting Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, US media has reported.

Over the past two weeks there was “high concern” about what may happen regarding president Vladimir Putin’ grip on power and the country’s nuclear arsenal, the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous US officials.

The exact timing and nature of Prigozhin’s plans were not clear until Friday, when the Wagner leader first began posting about an alleged Russian rocket attack on his forces, but “there were enough signals to be able to tell the leadership … that something was up,” the Post quoted one official as saying.

According to the New York Times, senior American national security officials had indications as early as Wednesday that Prigozhin was preparing to take action and intelligence officials conducted briefings with the Biden administration and defence officials on the same day.

A narrow group of congressional leaders were informed on Thursday, when additional confirmation of the plot came in, the Times reported.

2200

19h GUK22.12 EDT

Russian president Vladimir Putin is “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest evening address.

“The man from the Kremlin is obviously very afraid and probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself. I am sure that he is no longer in Moscow … He knows what he is afraid of because he himself created this threat,” Zelenskiy said.

Putin has not commented on the Belarus-brokered deal that negotiated Prigozhin’s exit from Russia and the withdrawal of Wagner troops from Rostov. He is believed to have left Moscow on a plane on Saturday afternoon and his whereabouts are unclear.

His apparent departure from the capital contrasts notably with that of Zelenskiy, who remained in Kyiv when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year.

“Today the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability. And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons,” said Zelenskiy.

“In one day, they lost several of their million-plus cities and showed all Russian bandits, mercenaries, oligarchs and anyone else how easy it is to capture Russian cities and, probably, arsenals with weapons.”

From CNN

18 hr 50 min ago

Kazakh president to host emergency Security Council meeting

Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will hold an emergency meeting of his Security Council on Sunday, his office has said, hours after he called for "law and order" in Russia.

"The head of the government will hear reports from the prime minister (and) heads of the security forces about taking course measures connected to the situation in Russia," Tokayev's office wrote on Twitter, adding an "action plan is expected to be adopted to neutralize possible negative consequences linked to the situation in the neighboring friendly country impacting the security of citizens of Kazakhstan and the economy of our country."

The announcement comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin called Tokayev to brief him on the situation in Russia. 

Tokayev noted the events are an "internal affair" of Russia and called for the resumption of law and order.  

From CNN

18 hr 38 min ago From CNN 2228

Putin "has suffered a mortal blow," says retired US Army general

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suffered "a mortal blow," according to a retired US general, despite the apparent deal that will see Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin leave for Belarus.

"There are two existential fights going on in this Russia-Ukraine war," said retired US Army Brig. Gen. Peter Zwack.

"One is the viability of the survival, the existence, of a free-minded Ukrainian state. The other is inside the Kremlin and the viability of the Putin regime."

What (Prigozhin) has done is divided the Russians, got them squabbling publicly... This I believe is a mortal blow to Putin and his regime."

He called the events that unfolded on the streets of Russia over the past 36 hours "extraordinary," adding there is a "narrative getting out to the mainstream population that this invasion of Ukraine was wrong."

Zwack said: "And I think in this aspect, the information is that Russia's Putin's bodyguard of lies is collapsing as we watch."

19h GUK22.27 EDT

A bit more from the US reports claiming that US spy agencies suspected Prigozhin was planning something earlier this month.

A key trigger was an order from 10 June, in which the Russian Ministry of Defence ordered all volunteer units to sign contracts with the government, the Washington Post reports. This would have meant Prigozhin’s losing control of Wagner.

Ukraine was also monitoring Prigozhin, believing that he might mobilise his troops against Moscow, a Ukrainian official said, according to the paper.

The New York Times says the prior knowledge of impending events was similar to the way in which US intelligence got wind of Russian plans to invade Ukraine at the end of 2021.

However, while the US tried to warn Ukraine publicly then and deter Putin from carrying out his plans intelligence agencies in this case said nothing.

“US officials felt that if they said anything, Mr Putin could accuse them of orchestrating a coup. And they clearly had little interest in helping Mr. Putin avoid a major, embarrassing fracturing of his support,” the Times reported.

18h GUK22.41 EDT

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has condemned Prigozhin in a post on the Telegram messaging app, saying bloodshed had been averted this time but that it “could happen”.

“I thought some people could be trusted,” he wrote. “That they sincerely love their Motherland as real patriots to the marrow of their bones. But it turned out that for the sake of personal ambitions, benefits and because of arrogance, people cannot give a damn about affection and love for the Fatherland.”

He called on Wagner fighters “to continue to be sober in their decisions”, warning “such actions can lead to disastrous results”.

“Now everything ended peacefully, without bloodshed, but it could happen,” he continued, saying that a future rebellion would result in “the harsh suppression and destruction of anyone who encroaches on the integrity of the Russian Federation”.

On Saturday Kadyrov, an ally of Putin, called Prigozhin a traitor and said he was sending Chechen troops to squash the mutiny.

18h GUK22.54 EDT

Rob Lee, a military expert at the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, has posted some analysis of the last 24 hours, which have left many of us scratching our heads – indeed he starts by saying he has “more questions than answers”.

Regarding the Russian president, he says its “too soon to say Putin will fall anytime soon” but notes that “Putin and the MoD’s leadership look weak”.

It’s “not clear this will affect Ukraine’s offensive” but “the previous Kremlin-Wagner relationship is over” and “Wagner-Russian military cooperation will likely suffer”.

He also says Prigozhin “likely alienated many pro-war figures for doing this while Russian soldiers are defending against an offensive and killing Russian airmen” and notes that there is “a difference between soldiers and police not shooting at Wagner and joining them”.

Given Wagner’s presence overseas, “the greatest effects from this event may be felt in MENA/Africa”, says Lee.

18 hr 50 min ago From CNN 22.56

Kazakh president to host emergency Security Council meeting

Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will hold an emergency meeting of his Security Council on Sunday, his office has said, hours after he called for "law and order" in Russia.

"The head of the government will hear reports from the prime minister (and) heads of the security forces about taking course measures connected to the situation in Russia," Tokayev's office wrote on Twitter, adding an "action plan is expected to be adopted to neutralize possible negative consequences linked to the situation in the neighboring friendly country impacting the security of citizens of Kazakhstan and the economy of our country."

The announcement comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin called Tokayev to brief him on the situation in Russia. 

Tokayev noted the events are an "internal affair" of Russia and called for the resumption of law and order.  

2300

18h GUK23.06 EDT

The Guardian’s own correspondents, Andrew Roth, who reported on the reaction in Rostov to the shortlived mutiny, and Pjotr Sauer, who covered Prigozhin’s march into Russia from Ukraine as it happened, had these observations to make:

18h GUK23.37 EDT

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 Observer says “Rebel chief halts tank advance on Moscow ‘to stop bloodshed’” next to an image of a Wagner tank in Rostov-on-Don. Analysis by Luke Harding also features on the front, in which he says the mutiny led by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves Putin at his weakest in decades.

Bild in Germany has the headline: “Uprising against Putin” next to images of Wagner fighters. Its subhead reads: “The putsch attempt in Russia and what that means for us.” Die Welt and Der Spiegel both speak of a “power struggle” in Russia on their front pages.

The New York Times carried analysis on what the short-lived mutiny said about Putin’s hold on power. Correspondent Peter Baker noted the dangers and the opportunity the volatility presented to the US; the danger being an under-threat president in charge of nuclear missiles, and the opportunity a weakening of Russia’s war effort, to Ukraine’s gain.

Read our full wrap of what the papers say:

‘Putin humiliated’: what the papers said about the Wagner rebellion in Russia

17h GUK23.57 EDT

Kremlin struggled to put together coherent response to Wagner mutiny, US thinktank says

The Kremlin struggled to put together a coherent response to the Wagner mutiny “highlighting internal security weaknesses likely due to surprise and the impact of heavy losses in Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest analysis of the conflict.

Russian authorities mobilised Rosgvardia, the Russian National Police, the US thinktank wrote, but “ISW has not observed any reports or footage suggesting that Rosgvardia units engaged with Wagner at any point”.

Rosgvardia’s founding mission is to protect internal threats to the security of the Russian government such as an advance on Moscow, and it is notable that Rosgvardia failed to engage even as Wagner captured critical military assets in Rostov-on-Don and destroyed Russian military aircraft

It also noted that though Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he had mobilised his forces – which supposedly specialise in domestic security – in response to the Wagner advance, they also “unsurprisingly” never engaged with Wagner. This is “in line with Kadyrov’s paramount objective of maintaining his own internal security force,” the ISW said.

It concluded:

The Kremlin’s dedicated internal security organs failed to respond to an independent military force capturing the headquarters of the SMD [southern military district] and advancing on Moscow – and Wagner likely could have reached the outskirts of Moscow if Prigozhin chose to order them to do so.

RETREAT of the MERCENARIES:

Sunday, June 25th

UNTIMED

From the New York Times

Here’s the latest on the situation in Russia.

