Lukashenko appears to have confirmed Yevgeney Prigozhin has landed in Belarus; Russian president says army and the people were not on Wagner side. This live blog is closed
Alexander Lukashenko appears to have confirmed that the Wagner founder, Yevgeney Prigozhin, has landed in Belarus.
On its Telegram channel the Belta news agency quotes the Belarusian leader saying:
Security guarantees, as he promised yesterday, were provided. I see that Prigozhin was already flying on this plane. Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today.
There were earlier reports that a plane linked to the Wagner leader had landed near Minsk. The Kremlin said earlier it did not know of Prigozhin’s whereabouts. Russia’s security services have dropped any investigation into the weekend’s armed mutiny.
The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a roundup of today’s headlines:
The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on his private jet on Tuesday, as Moscow claimed the paramilitary force had agreed to hand over its weapons after the group’s failed insurrection. “Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said in comments first reported by Belta, the country’s national news agency.
Lukashenko, said on Tuesday that he had convinced Prigozhin in an emotional, expletive-laden phone call to end a mutiny by his Wagner militia that has jolted Russia. Under a deal brokered by Lukashenko, an old friend, Prigozhin abandoned what he called a “march for justice” by thousands of his men on Moscow, in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus.
The Wagner mercenary group was entirely financed by the Russian state, which spent 86bn roubles ($1bn) on it between May 2022 and May 2023, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said. In addition, Prigozhin, who led the group’s brief mutiny on Saturday, made almost as much during the same period from his food and catering business, Putin said at a meeting with security forces.
Lukashenko on Tuesday told his defence minister that Wagner soldiers could provide Belarus with “priceless” information about warfare. “If their commanders come to us and help us … They will tell us about weapons: which worked well, and which did not. And tactics … how to attack, how to defend … This is what we can get from Wagner,” he said.
The movement of Wagner group troops to Belarus is a negative signal for Poland, president Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday, as he headed for talks with other Nato leaders in the Netherlands. “We see what is happening, the relocation of Russian forces in the form of the Wagner group to Belarus, and the head of the Wagner group going there, those are all very negative signals for us which we want to raise strongly with our allies,” he told reporters.
Lukashenko says he has offered the Wagner group an abandoned military base in the country. While Belarus is not yet building camps for the mercenary group, it will accommodate them if they require it, he said.
Latvia and Lithuania called on Tuesday for Nato to strengthen its eastern borders in response to expectations that Wagner mercenaries would set up a new base in Belarus.
The aborted mutiny in Russia would not affect efforts by African leaders to seek an end to the war in Ukraine, South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, said on Tuesday after holding talks with her visiting German counterpart. The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said Saturday’s mutiny showed Putin was destroying his own country, Reuters reported.
Putin on Tuesday told members of Russia’s security services that they “essentially prevented a civil war” by acting “clearly and coherently” during Prigozhin’s armed mutiny on Saturday. “The people and the army were not on the side of the mutineers,” Putin said, speaking outside the Kremlin in front of the heads of Russia’s main domestic security service, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising.
The US will provide Kyiv with a new military package worth up to $500m, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, in a show of support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia as Moscow deals with the aftermath of the mutiny. The package will include ground vehicles including Bradley fighting vehicles and Stryker armoured personnel carriers, and munitions for high mobility artillery rocket systems, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Putin’s recent flare of public statements indicates that he is eager to project a sense of unity, after the biggest crisis in his 23 years in power, says Prof Sam Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London. “Putin is hoping – through a series of set-piece events, like last night’s security meeting and today’s address on Cathedral Square, to rewrite the narrative of Prigozhin’s putsch as one of consolidation and consensus,” Greene said in a tweet.
Russian forces have carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians detained in connection with its attack on Ukraine, summarily executing more than 70 of them, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday. The global body interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the conflict, most of them by Russia.
Ukraine’s government reprimanded Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, on Tuesday as city officials faced criticism over the state of bomb shelters after the deaths of three people locked out on the street during a Russian air raid. The government said it had also approved the dismissal of the heads of two Kyiv districts and two acting heads of districts, Reuters reported. It was not immediately clear whether Klitschko, a former boxer, would face any further action.
Russia’s national guard will be equipped with heavy weaponry and tanks, the RIA news agency has quoted its head, Viktor Zolotov, as saying on Tuesday, after units of the guard came close to having to defend Moscow against heavily armed mutineers. Zolotov also said the Wagner mercenaries who carried out the short-lived weekend mutiny would not have been able to take Moscow if they had reached the Russian capital, the Tass news agency reported.
Explosions were heard in Kremenchuk after a Russian airstrike on Tuesday, according to media reports, exactly one year later a Russian rocket hit a crowded shopping centre in the city, killing at least 21 civilians. “Explosions were heard in Kremenchuk,” said the air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat. “We are waiting to hear from regional administrations about the implications of the explosions.”
Russia and China’s foreign ministries held a round of consultations on anti-missile defence, the Russian foreign ministry said. “A thorough exchange of views took place on various aspects of this issue, including its global and regional dimensions,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.
Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader, is “ready to continue to fight” for an alternative to Putin, despite being in solitary confinement and facing new charges that could put him in jail for decades, his friends and supporters have said. Launching a campaign in front of the European parliament on Tuesday, Maria Pevchikh, a Russian journalist and CEO of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, said he had been locked up in “punishment cell” for 180 days on fake charges, including not washing his teeth at the correct time.
The Italian cardinal Matteo Zuppi, tasked by Pope Francis to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the war in Ukraine, will visit Moscow this week as a followup to his trip to Kyiv, the Vatican said on Tuesday. A statement said Zuppi would be in the Russian capital on Wednesday and Thursday.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Russia and China’s foreign ministries on Tuesday held a round of consultations on anti-missile defence, the Russian foreign ministry said.
“A thorough exchange of views took place on various aspects of this issue, including its global and regional dimensions,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.
“The intention was reaffirmed to hold such consultations on a regular basis in the future.”
Since invading Ukraine in February 2022 in what it calls a “special military operation”, Russia has increasingly courted China for trade and diplomatic support, Reuters reported.
China has not condemned the invasion, and Washington and other Western allies said earlier this year that China was considering providing weapons to Russia, something Beijing denies.
The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on his private jet on Tuesday, as Moscow claimed the paramilitary force had agreed to hand over its weapons after the group’s failed insurrection.
“Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said in comments first reported by Belta, the country’s national news agency.
Prigozhin, a 62-year-old former convict who rose to become Russia’s most powerful mercenary, was last seen in public when he left Rostov-on-Don on Saturday, a major city in southern Russia which his troops briefly occupied.
The United States will provide Kyiv with a new military package worth up to $500m, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, in a show of support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia as Moscow deals with the aftermath of a mutiny by mercenary fighters.
The package will include ground vehicles including Bradley fighting vehicles and Stryker armored personnel carriers, and munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, the Pentagon said in a statement.
After the mayhem, the messaging.
In the aftermath of the weekend’s aborted Wagner uprising, Vladimir Putin and his obedient media networks are trying to craft a narrative of the unrest that paints the Russian president and the system he presides over in the best possible light.
“As Vladimir Putin said a few minutes ago … a civil war has been prevented in Russia,” a news anchor intoned sternly at the top of the bulletin on Tuesday afternoon.
Shortly before, Putin had addressed more than 2,000 law enforcement and military figures assembled in a square inside the Kremlin walls, thanking them for their service.
“You have defended the constitutional order, the lives, security and freedom of our citizens. You have saved our Motherland from upheaval. In fact, you have stopped a civil war,” he told them.
Even for Putin’s usually nimble propagandists, painting the shocking events of the weekend as a win for the Kremlin is proving a hard sell. At the same time as claiming the country was on the brink of civil war, Putin and the state television networks have insisted that the uprising enjoyed no real support and was always doomed to failure.
Ukraine’s government reprimanded Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, on Tuesday as city officials faced criticism over the state of bomb shelters following the deaths of three people locked out on the street during a Russian air raid.
The government said it had also approved the dismissal of the heads of two Kyiv districts and two acting heads of districts, Reuters reported.