Russian state media blames and belittles Prigozhin, but some criticism of Putin and others surfaces.

Thousands of Wagner troops are deployed across Africa. Now what?

Ukraine could capitalize on the chaos wrought by the Wagner rebellion.

The short-lived rebellion in Russia shows cracks in Putin’s power, Blinken says.

More links...

The Future of Ukraine: The European Union and NATO have promised a path to membership for the country. But real partnership will hold risks and benefits.

· Photos: Photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations have been chronicling the war, capturing a slice of how soldiers and civilians have experienced it. Our photographers say some images will never leave them.

· Western Companies: Hundreds of Western businesses are still in Russia. Some say Moscow has tied their hands, while others have chosen to stay put.

· Defying Isolation: After the invasion of Ukraine, the West tried to cut Russia off from the rest of the world. But wealthy Russians continue to rely on a network of middlemen to circumvent the restrictions.

· A Wartime Partnership: The alliance between President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has become critical to the world order.

· Zelensky’s Rise: The Ukrainian president, once brushed off as a political lightweight, has become a household name, representing his country’s tenacity.

More links from the New York Times

Here is the latest on the standoff between Prigozhin and the Russian military.

The brief uprising in Russia was followed closely in Iran.

U.S. officials were briefed that Prigozhin was preparing to take military action against Russia.

Wagner fighters stream out of Rostov, the southern Russian military hub they seized overnight.

The Wagner uprising unraveled less than 24 hours after it began.

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From CNN

Updated 12:06 AM ET, From CNN Sun June 25, 2023

What we covered

· Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin will go to Belarus and criminal charges against him will be dropped in a deal to end his insurrection, Moscow said. The announcement caps a frenetic 36 hours in Russia but much remains uncertain.

· Prigozhin said he was turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow shortly after the Belarusian government said it had reached a deal with him to halt the advance.

· Only hours earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin had vowed to punish those behind the “armed uprising” after Wagner claimed control of military facilities in two Russian cities. Prigozhin had accused Russia's military leadership of striking a Wagner camp on Friday.

· In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Putin is “very afraid” following Wagner's actions, while a defense official said Ukrainian forces launched simultaneous counteroffensives in multiple directions.

Our coverage of the Wagner insurrection in Russia has moved here.

17h GUK00.23 EDT

More from the ISW analysis, which says that the optics of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko playing a direct role in the halting of a military advance on Moscow are “humiliating to [Russian president Vladimir] Putin and may have secured Lukashenko other benefits”.

Lukashenko’s reported access to previously established channels and successful negotiation with [Wagner leader Yevgeny] Prigozhin likely indicates Lukashenko has unspecified influence over Prigozhin he could leverage to deescalate the situation ...

Lukashenko will likely seek to use the de-escalation of the armed rebellion to advance his goals, such as delaying the formalization of the Russia-Belarus Union State or preventing Putin from using Belarusian forces in Ukraine.

16h GUK00.41 EDT

The ISW further speculates that Prigozhin saw the Ministry of Defence’s 1 July deadline for all irregular forces, including his Wagner group, to sign contracts with the government as an “existential threat to his political (and possibly personal) survival”.

He therefore “gambled that his only avenue to retain Wagner Group as an independent force was to march against the Russian MoD, likely intending to secure defections in the Russian military but overestimating his own prospects”.

Due to the speed and coordination of Wagner movements, Prigozhin “almost certainly planned this effort in advance,” the thinktank writes – that aligns with US media reports that US intelligence suspected up to two weeks GUK that he was planning to take action against Moscow.

The thinktank also suggests that the rebellion may have eroded support for Prigozhin among the ultranationalist community and even within Wagner itself, as it forced Wagner-affiliated regional authorities and recruitment organizations to denounce the effort.

Prigozhin also likely angered many Wagner personnel and Wagner-sympathetic ultranationalists by not following through with his attempted march on Moscow.

The agreement brokered by Belarus may also upset Wagner personnel, as it marks the end of efforts to keep Wagner from being subordinated to the MoD.

It is unclear at this time if Prigozhin secured buy-in from Wagner commanders or rank-and-file personnel before making the alleged agreement, and many Wagner personnel will likely be displeased with the potential of signing contracts with the MoD, demobilizing, or deploying away from Ukraine.

16h GUK00.56 EDT

A tweet verified by the BBC shows again how civilians in Rostov celebrated the Wagner troops as they were withdrawing. Not necessarily a sign that they don’t support president Vladimir Putin, but nonetheless not encouraging for him.

You can also hear a Wagner fighter firing his gun into the air.

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16h GUK01.03 EDT

Traffic restrictions remain in place on the M-4 “Don” major expressway in the Moscow and Tula regions on Sunday, the Federal Road Agency said on the Telegram messaging app according to Reuters.

The M4 links Moscow with the south, and authorities closed it on Saturday as Wagner fighters made their way up from Rostov.

“According to earlier decisions made in the regions, the restriction of traffic along the M-4 ‘Don’ (highway) in the Tula and Moscow regions remains in place,” the agency said.

16h GUK01.37 EDT

More images have also come through on the wires, showing smiling and cheering civilians with Wagner fighters. (See here to access)

Updated at 02.54 EDT

15h GUK01.54 EDT

In an analysis for the Atlantic published just before Prigozhin called off his mutiny, prominent US-Polish historian Anne Applebaum asks whether Putin could be “facing his Czar Nicholas II moment?”

“In a slow, unfocused sort of way, Russia is sliding into what can only be described as a civil war,” she writes.

If you are surprised, maybe you shouldn’t be. For months – years, really –Putin has blamed all of his country’s troubles on outsiders: America, Europe, Nato … Now he is facing a movement that lives according to the true values of the modern Russian military, and indeed of modern Russia.

Prigozhin is cynical, brutal, and violent. He and his men are motivated by money and self-interest. They are angry at the corruption of the top brass, the bad equipment provided to them, the incredible number of lives wasted. They aren’t Christian, and they don’t care about Peter the Great.

She notes that in 1917, it was Russian soldiers who came home angry from World War I to launch the Russian revolution.

Putin alluded to that moment in his brief television appearance this morning … What he did not mention was that up until the moment he left power, Czar Nicholas II was having tea with his wife, writing banal notes in his diary, and imagining that the ordinary Russian peasants loved him and would always take his side.

He was wrong.

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15h GUK02.14 EDT

Russia’s Federal Road Agency urged residents of the Moscow region on Sunday to refrain from travelling along the M-4 “Don” major expressway until 10 am (0700 GMT), Reuters reports.

The agency had said earlier in the day on the Telegram messaging app, in a post now deleted, that traffic restrictions on the highway in the Moscow and Tula regions remained.

The M4 links Moscow with the south, and authorities closed it on Saturday as Wagner fighters made their way up from Rostov.

15h GUK02.32 EDT

The situation around the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don was calm and street traffic resumed, RIA state news agency said on Sunday after Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries left the city.

In a video on the agency’s Telegram messaging app, which it said was taken in the city of Rostov-on-Don, a man was sweeping a street and cars were moving along another street, Reuters reported.

A bit more from the ISW analysis, which says that though it does not predict the imminent collapse of the Russia government, the weekend’s events “will likely substantially damage Putin’s government and the Russian war effort in Ukraine”.

The Kremlin now faces a deeply unstable equilibrium. The Lukashenko-negotiated deal is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed severe weaknesses in the Kremlin and Russian MoD…

The imagery of Putin appearing on national television to call for the end of an armed rebellion and warning of a repeat of a repeat of the 1917 revolution – and then requiring mediation from a foreign leader to resolve the rebellion – will have a lasting impact.

The rebellion exposed the weakness of the Russian security forces and demonstrated Putin’s inability to use his forces in a timely manner to repel an internal threat and further eroded his monopoly on force.

Prigozhin’s rapid drive towards Moscow ridiculed much of the Russian regular forces – and highlighted to any and all security figures, state owned enterprises, and other key figures in the Russian government that private military forces separate from the central state can achieve impressive results.

14h GUK02.43 EDT

Ukrainian forces have reset and have been undertaking major offensive operations on three main axes in southern and eastern Ukraine over the past few days, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.

Ukrainian forces are using the experiences from the first two weeks of the counter-offensive to refine tactics for assaulting the deep, well prepared Russian defences. Ukrainian units are making gradual but steady tactical progress in key areas.

It notes that Russian forces have been making their own “significant effort” to launch an attack in the Serebryanka Forest near Kremina in the eastern region of Luhansk.

This probably reflects continued Russian senior leadership orders to go on the offensive whenever possible. Russia has made some small gains, but Ukrainian forces have prevented a breakthrough.

14h GUK02.52 EDT

Summary

If you’re just joining us, here’s a roundup of all the latest developments:

· 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.

· Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Putin was “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”. In his latest evening address, Zelenskiy said: “Today the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability. And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons.”