It was not immediately clear whether Klitschko, a former boxer, would face any further action.
Uncertainty about his political future grew after President Zelenskiy criticised officials in the capital over the 1 June incident, in which two women and a girl were killed by falling debris after rushing to a shelter and finding it shut.
Zelenskiy also ordered an audit of all of the city’s bomb shelters after the incident, and said personnel changes would be made.
The movement of Wagner group troops to Belarus is a negative signal for Poland, president Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday, as he headed for talks with other Nato leaders in the Netherlands.
“We see what is happening, the relocation of Russian forces in the form of the Wagner group to Belarus, and the head of the Wagner group going there, those are all very negative signals for us which we want to raise stongly with our allies,” he told reporters.
President Putin addressing members of Russia’s security services.
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said on Tuesday that he had convinced Yevgeny Prigozhin in an emotional, expletive-laden phone call to end a mutiny by his Wagner militia that has jolted Russia.
Under a deal brokered by Lukashenko, an old friend, Prigozhin abandoned what he called a “march for justice” by thousands of his men on Moscow, in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus.
His men, who have spearheaded much of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, were also pardoned and have been given the choice of joining Prigozhin in Belarus, being integrated into Russia’s security forces, or simply going home.
Lukashenko, recounting his role in Saturday’s drama to Belarusian officers and officials, hailed Prigozhin as a “heroic guy” who had been shaken by the deaths of many of his men in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has appeared outside at the Kremlin to tell members of Russia’s security services that they “prevented a civil war” during Yevgeny Prigozhin’s armed mutiny.
Russia’s main domestic security services and the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising, were in the audience gathered in the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square for Putin’s speech.
Latvia and Lithuania called on Tuesday for Nato to strengthen its eastern borders in response to expectations that Russia’s Wagner mercenaries would set up a new base in Belarus after its abortive mutiny at home.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal negotiated by president Alexander Lukashenko that ended the mercenaries’ mutiny in Russia on Saturday. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wagner’s fighters would be offered the choice of relocating there.
“This move needs to be assessed from a different security point of view. We have seen the capabilities of those mercenaries,” Latvian foreign minister Edgars Rinkēvičs told reporters during a visit to Paris with Baltic counterparts.
The Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the speed with which Wagner had advanced on Moscow, driving hundreds of miles in a one-day race towards the capital, showed that the defence of Baltic states should be firmed up.
Russian forces have carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians detained in connection with its attack on Ukraine, summarily executing more than 70 of them, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
The global body interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the conflict, most of them by Russia.
The vast majority of those interviewed said they were tortured and in some cases subjected to sexual violence during detention by Russian forces, the head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine said.
The 36-page report came as Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice, said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, had implicated Vladimir Putin in war crimes by admitting the original invasion was not justified by any provocative actions by Ukraine.
It was a dramatic 24 hours in Russia, when the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, mutinied, turning his forces back toward Russia in what he described as a “march for justice”.
The organisation has been one of the most effective parts of Vladimir Putin’s fighting machine in Ukraine, but a feud between Prigozhin and senior Russian generals had been simmering for months over the Kremlin’s leadership of the invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
The Belarusian president, Aleksander Lukashenko says he has offered the Wagner group an abandoned military base in the country.
While Belarus is not yet building camps for the mercenary group, it will accommodate them if they require it, he said.
The Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin flew to Belarus from Russia on Tuesday after a mutiny that has dealt the biggest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s authority since he came to power more than 23 years ago.
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.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that an older resident of Orikhiv, in Zaporizhzhia region, has been killed by artillery fire.
Alexander Lukashenko appears to have confirmed that the Wagner founder, Yevgeney Prigozhin, has landed in Belarus.
On its Telegram channel the Belta news agency quotes the Belarusian leader saying:
Security guarantees, as he promised yesterday, were provided. I see that Prigozhin was already flying on this plane. Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today.
There were earlier reports that a plane linked to the Wagner leader had landed near Minsk. The Kremlin said earlier it did not know of Prigozhin’s whereabouts. Russia’s security services have dropped any investigation into the weekend’s armed mutiny.