· US spy agencies picked up information suggesting the Wagner leader was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, US media has reported. The Washington Post and New York Times that said US intelligence officials had conducted briefings at the White House, the PentGUKn and on Capitol Hill about the potential for unrest in nuclear-armed Russia a full day before it unfolded.

· Analysts have been confounded by events, with most saying it is too early to say whether Putin will fall but agreeing that he has been substantially damaged by the mutiny. The Institute for the Study of War noted that the Kremlin struggled to put together a coherent response to the mutiny and that “Wagner likely could have reached the outskirts of Moscow if Prigozhin chose to order them to do so.”

· 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.

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14h GUK03.07 EDT

Here’s our full report on the latest developments

The chief of the rebel Wagner mercenary force Yevgeny Prigozhin will leave Russia and won’t face charges after calling off his troops’ advance towards Moscow, as reports emerged that US spy agencies had picked up signs days GUK that he was preparing to rise up against Russia’s defence establishment.

Late on Saturday, video emerged of Prigozhin leaving the headquarters of the southern military district in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don after agreeing to move to Belarus. His exact whereabouts on Sunday morning were not clear. Images also showed Wagner fighters withdrawing from the city.

The developments came amid reports in the Washington Post and New York Times that said US intelligence officials had conducted briefings at the White House, the PentGUKn and on Capitol Hill about the potential for unrest in nuclear-armed Russia a full day before it unfolded.

Wagner boss to leave Russia as reports say US spy agencies picked up signs of planned uprising days GUK

14h GUK03.21 EDT

An “anti-terrorist operation regime” was still in force in Moscow on Sunday, a day after mutinous Wagner mercenaries threatened to storm the Russian capital, in a dramatic security crisis for President Vladimir Putin.

The anti-terrorist regime was introduced in Moscow on Saturday, as the Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s forces appeared to advance on the capital, with authorities asking residents to limit travel.

Moscow authorities also said that a day off work introduced to curb movement around the city on Monday would remain in place for security reasons.

13h GUK03.49 EDT

The Ukrainian military claims to have “liquidated” 720 Russian military people in the last 24 hours, in unverified figures released today.

As of today, the Russians have suffered a total of 224,630 combat losses since the start of the war on 24 February, according to the Ukrainian ministry of defence. Yesterday, the Ukrainians claimed to have caused 223,910 Russian losses.

The Ukrainians also said in the last day they destroyed six tanks, 19 artillery systems, two anti-aircraft war systems, 41 cruise missiles, among other military equipment.

Both Ukraine and Russia have consistently claimed the other side has sustained devastatingly high casualties, but it has not been possible to verify battlefield claims from either side.

Western diplomats told Reuters on 5 June that Russia’s deaths and casualties totalled around 200,000.

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13h GUK04.06 EDT

Analysts have been trying to explain the tumultuous events of the last 24 hours, which saw the greatest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.

Many questions remained unanswered, including whether chief mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin would be joined in exile by any of Wagner’s troops and what role, if any, he might have there.

But the risk for Putin is whether he will be seen as weak, analysts said.

“Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst said on CNN.

13h GUK04.32 EDT

China Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko have met in Beijing, in the first public meeting of diplomats from the two countries since mutinous mercenaries threatened to storm the Russian capital.

The two exchanged views on “international and regional issues of common concern”, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Sunday.

They also exchanged views on China-Russia relations, the ministry said on its website.

Chinese leaders have not responded publicly to news of the armed rebellion and the Wall Street Journal reports the events received limited coverage in Chinese media, in stark contrast to the in-depth coverage of the mutiny in Western meedia.

13h GUK04.37 EDT

All transport restrictions lifted in region previously controlled by Wagner mutineers

All transport restrictions in Russia’s Rostov region have been lifted, including those on highways, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing local officials.

“Bus and railway stations are working in normal mode. Tickets are on sale, all destinations are on schedule,” Sergey Tyurin, deputy minister of regional policy and mass communications for the Rostov region was quoted as saying.

Independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta is reporting that PMC Wagner’s military hardware damaged over 10,000 square metres (6.2 square miles) of road surface.

It cites Mayor Alexey Logvinenko as saying it is expected that repairs to the road will take two days.

The Wagner fighters had captured the city of Rostov overnight on Friday and had reportedly maintained complete control of the region on Saturday.

But on Saturday night, Wagner fighters loaded tanks on trailers and began withdrawing from the Rostov military headquarters they had seized, a Reuters witness said.

12h GUK04.56 EDT

Wagner fighters were leaving Russia’s southern Voronezh region Sunday, the local governor said, after the group halted a dramatic rebellion to bring down Russia’s top brass and U-turned on a march to Moscow.

Little is known about what happened in Voronezh region on Saturday, where Russia said the army was deployed and led “combat” operations. A huge unexplained fire raged at an oil depot in the city during the mutiny.

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12h GUK05.02 EDT

An uprising by the Wagner mercenary group suggests Vladimir Putin has “lost authority” in Russia, a former MI6 officer has said.

Christopher Steele told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “What’s changed I think is that Vladimir Putin has lost authority and legitimacy within Russia and has been challenged in a way, yes he’s managed to worm his way out of it for the present.

“To see events unfold in Russia yesterday and the speed with which the situation seemed to spiral out of control must be very concerning for Putin and the people around him.”

12h GUK05.14 EDT

A renewed attack on Kyiv from Belarus could take place if Wagner Group mercenaries follow their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin into the country, a former chief of the UK General Staff has warned.

Lord Dannatt told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “Apparently he’s left the stage to go to Belarus but is that the end of Prigozhin and the Wagner Group? The fact that he’s gone to Belarus is I think a matter of some concern.

“What we don’t know, what we will discover in the next hours and days is... how many of his fighters have actually gone with him.

12h GUK05.29 EDT

North Korea’s vice foreign minister in a meeting with the Russian ambassador on Sunday said he supported any decision by the Russian leadership to deal with a recent mutiny, North Korean state media reported.

Im Chon Il, the vice foreign minister, “expressed firm belief that the recent armed rebellion in Russia would be successfully put down in conformity with the aspiration and will of the Russian people,” state KCNA news agency said.

11h GUK05.39 EDT

Chechen special forces deployed to Russia’s Rostov region to resist an advance by the Wagner mercenary group were withdrawing on Sunday, the TASS news agency reported, citing a commander.

The “Akhmat” special forces are returning to where they were fighting previously, commander Apty Alaudinov was quoted as saying by the news agency Reuters reports.

11h GUK05.45 EDT

Heavily armed Russian mercenaries pulled out of the southern Russian city of Rostov overnight after halting their advance on Moscow under a deal that defused an unprecedented challenge to the authority of President Vladimir Putin.

Under the deal, mediated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, fighters of the Wagner group would return to base in return for guarantees for their safety and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, would move to Belarus.

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11h GUK06.14 EDT

Western leaders remain resistant to the idea of Vladimir Putin stepping down, Alexander Litvinenko’s widow Marina has suggested.

She told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “They accept Ukrainian people in a different country they have support, but they still want to keep Putin, and at least to have some kind of controlling of Russia.

“(After what happened on Saturday) we can see, Putin doesn’t control nothing. If you want to save Russia from collapsing you need to take Putin out from this place.”

11h GUK06.25 EDT

An analyst has said President Putin “underestimated” Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the armed rebellion yesterday.

Independent political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP: “The crisis of institutions and trust was not obvious to many in Russia and the West yesterday. Today, it is clear.

10h GUK06.58 EDT

Russian air strikes on the Ukrainian capital yesterday left five people dead, the city’s mayor has said.

Vitali Klitschko said two more bodies had been found on Sunday under the rubble of an apartment building, Ukrainian media are reporting.

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10h GUK07.12 EDT

Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was notorious for unbridled and profane challenges to authority even before the attempted rebellion that he mounted Saturday. The reported agreement for him to go into exile in Belarus would place him in a country where such behaviour is even less acceptable than in his homeland, AP reports.

10h GUK07.15 EDT

There was little sign in Moscow on Sunday of the counterterrorism alert that was introduced after Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his revolt and nominally remained in place.

Crowds swarmed the downtown area of the Russian capital on a sunny day and street cafés were packed with customers, according to AP. Traffic had returned to normal and roadblocks and checkpoints were d.

One detail noticed by the BBC’s Russia editor was a car with the words “WTF is going on?” emblazoned in white letters on its rear window. Steve Rosenberg commented: “Couldn’t have put it better myself”.

10h GUK07.20 EDT

President Vladimir Putin has appeared on Russian state TV for the first time since the armed rebellion threatened to topple his regime, though the comments appear to have been recorded before the mutiny.

Putin renewed his commitment to the war in Ukraine, calling the “special military operation” his top priority.

According to Reuters, he said “I start and end my day with this”.

10h GUK07.22 EDT

Russia’s defence ministry on Sunday said it had repelled attempted attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported.

The ministry said it had repelled 10 attacks in the Bakhmut area, agencies reported.

10h GUK07.30 EDT

President Putin is to take part in a regular Russian security council meeting next week, the nation’s state TV has said according to Reuters.

It follows the release of recorded remarks made by Putin before an armed rebellion by Wagner mercenaries.

9h GUK07.39 EDT

The former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov has said the Wagner rebellion has marked the “beginning of the end” for Vladimir Putin.

Kasyanov, who was Russian PM from 2000-04, has become a vocal critic of Putin and says the Russian president is in “very big trouble right now”.

In comments to the BBC he said that he expected the Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to go to Africa after travelling to Belarus and “be somewhere in the jungle”. “Mr Putin cannot forgive him for this,” he said, adding that Prigozhin’s life would be under a “big question” now.

9h GUK07.52 EDT

It was notable that when Yevgeny Prigozhin left the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don late on Saturday, he was cheered by crowds of men gathering around his car. The Wagner leader appears to enjoy rapturous support in Russia despite Vladimir Putin branding him a “traitor” that he vowed to “liquidate”.

9h GUK07.58 EDT

Russia’s foreign ministry says China has expressed its support for the leadership in Moscow as Vladimir Putin attempts to stabilise his country following the aborted mutiny by the Wagner group of mercenaries on Saturday.

As Reuters reports, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko held a meeting with China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, after flying to Beijing for talks on “international” issues.

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9h GUK08.16 EDT

Moscow’s Red Square remained closed on Sunday morning after security in the city was tightened following the Wagner rebellion on Saturday. Metal gates prevented people from entering the Russian landmark, while police guarded other entry points.

A “non-working day” order was imposed on Moscow for Monday in response to the perceived threat as Wagner mercenaries drove towards the capital on Saturday.

9h GUK08.24 EDT

There’s a little more detail on the comments from Vladimir Putin which have been aired on Russian state television on Sunday. He did not mention Saturday’s revolt, in which Wagner mercenaries took a southern city before heading toward Moscow, during the short interview.

He said he was confident in his plans for Ukraine but the interview appeared to have been recorded before the aborted Wagner revolt.

8h GUK08.38 EDT

The “big loser” of the armed rebellion was Russia’s long-serving defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, according to an analyst.

Shoigu has long been seen not just as a political ally of President Vladimir Putin but one of the Kremlin chief’s few friends within the Russian elite. They have sun-bathed bare-chested together in remote Siberia, d fishing holidays and played on the same ice hockey team.

But their friendship and Shoigu’s decades-long political career now face their biggest test after the revolt led by Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had lambasted the defence minister’s handling of the invasion of Ukraine.

“The big winner of the night was Lukashenko,” said Arnaud Dubien, director of the Franco-Russian Observatory think tank. “The big loser was Shoigu.”

8h GUK08.45 EDT

Wagner rebellion the 'most ridiculous attempt at mutiny' ever, say Ukrainians

An adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister has described the Wagner rebellion in Russia as “the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny” ever.

“This only makes Russia weaker and makes us stronger,” Yuriy Sak told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.

“What happened yesterday in Russia, it will probably go down in history as the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny that was ever attempted.

8h GUK08.56 EDT

The UK must prepare for a “deeply dangerous and unpredictable” post-Vladimir Putin Russia, a security expert has warned after the Russian president’s authority was weakened by an attempted rebellion.

Edward Lucas, a senior adviser at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend: “We’ve made very little preparation in this country and done very little thinking about post-Putin Russia.

“There will be all sorts of dilemmas and difficulties we face and we need to start thinking right now about how we deal with them.

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8h GUK09.00 EDT

The Moscow stock exchange, banks and financial institutions are expected to operate as usual on Monday, Russia’s central bank said on Sunday, despite Moscow’s mayor having declared it a non-working day when mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was leading his Wagner forces towards the city.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Saturday asked people to refrain from trips around the city because of a counterterrorism operation.

8h GUK09.13 EDT

By Olha Zaiarna

In Kyiv, the silence of another summer evening is broken by the loud, piercing sound of an air raid warning. The alert app on our mobile phone sends out a warning to take cover, and Telegram channels inform us that the air defence system is operating, so we need to be careful.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the people of Ukraine have been living in a state of constant watchfulness, adjusting their lives to the lack of sleep and psychological consequences of terror from above.

8h GUK09.22 EDT

There has been no change in the US nuclear posture after an armed rebellion in Russia, America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said. He added that the Wagner uprising was a “direct challenge to Putin’s authority” that shows “real cracks” in Russia’s military direction.

Concerns about the prospect of Wagner millitias gaining access to nuclear weapons had been expressed by Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s security council, as the uprising roiled on Saturday.

8h GUK09.32 EDT

On Saturday in Copenhagen, as the world trained its eyes on the apparent imminent collapse of Vladimir Putin’s regime, a gathering of senior government security advisers from the global south and the west met with Ukraine’s leadership to discuss a path to peace. The gathering, the first uniting the global south and western powers at this level over Ukraine has the potential to be even more ominous for Putin.

7h GUK09.40 EDT

“What happened in Russia doesn’t make any sense” Yuriy Sak, an adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister told Sky News.

He said it “feels very bizarre” that the Wagner rebels were able to get so close to Moscow before “nothing happened”.

7h GUK09.54 EDT

The Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, has emerged as an early beneficiary of the aborted Wagner march on Moscow, but those benefits may not have a long shelf life.

Whether or not Lukashenko played quite the enterprising broker’s role described in the statements coming out of the Kremlin and Minsk (and most analysts are sceptical) he has emerged in the Russian press as the hero of the hour, the man who saved Moscow.

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7h GUK10.09 EDT

US secretary of state declines to 'speculate' on whereabouts of Putin after mutiny

The US secretary of state has declined to “speculate” on the whereabouts of Vladimir Putin following an armed rebellion in Russia.

Speculation was rampant online during the Wagner mercenary fighters’ mutiny that Putin may have left Moscow. Flight data showing his presidential plane on the move added to the uncertainty.

7h GUK10.20 EDT

While Putin was forced to watch his back, Ukraine seemed to have stepped up its counteroffensive.

On Saturday afternoon, while Prigozhin was moving towards the Kremlin, the Ukraine military reported an offensive near the villages surrounding Bakhmut, taken by Wagner forces in May, after months of fighting. In the evening, Oleksandr Tarnavsky, a Ukrainian commander, told the national news agency of Ukraine, Ukrinform, that its forces had liberated territories near the city of Krasnohorivka, in the Donetsk region, which pro-Russia separatists have occupied since 2014.

6h GUK10.35 EDT

China on Sunday said it supported Russia in “protecting national stability”, in Beijing’s first official remarks on a short-lived armed uprising led by the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“As a friendly neighbour and a new era comprehensive strategic cooperative partner, China supports Russia in protecting national stability and achieving development and prosperity,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

6h GUK10.53 EDT

Here is a summary of today's developments:

· The Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has agreed to leave Russia and ordered his fighters to withdraw from Rostov and halt their march on Moscow, under the terms of a deal negotiated by Belarus.

· The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has appeared on Russian state TV for the first time since the armed rebellion threatened to topple his regime, though the comments appear to have been recorded before the mutiny.

· US spy agencies picked up information suggesting Prigozhin was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, US media has reported.

· Putin is “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said in his latest evening address.

· The Kremlin struggled to put together a coherent response to the Wagner mutiny “highlighting internal security weaknesses likely due to surprise and the impact of heavy losses in Ukraine”, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest analysis of the conflict.

· All transport restrictions in Russia’s Rostov region – which was controlled by Wagner mutineers on Saturday – have been lifted, including those on highways, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing local officials.

· An adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister has described the Wagner rebellion in Russia as “the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny” ever.

· There has been no change in the US nuclear posture after an armed rebellion in Russia, America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said. He added that the Wagner uprising was a “direct challenge to Putin’s authority” that shows “real cracks” in Russia’s military direction.

6h GUK10.56 EDT

For nearly 24 hours, millions of Ukrainians believed that the war with Russia might be nearing its conclusion. From 9am on Friday, when Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced his march on Moscow, until 8pm on Saturday, when mercenary troops with their tanks and armoured vehicles were just over 180 miles (300km) from the Russian capital, the battered country glimpsed the end of Putin’s regime.

Then, suddenly, when the Russian warlord called off his advance, the revived enthusiasm quickly ebbed away, giving way to disappointment and frustration, with many refusing to believe the Belarusian-brokered deal to end the armed uprising was real.

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6h GUK11.13 EDT

What next for Yevgeny Prigozhin?

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday that the Wagner head had agreed to leave Russia for Belarus as part of a deal to end his armed revolt, while charges against him for organising the rebellion would be dropped. Peskov added that Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, had guaranteed Prigozhin’s personal safety.

The warlord’s current whereabouts is unknown. He was last seen leaving the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don late on Saturday to a rapturous reception, with crowds of men gathering around him.

From GUK Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: Putin appears on Russian TV after Wagner rebellion

President restates commitment to ‘special military operation’ in comments seemingly recorded before mutiny

· See all our Ukraine war coverage

Charlie Moloney with Guardian staff and agencies

Sun 25 Jun 2023 11.22 EDT

· President Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian state TV for the first time since the armed rebellion threatened to topple his regime and restated his commitment to the “special military operation” in Ukraine, though the comments appear to have been recorded before the mutiny.

· There has been no change in the US nuclear posture after an armed rebellion in Russia, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said. He added that the Wagner uprising was a “direct challenge to Putin’s authority” that shows “real cracks” in Russia’s military direction.

· All transport restrictions in Russia’s Rostov region – which was controlled by Wagner mutineers on Saturday – have been lifted, including those on highways, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing local officials.

· An adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister has described the Wagner rebellion in Russia as “the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny” ever.

· In an abrupt about-face, the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, called off his troops’ march on Moscow and ordered them to move out of Rostov on Saturday. 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.

· Prigozhin said in a statement that he had 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.

· The press office of Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down. It said Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said Putin had 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 heading north-west from Moscow on Saturday afternoon. His current whereabouts is unclear.

· The Ukrainian president said that Putin was “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”. In his latest evening address, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: “Today the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability. And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons.”

· US spy agencies reportedly picked up information suggesting the Wagner leader was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June. The Washington Post and New York Times said US intelligence officials had conducted briefings at the White House and the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill about the potential for unrest in Russia the day before it unfolded.

· Analysts have been confounded by the events. Most say it is too early to determine whether Putin will fall but agree he has been substantially damaged. The Institute for the Study of War noted that the Kremlin struggled to put together a coherent response to the mutiny and that “Wagner likely could have reached the outskirts of Moscow if Prigozhin chose to order them to do so”.

· Ukraine’s military said on Saturday that its forces had made advances near Bakhmut, on the eastern front, and farther south. The deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said an offensive was launched near a group of villages ringing Bakhmut, which Wagner forces took control of in May after months of fighting. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the commander of the southern front, said Ukrainian forces had liberated an area near Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.

6h GUK11.31 EDT

Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko spoke again by phone on Sunday morning, Belarus’ Belta news agency reported.

The two men spoke at least twice on Saturday. Lukashenko brokered a deal with Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin who had agreed to de-escalate the situation and move to Belarus.

Photos: See Guardian site for images:

5h GUK11.55 EDT

A policeman patrols an empty Red Square in Moscow.

5h GUK11.56 EDT

Security officers check a car in front of the Borovitskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin. Troops deployed in Moscow the previous day to protect the capital from Wagner mercenaries have withdrawn from the capital, and people swarmed the streets and flocked to cafes.

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Updated at 12.51 EDT

5h GUK12.21 EDT

US house of representatives intelligence committee chairman, Mike Turner, said Vladimir Putin’s future actions in Ukraine could be inhibited by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s assertion that the rationale for invading Ukraine was based on lies concocted by the Russian top brass.

“Taking down the very premise makes it much more difficult for Putin to continue to turn to the Russian people and say, we should continue to send people to die,” Turner told CBS’ Face the Nation program.

4h GUK12.41 EDT

Part of Dmitry Kiselyov’s Russian state TV programme has been tweeted by Francis Scarr from BBC Monitoring.

Kiselyov said the swift resolution of the Wagner Group’s mutiny shows Russia is a united nation.

He also played an archive clip of Vladimir Putin saying he is able to forgive many things, but not “betrayal”.

1300

4h GUK13.02 EDT

A summary of today's developents

· Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has agreed to leave Russia and ordered his fighters to withdraw from Rostov and halt their march on Moscow, under the terms of a deal negotiated by Belarus.

· President Vladimir Putin has appeared on Russian state TV for the first time since the armed rebellion threatened to topple his regime, though the comments appear to have been recorded before the mutiny. Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko spoke again by phone on Sunday morning, Belarus’ Belta news agency reported.

· US spy agencies picked up information suggesting Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, US media has reported.

· Russian president Vladimir Putin is “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest evening address.

· The Kremlin struggled to put together a coherent response to the Wagner mutiny “highlighting internal security weaknesses likely due to surprise and the impact of heavy losses in Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest analysis of the conflict.

· All transport restrictions in Russia’s Rostov region – which was controlled by Wagner mutineers on Saturday - have been lifted, including those on highways, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing local officials.

· An adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister has described the Wagner rebellion in Russia as “the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny” ever.

· There has been no change in the US nuclear posture after an armed rebellion in Russia, America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said. He added that the Wagner uprising was a “direct challenge to Putin’s authority” that shows “real cracks” in Russia’s military direction.

4h GUK13.20 EDT

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda warned that Nato will need to strengthen its eastern flank if Belarus becomes the new host of Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Lithuania will hold the Nato summit next month and said that the general security plan for the meeting will not change following the recent developments in Russia.

The president went on to say that he believed Russian president Vladimir Putin may face further challenges to his leadership.

“The king is naked,” Nauseda said.

3h GUK13.46 EDT

Two civilians were killed on Sunday in Donetsk after shelling by Ukrainian forces, the Russian-installed mayor Alexei Kulemzin said on Telegram, Reuters reports.

According to Kulemzin, a male victim born in 2005 and a woman born in 1956 died due to enemy fire.

1400

3h GUK14.10 EDT

Rebellion shows Russian authorities are 'weak', says Ukraine's defence minister

Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that he had a conversation with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, describing the Russian authorities as “weak.”

2h GUK14.34 EDT

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said that the revolt lead by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against the country’s leadership highlights divisions within the Russian government.

Speaking to the Provence newspaper on Sunday, Macron said that Wagner’s march to Moscow, which came to an abrupt halt over the weekend, “shows the divisions that exist within the Russian camp, and the fragility of both its military and its auxillary forces.”

1500

2h GUK15.02 EDT

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, held a phone call with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, saying that he was “grateful for [Trudeau’s] recent visit to Kyiv and to Canada and all Canadians for their continued support of Ukraine”.

2h GUK15.27 EDT

Over the course of a day, the Ukrainian military allegedly advanced from 600 metres to 1,000 metres on the southern and northern flanks around Bakhmut, Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the eastern group of forces, told Ukrainian news agencies.

While Putin was forced to watch his back, Ukraine seemed to have stepped up its counteroffensive.

On Saturday afternoon, while Prigozhin was moving towards the Kremlin, the Ukraine military reported an offensive near the villages surrounding Bakhmut, taken by Wagner forces in May, after months of fighting.

2h GUK 15.55 EDT

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks with US president Joe Biden

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he discussed the weekend’s turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden, on Sunday and that the events had exposed the weakness of Vladimir Putin’s rule, Reuters reports.

In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.

1600

42m GUK16.19 EDT

Following several whirlwind news cycles and a tense weekend, Russian authorities have told journalists to take a day off.

Agence France-Presse reports:

Knackered after covering a stunning march on Moscow by a small army of mercenaries? Take a day off after a “tense” weekend, Russian authorities told journalists on Sunday.

18m GUK16.43 EDT

Here is the full statement released by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on his call with the US president, Joe Biden, earlier today: (See website for link)

1700

2m GUK17.00 EDT

Closing Summary

It is midnight in Kyiv. Here is a roundup of the day’s key events:

· Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he discussed the weekend’s turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden, on Sunday and that the events had exposed the weakness of Vladimir Putin’s rule. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.

· Over the course of a day, the Ukrainian military allegedly advanced from 600 metres to 1,000 metres on the southern and northern flanks around Bakhmut, Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the eastern group of forces, told Ukrainian news agencies. On Saturday afternoon, while Prigozhin was moving towards the Kremlin, the Ukraine military reported an offensive near the villages surrounding Bakhmut, taken by Wagner forces in May, after months of fighting.

· Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, held a phone call with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, saying that he was “grateful for [Trudeau’s] recent visit to Kyiv and to Canada and all Canadians for their continued support of Ukraine.” In a statement on Twitter, Zelenskiy wrote: “I spoke about the current situation on the battlefield and d [Ukraine’s] assessments of the attempted coup in [Russia] and the impact of this situation on the course of hostilities.”

· France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said that the revolt lead by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against the country’s leadership highlights divisions within the Russian government. Speaking to the Provence newspaper on Sunday, Macron said that Wagner’s march to Moscow, which came to an abrupt halt over the weekend, “shows the divisions that exist within the Russian camp, and the fragility of both its military and its auxiliary forces.”

· Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that he had a conversation with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, describing the Russian authorities as “weak.” Reznikov wrote on Twitter: “We talked about recent events in Russia. We agree that the Russian authorities are weak and that withdrawing Russian troops from Ukraine is the best choice for the Kremlin. Russia would be better served to address its own issues.”

· Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda warned that Nato will need to strengthen its eastern flank if Belarus becomes the new host of Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. 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.”

· Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has agreed to leave Russia and ordered his fighters to withdraw from Rostov and halt their march on Moscow, under the terms of a deal negotiated by Belarus.

· President Vladimir Putin has appeared on Russian state TV for the first time since the armed rebellion threatened to topple his regime, though the comments appear to have been recorded before the mutiny. Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko spoke again by phone on Sunday morning, Belarus’ Belta news agency reported.

· US spy agencies picked up information suggesting Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, US media has reported.

· Russian president Vladimir Putin is “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said in his latest evening address.

· All transport restrictions in Russia’s Rostov region – which was controlled by Wagner mutineers on Saturday - have been lifted, including those on highways, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing local officials.

· An adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister has described the Wagner rebellion in Russia as “the most ridiculous attempt at mutiny” ever.

· There has been no change in the US nuclear posture after an armed rebellion in Russia, America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said. He added that the Wagner uprising was a “direct challenge to Putin’s authority” that shows “real cracks” in Russia’s military direction.

That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we close the blog for today. Thank you for following along.

RISE of the VIEWPOINTEERS:

Monday, June 26th

Overnight... Midnight to Dawn EDT

From ABC NEWS:

RUSSIAN REBELLION TIMELINE: HOW THE WAGNER GROUP'S UPRISING AGAINST PUTIN UNFOLDED

A Putin ally called Friday for rebellion. It was all over by Saturday evening.

By Kevin Shalvey June 26, 2023, Beginning at 5:09 AM

Takeaways:

Confrontation between Kremlin military and Wagner mercenary group averted

Confrontation between Kremlin military and Wagner mercenary group averted

The unrest in Russia was diffused when the Wagner troops, led by one-time Putin ally, Yevgeny Prigozhin, pulled back from...Read More

LONDON -- A chaotic armed rebellion that threatened the longstanding leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin began Friday and appeared to have been quelled by Saturday evening.

MORE: Russia-Ukraine live updates: 'Mystery' why Prigozhin stopped march, US official says

The uprising, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the paramilitary Wagner Group, began in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Forces loyal to Prigozhin marched toward Moscow, before turning back Saturday night.

0000

From the Guardian U.K.:

17h ago 00.32 EDT

Opening summary

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine and the crisis in Russia.

Ukraine’s military says it has advanced between 600 metres and 1,000 metres on the southern and northern flanks around Bakhmut, the city which was taken by Wagner forces in May. The military also reported advances in the area on Saturday, as Wagner forces were marching on Moscow. It was not possible to verify the reports.

AFP reported fierce clashes in the area on Sunday, with Ukrainian soldiers telling the news agency that the Wagner mutiny had not noticeably affected fighting in the area. “As it attacked yesterday, Russia continued to attack today,” one soldier said, while another said that for Ukraine, the fighting was going “according to plan”.

The Russian rouble has opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trading on Monday, responding for the first time to the rebellion.

At 0402 GMT, the rouble was 2.1% weaker against the dollar at 86.37, hitting 86.8800 on market opening, its weakest point since late March 2022, Reuters reported.

In other key developments:

· US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said the Wagner 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. “This is an unfolding story and I think we’re in the midst of a moving picture,” Blinken told the CBS News programme Face the Nation. “We haven’t seen the last act.”

· There has been no word from Putin or Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin since the rebellion ended and their whereabouts are unclear. Putin appeared on Russian state TV on Sunday but the comments appeared to have been recorded before the mutiny. In an interview broadcast on state television he made no reference to the rebellion but renewed his commitment to the war in Ukraine, calling the “special military operation” his top priority.

· Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda warned that Nato would need to strengthen its eastern flank if Prigozhin is exiled to Belarus as agreed with Moscow. 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.”

· State television also said Putin would attend a meeting of Russia’s Security Council this week, without elaborating. Belarus’ Belta news agency said Putin and President Alexander Lukashenko, who negotiated with Prigozhin to end the mutiny, spoke again on Sunday, after at least two calls on Saturday.

· The weekend’s events have “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, saying he had discussed the turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.

· The Ukrainian president said he had also held “positive conversations” with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Polish president Andrzej Duda. They discussed “hostilities on the frontline” and the “further strengthening of Ukrainian troops”.

· France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said that the revolt highlighted divisions within the Russian government. Speaking to the Provence newspaper on Sunday, Macron said that Wagner’s march to Moscow “shows the divisions that exist within the Russian camp, and the fragility of both its military and its auxiliary forces.”

· Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said he spoke to US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, and described the Russian authorities as “weak”. Reznikov wrote on Twitter: “We talked about recent events in Russia. We agree that the Russian authorities are weak and that withdrawing Russian troops from Ukraine is the best choice for the Kremlin. Russia would be better served to address its own issues.”

· Russian officials said that houses and roads had been damaged because of the rebellion by the Wagner mercenaries. Nineteen houses had been damaged in the village of Yelizavetovka as a result of a firefight involving Wagner forces while about 10,000 square metres of roads in Rostov had been damaged by tank tracks.

17h GUK 00.41 EDT

Ukraine advances up to 1km near Bakhmut

Ukraine’s military says it has advanced between 600 metres and 1,000 metres on the southern and northern flanks around Bakhmut, the city which was taken by Wagner forces in May.

The military also reported advances in the area on Saturday, as Wagner forces were marching on Moscow. It was not possible to verify the reports.

AFP reported fierce clashes in the area on Sunday, with Ukrainian soldiers telling the news agency that the Wagner mutiny had not noticeably affected fighting in the area.

“As it attacked yesterday, Russia continued to attack today,” one soldier said, adding. “Most people, most military, understand very well that the circus from Russia is still here.” Another said that for Ukraine, the fighting was going “according to plan”.

Kyiv has said that the unrest in Russia offered a “window of opportunity” for its long-awaited counter-offensive.

17h GUK 00.49 EDT

Russian rouble at weakest point since March 2022

The Russian rouble has opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trade on Monday, responding for the first time to the Wagner mutiny, according to Reuters.

By 0415 GMT, the rouble was 2.1% weaker against the dollar at 86.50, after earlier hitting 87.2300, its weakest point since late March 2022. It had lost 2.2% to trade at 94.37 versus the euro and shed 2.1% against the yuan to 11.95.

More from Reuters:

With the rouble not trading over the weekend, Russian banks were offering exchange rates well above official rate beyond 90 to the dollar.

Monday’s full trading session begins at 0700 GMT. Investors globally were watching for ripple effects from the aborted mutiny, with some expecting a move into safe havens such as US government bonds and the dollar.

Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia’s main export, was up 0.2% at $74.03 a barrel.

0100

16h GUK 01.03 EDT

Video released of Russian defence minister Shoigu visiting troops in Ukraine

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has visited troops in Ukraine, Russian news agency Ria has reported, his first public appearance since the Wagner mutiny at the weekend.

Shoigu has not commented on the rebellion, during which Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin demanded that the defence minister meet him in Rostov before calling off the mutiny.

In a post on Telegram, Ria reported that Shoigu met Colonel-General Nikiforov, commander of the ‘western’ grouping:

The minister also paid special attention to the organization of support for the troops involved in the special military operation and the creation of conditions for the safe deployment of personnel.

In a video released by the Russian defence ministry, Shoigu is described as being in the western sector of the “special military operation” – Russia’s preferred term for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is nothing in the video which gives an indication of where or when it was filmed.

16h GUK 01.11 EDT

The Australian government has pledged a new $110m military assistance package in the next round of support for Ukraine, including vehicles, ammunition and humanitarian funding.

“This package responds to Ukraine’s requests for vehicles and ammunition, and will make a tangible difference on the battlefield,” the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said in a statement.

Canberra has committed 70 military vehicles, including 28 M113 armoured vehicles, 14 special operations vehicles, 28 MAN 40M medium trucks and 14 trailers; a new supply of 105mm artillery ammunition; and $10m to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – for the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund – to assist in the provision of shelter, health services, water and sanitation.

“We support international efforts to ensure [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s aggression fails and that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity prevails,” Albanese said.

The government said the latest commitment took Australia’s total contribution to Ukraine to $790m, including $610m in military assistance.

Australia pledges $100m in new military support for Ukraine, including vehicles and ammunition.

16h GUK 01.21 EDT

The Kremlin “likely risks Prigozhin’s armed rebellion expanding the window of acceptable anti-Kremlin criticism,” the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest analysis, particularly if the Kremlin does not retaliate further against the Wagner leader.

The US thinktank used the example of a pre-planned meeting by the ultranationalist Angry Patriots Club in Moscow on Sunday, at which former Russian officer Igor Girkin reiterated that Putin needs to legally transfer certain presidential authorities to other parties if he is unwilling to assume control over the war in Ukraine as the supreme commander-in-chief.

Officials were likely aware of the event as the club had been promoting it for weeks, the ISW noted, adding:

If the Kremlin intends to use Prigozhin’s rebellion as pretext to start immediately suppressing antGUK nistic ultranationalists, then this event would have likely been a prime candidate to start that effort ...

The Kremlin’s continued careful response to the armed rebellion will likely prompt other Russian nationalists to test Russian official reactions to more explicitly critical rhetoric.

16h GUK 01.42 EDT

Ukraine has reclaimed some 130 square kilometres (50 square miles) from Russian forces along the southern front line since the start of the counteroffensive, Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has said according to Reuters.

“The situation in the south has not undergone significant changes over the past week,” Maliar told the national broadcaster.

She added that along the eastern part of the front line, which includes the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Maryinka directions, about 250 combat clashes had taken place over the past week.

The invasion had nothing to do with denazifying Ukraine nor was it launched because Ukraine was about to attack Russia – rather it was due to Shoigu’s desire for a second “hero of Russia” medal, he said.

“What was the war for? The war needed for Shoigu to receive a hero star … The oligarchic clan that rules Russia needed the war,” Prigozhin said.

“The mentally ill scumbags decided: ‘It’s OK, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as cannon fodder. They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want,’” Prigozhin continued.

16h GUK 01.53 EDT

It’s still unclear exactly what the terms of the deal to end the rebellion mean for Wagner, but the ISW suggests that the fact that Wagner troops are returning to base with their equipment means that the Kremlin intends to maintain at least elements of the group, rather than immediately demobilising them.

It noted that the head of the Duma defence committee, Andrei Kartapolov, on Sunday announced it was working on a law to regulate private military companies but emphasised it was not necessary to ban the Wagner Group as it is “the most combat-ready unit in Russia.”

He also said that Wagner forces in Rostov were “following orders of their command” and “did nothing reprehensible.”

Kartapolov’s efforts to absolve Wagner personnel of responsibility for taking part in an armed rebellion and separate them from Prigozhin may indicate the Russian government’s desire to continue to use Wagner personnel in some capacity, and as ISW assessed on June 24, the Russian leadership could redeploy Wagner to Ukraine or instead commit them to international missions.

0200

15h GUK 02.07 EDT

China downplays Wagner rebellion, media describes it as 'illusion' exploited by west

Chinese officials have described the abandoned Wagner rebellion 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 previously unannounced talks in Beijing on Sunday. It was not clear if they had been planned in advance or came as a result of the Wagner mutiny.

China’s foreign ministry said it supported Russia in maintaining its national stability, without explicitly referring to Putin’s leadership.

“As a friendly neighbour and comprehensive strategic partner in the new era, China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity,” it said.

China downplays Wagner rebellion as Russia’s ‘internal affairs’

15h GUK 02.17 EDT

More than 17,000 Ukrainian recruits have been trained by Britain and other allies over the last year to help fight Russia’s invasion, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Monday, according to AFP.

The recruits, from many different walks of life, all went through a “gruelling” five-week programme which the ministry said had transformed them “from civilians to soldiers”.

Britain and nine partner nations – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and the Netherlands – opened the initiative for new volunteer recruits to the armed forces of Ukraine in June last year.

The UK-led training programme, dubbed Operation Interflex, taught the recruits, who had little to no previous military experience, various skills including weapons handling, battlefield first aid and patrol tactics.

“The determination and resilience of the Ukrainian recruits that arrive on British soil, from all walks of life, to train to fight alongside our British and international forces, is humbling to witness,” the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said.

“The UK and our international partners will continue to provide this vital support, helping Ukraine defend against Russian aggression, for as long as it takes.”

Britain initially offered to train up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers in battlefield skills, based on the UK’s basic soldier training.

The programme has now been extended and is on track to train about 30,000 recruits by 2024, according to the British defence ministry.

It said intelligence had shown that the training made “a significant difference to the combat effectiveness of Ukraine”.

“The UK armed forces maintains close communication with Ukraine to improve and evolve the course based on the skills most needed on the battlefield,” the ministry added.

15h GUK 02.22 EDT

Moscow mayor ends emergency 'counter-terrorism' measures imposed after Wagner rebellion

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said he was cancelling the counter-terrorism regime imposed in the Russian capital during what the authorities on Saturday called an armed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group.

Sobyanin made the announcement in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging application on Monday, in which he thanked residents for their “calmness and understanding.”

Reuters reports that separately, Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said the situation in the country was “stable”.

14h GUK 02.57 EDT

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this round-up of overnight news from Ukraine:

At night, Russia attacked Ukraine from the south with three Kalibr cruise missiles and eight Shahed drones – two missiles and seven drones were shot down. Also, four drones of an unknown type were launched from the north, all of them were shot down.

Air defence forces were working in Odesa, one missile and a drone hit “certain objects” in the region the spokesperson for the air force command of the armed forces of Ukraine, said. There were no reports of injuries.

At dawn, Russian troops dropped prohibited incendiary shells on Kherson and Antonivka, fires broke out. Olhivka was also hit at night, one person was injured.

The claims have not been independently verified.

0300

14h GUK 03.21 EDT

Citing Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency, Reuters reports that Russian security forces claim to have detained a Russian citizen on charges of sending money to Ukraine to buy drones and military equipment.

14h GUK 03.39 EDT

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 that the instability in Russia was dangerous and must be taken into account in the coming days and weeks.

“What is happening in Russia, it is important to understand that this is cracking the Russian military power and affecting its political system. And certainly it is not it’s not a good thing to see that a nuclear power like Russia is going into a phase of political instability,” he said on arrival at a summit of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

“The most important conclusion is the war against Ukraine launched by Putin and the monster that Putin created with Wagner, the monster is fighting, the monster is acting against his creator. The political system it’s showing its fragilities and the military power is cracking,” he added.

The cancelled mutiny in Russia will be top of the agenda at the Luxembourg summit of ministers who are expected to rapprove a pledge to give more funds to Ukraine’s military option.

They are also expected to approve the 11th round of sanctions against Russia, aimed at stopping Putin circumventing previous sanctions by using third countries to shop crude oil and other products around the world.

0400

13h GUK 04.04 EDT

A couple of prominent Russian military bloggers on Telegram have suggested that defence minister Sergei Shoigu was known to be visiting the Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine on Friday, and that the images and video released today by the Russian defence ministry may date from that trip, which would have occurred before the Wagner mutiny.

Nevertheless, at the FT’s Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon notes, the fact the video has been released is clearly intended to send a signal about the status of Shoigu.

13h GUK 04.06 EDT

Nato's Stoltenberg: mutiny shows Putin made 'big strategic mistake' in annexing Crimea and invading Ukraine

The aborted mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group in Russia 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.

Reuters reports he added: “As Russia continues its assault, it is even more important to continue our support to Ukraine.”

13h GUK 04.29 EDT

Criminal investigation into Prigozhin continues – Russian media reports

RIA Novosti, the Russian state-owned news agency, is reporting that the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin over the mutiny has not been dropped. It was reported at the weekend that investigation into him would be closed as part of the deal that brought the march on Moscow to an end. RIA posted to Telegram to say:

The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been terminated, a source in the prosecutor general’s office told RIA Novosti.

12h GUK 04.59 EDT

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the EU on Monday to “accelerate Russia’s defeat” by stepping up support for Ukraine.

Reuters reports Kuleba, who was attending a meeting with EU foreign ministers, said on Twitter the fact that tanks had moved towards Moscow during a thwarted coup showed that “Ukraine will win”.

0500

From ABC NEWS:

CONFRONTATION BETWEEN KREMLIN MILITARY AND WAGNER MERCENARY GROUP AVERTED

The unrest in Russia was diffused when the Wagner troops, led by one-time Putin ally, Yevgeny Prigozhin, pulled back from.

LONDON -- A chaotic armed rebellion that threatened the longstanding leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin began Friday and appeared to have been quelled by Saturday evening.

MORE: Russia-Ukraine live updates: 'Mystery' why Prigozhin stopped march, US official says

The uprising, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the paramilitary Wagner Group, began in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Forces loyal to Prigozhin marched toward Moscow, before turning back Saturday night.

Follow our timelines from early Tuesday morning EDT to the present in next week’s Lesson.

0600

Finally, from the Guardian UK:

11h ago06.01 EDT

Summary of the day so far … see here for photos and videos. (Continued next Lesson)

· Russia’s defence minister has appeared on state TV and emergency counter-terrorism 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. 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, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising.

· The Wagner chief has not been seen or heard from since he left Rostov with his troops on Saturday evening with an apparent deal offering him amnesty and exile in Belarus, however, Russian state-owned media reports that a criminal investigation into his actions has not ended.

· The rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group in Russia demonstrates that Moscow has 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 that the instability in Russia was dangerous for Europe and must be taken into account in the coming days and weeks.

· The weekend’s events have “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, saying he had discussed the turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.

· The Russian rouble opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trade on Monday, responding for the first time to the Wagner mutiny.

· Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that Russia attacked Ukraine overnight from the south with three Kalibr cruise missiles and eight Shahed drones – two missiles and seven drones were shot down. Also, it claimed, four drones of an unknown type were launched from the north, and all of them were shot down.

Monday, June 26^th

GUKtim

Guk x65

A57 47 From GUK
x65 In the face of mutiny, humiliated Putin didn’t know what to do. We should worry about what he’ll do next

Samantha de Bendern

The Russian leader, having faltered, is likely to renew his assault on Ukraine and impose repression at home with even greater intensity

Mon 26 Jun 2023 01.00 EDT

When something incomprehensible happens, it can be reassuring to fall back on old cliches. Churchill’s famous description of Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” summarises what many Russia analysts feel after the aborted armed rebellion led by Wagner commander Yevgeny Prigozhin this weekend. While answers remain elusive, some elements seem important to help navigate through the fog.

There are powerful arguments that Vladimir Putin has been weakened by Prigozhin’s armed rebellion. For the first time in 23 years, many Russians will have woken up on Saturday morning wondering whether their president was still in control. Then, hours after a visibly shaken Putin announced that traitors would be punished, charges against Prigozhin were dropped, and his armed men, who allegedly shot down a transport plane and at least two helicopters (the exact number is still unconfirmed), killing a number of highly skilled military pilots, were given security guarantees.

This indicates that Putin had to make concessions to Prigozhin, and in a country where a social media post criticising the army carries a potential prison sentence, the gap between the rich and powerful and ordinary citizens has been unashamedly confirmed in full public view. The Russian army, which has stagnated on the Ukrainian front for months, was unable – or unwilling – to stop Wagner’s advance through swathes of Russian territory.

Putin’s unspoken contract with the Russian people is that in exchange for democratic freedoms he gives them stability and security. This contract has been broken. In a democracy all of the above would spell political death. But Russia is neither a democracy nor a functioning state. The only way to make sense of what happened in the past few days is to view events through the prism of a feud between criminal gangs in which each mafia boss holds so much leverage over the other that the balance of power can easily tip either way. The fact that Prigozhin is still alive indicates that whatever he holds over Putin is so damaging, and so well protected by unseen allies, that it is safer for Putin to allow him to live – for now.

In the days leading to Wagner’s rebellion, Prigozhin multiplied his harangues against the defence establishment, but was careful to spare Putin. After the president’s address to the nation, in which he firmly came down on the side of the military, Prigozhin’s gloves came off. This suggests that until the last minute Prigozhin was unsure who Putin would back and that he expected political support from the top. This never materialised, either from politicians or top army brass. This is a defeat for Prigozhin. Moreover, his escapade smoked out any traitors in Putin’s entourage. In this sense, Putin comes out stronger in the short term.

There are two factors Putin will have to contend with if he is to consolidate this small victory.

In a dictatorship that likes to pretend to be a democracy, the fractures within the regime that this rebellion revealed will have to be dealt with through tighter repression and even more control of the media. A whipping up of patriotic frenzy and a few – preferably foreign – scapegoats would wrap things up nicely. Prigozhin’s 25,000 men, who were prepared to march against the regular army, will also need to be managed.

Add to these the approximately 32,000 demobilised ex-Wagner troops who were put on standby through Prigozhin’s networks when the rebellion began, and the Russian state now has to deal with close to 60,000 angry men with combat experience, some of whom are still armed and most of whom have criminal backgrounds. Some, particularly those who feel betrayed by Prigozhin, may be lured into the regular army. The others will pose a threat to the social order unless they are brought under control through fear or violence. The future looks bleak.

At the time of writing, Wagner posters are being torn down throughout Russia. But the fact that Prigozhin is still alive suggests he still has a role to play. In Belarus, he will be safely out of Putin’s way but close enough to be of use. It is unlikely that Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator, played a significant role in the deal cut between Prigozhin and Putin. Russian sources argue that Aleksey Dyumin, the governor of Tula oblast where Prigozhin’s army stopped, and Nikolai Patrushev, the powerful head of the Russian security council, were the chief negotiators. Dyumin is a former Putin bodyguard and viewed by many as a potential successor to Putin who incarnates loyalty, youth and fresh blood.

Lukashenko reaps rewards of Wagner-Kremlin deal – at least in the short term

Read more

Lukashenko will have obediently done what his master ordered as the frontman for the negotiations, thus preserving Putin and his protege from being tainted by association with Prigozhin. If he really does end up in Belarus, Prigozhin may be the catalyst to finally drag Belarusian men into the war without Lukashenko having to send his regular army, something he has resisted in spite of pressure from Putin. Imagine a Wagner group re-registered in Minsk, able to recruit Belarusian convicts or otherwise coerce Belarusian men into the war. The number of men may not be enough to make serious incursions into Ukraine but would force the Ukrainians to reinforce their northern border, thus taking away men from the frontlines in the east and south.

While a successful rebellion would have served Ukraine, at least in the short term, it is now likely that a humiliated but rebooted Putin will renew attacks with more intensity.

If round one of Prigozhin v the Russian establishment went to Prigozhin on Saturday morning, Putin had made a comeback by the afternoon. Dog eats dog but while they hold each other by the tail, neither has a clear advantage. Either way, Ukraine will need even more western support as Russia teeters on the brink between chaos and absolute dictatorship.

· Samantha de Bendern is an associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and a political commentator on LCI television in France

Guk x58

a58 48 Prigozhin crosses his Rubicon in echo of Caesar’s march on Rome

Charlotte HigginsChief culture writer

Wagner leader’s abortive mutiny was an irrevocable step that may yet have serious consequences

Mon 26 Jun 2023 13.13 EDT

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Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukraine’s ground troops, told the Guardian last week about his love of studying ancient Greek and Roman warfare: reading Plutarch, for example, or thinking about the battle of Cannae, in which an outnumbered north African force under Hannibal all but annihilated a huge Roman army in southern Italy.

Perhaps this weekend, when considering the mutiny of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group, his mind will have turned briefly towards a seemingly obvious Roman parallel: Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon and marching of his troops into Italy.

Here were two leaders – crucially of private armies fiercely loyal to them personally rather than to the state – taking the remarkable step of ordering their soldiers towards their own empire’s capital. And, just as “crossing the Rubicon” has become a metaphor for taking an irrevocable step, Prigozhin’s act, however abortive the mutiny appears to have been in itself, will have irreversibly altered his own fate. It may yet, too, have serious consequences for the war in Ukraine and for Vladimir Putin’s leadership.

What did crossing the Rubicon actually mean? In 49BC, Caesar was the governor of the two provinces of Gaul, which encompassed northern Italy, France and chunks of the Low Countries. As such, he held “imperium” – that is, the constitutional power to lead troops – only within those provinces. He had no authority to cross the border, marked by the River Rubicon, from Cisalpine Gaul into Italy proper with an army at his back. Doing so was an act of treason and civil war. He wasn’t the first to do it – Sulla had led his army into Rome in 88BC. The difference was, as the classicist Mary Beard put it in her book SPQR, that “when Sulla turned his army on the city all but one of his senior officers had refused to follow him. When Caesar did the same all but one stayed with him.” That kind of absolute loyalty feels akin to the cult of personality that has, at least up to now, surrounded Prigozhin.

There are other parallels. For example, the initial lack of resistance: Prigozhin took Rostov-on-Don with the same kind of ease with which Caesar took Rimini. And there is the backdrop: Caesar, in 49BC, had been fighting in Gaul with a savagery condemned even by fellow Romans. Pliny the Elder, writing the following century, foreshadowed the modern concept of “crimes against humanity” when he said Caesar’s killings in Gaul made him guilty of “humani generis iniuriam”, a crime against the human race. “It was genocide,” says Beard, unhesitatingly, of Caesar’s murderous activities in Gaul. The Wagner group, too, is notorious for its brutality, Many in Ukraine argue that its aggression – and that of the Russian armed forces in general – is genocidal.

We might pause there before getting carried away: aside from anything, of course, any comparison with Caesar is wildly over-flattering to Prigozhin. Building up a successful catering business before engaging in grubby conflicts in Africa and Syria and taking Bakhmut is hardly the same as conquering most of France and even touching, for a moment, the exotic shores of distant Britain.

He said part of his aim had been to prevent “the destruction of the Wagner private military company”. His mutiny may turn out to have been his one last throw of the dice before the deadline robbed him of his personal military power.

It was Caesar who, according to his Roman biographer Suetonius, said “iacta alea est” – the die is cast – on the banks of the Rubicon. That’s the famous version of the quote. But Plutarch (one of the Ukrainian general Syrskyi’s favourite writers) insisted he said the words slightly differently, and in Greek: he quoted a line from the playwright Menander that literally means “let the dice be thrown”. There’s quite a difference: Beard, in SPQR, wonders whether the force of them was really “let’s throw the dice in the air and see where they will fall”.

Perhaps, in the end, Prigozhin’s aim wasn’t so different. His parting words through the window of the SUV in which he was driven away from the military HQ in Rostov-on-Don were: “We have shaken everyone up.”