Ukraine updates: Kyiv realigns army after Wagner mutiny – Al Jazeera English

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy orders military to strengthen northern sector near Belarus, where Russian mercenaries are in exile.
This blog is now closed. Thank you for joining us. These were the updates for the Russia-Ukraine war on Friday, June 30:
The Wagner group, which has relocated to Belarus, could use people from Africa and other places where the paramilitary group operates to destabilise Central and Eastern Europe, the Financial Times reports, citing Jacek Siewiera, head of Poland’s national bureau of security.

A Russian court has extended the pretrial detention of a theatre director and a playwright on charges of justifying “terrorism” – the latest move in a crackdown on dissent in Russia that spiked after the start of the war in Ukraine.
The court on Friday ordered Zhenya Berkovich, a prominent independent theatre director, and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk held until September 10; they have been behind bars since early May.
Authorities claim their play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” justifies “terrorism”, which is a criminal offence punishable by up to seven years in prison in Russia.
The Russian government has introduced a ban on Polish trucks transporting cargo on its territory, with some exceptions, Russia’s TASS state news agency has quoted the transport ministry as saying.
The agency cited the ministry on Friday as saying its decree excluded critical goods like medicine and medical devices, and added that transport to the Baltic Kaliningrad enclave was unaffected.
The top American military officer says the US is considering providing cluster munitions to Ukraine.
Those are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions, or “bomblets,” that are dispersed over a large area and are intended to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once.
Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Friday the US has been thinking about providing the munitions “for a long time”.
Any decision to provide such arms would raise opposition from other allies and from humanitarian groups.

A ban on Russian flights over Norway, introduced in reaction to the war in Ukraine, also applies to drones, the Norwegian Supreme Court has said.
The decision handed down on Friday could lead to a retrial of Andrei Yakunin, son of a former close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was acquitted last year of flying drones over Svalbard during a boat trip in the Arctic archipelago.
Norway is not a member of the EU but aligns itself with many of its decisions.
Europe’s biggest gas supplier following the war in Ukraine, Norway has tightened security around sensitive sites, including energy installations, following the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea.
A Russian missile attack on a village school near the frontline in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region killed two women, and injured six, Ukrainian police has said.
The 56-year-old primary school teacher and a chief accountant, 44, died in the attack on the village of Serhiivka, Ukrainian police said on Friday. Twelve employees were the building’s only occupants, the prosecutor’s office said. Ukrainian schools were not in session for students on Friday.
“Russian troops, in a direct hit, destroyed a school where civilians were located,” Ukraine’s national police said in a statement.
The Donetsk region prosecutor’s office said four men aged 54 to 69 and two women aged 24 and 34 were injured and taken to hospital, and that it had launched an investigation into the attack.
Russia has said it saw no reason to extend the Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine beyond July 17, but assured poor countries that grain exports would continue.
“If the Black Sea Initiative ceases to operate, we will provide grain deliveries of a comparable or larger size to the poorest countries at our own expense, free of charge,” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
Between 2018–2020, Africa imported $3.7bn in wheat (32 percent of total African wheat imports) from Russia and $1.4bn from Ukraine (12 percent of total African wheat imports), according to the United Nations.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces is “going slower than people had predicted,” but is making steady progress, US Army General Mark Milley has said.
“It’s going slower than people had predicted. Doesn’t surprise me,” Miley told an audience at the National Press Club on Friday. “It is advancing steadily, deliberately, working its way through very difficult minefields, et cetera.”

The United Nations has said it is concerned that no new ships have been registered since June 26 under a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of grain from Ukraine.
“We call on the parties to commit to the continuation and effective implementation of the agreement without further delay,” UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Friday.

Ukraine hopes to use Spain’s rotating EU presidency to try to “gain influence” in Latin America, where several countries have opposed Kyiv’s efforts to retake territory occupied by Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Spanish media.
Speaking on Friday on the eve of a visit by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Zelenskyy said several unspecified countries had blocked an invitation extended to him by Sanchez to take part in an EU-Latin American summit in Brussels on July 17-18.
“We have a peace formula, and Pedro has supported us a lot. He has a constant dialogue with Latin America and they listen to him, it’s a fact. But I’ll say frankly that some Latin American countries are blocking the decision and this invitation,” he said in remarks from Kyiv aired by state broadcaster TVE.
“I want them not only to join the peace formula, but to stand against war,” he added.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva irritated Western countries earlier this year when he suggested the West had been “encouraging” war by arming Ukraine.

The Russian government will increase salaries for military servicemen by 10.5 percent from October 1, a decree published on the official web portal has shown.
The move comes days after an abortive armed mutiny by the mercenary Wagner Group, which briefly took control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched towards Moscow.
The surprise move was made by the group’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who said it was a protest against incompetence and corruption in Russia’s top brass.
After pushing Russian forces out of northern regions last year, Ukraine has taken steps to tighten the defence of its border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia.
“Right now, there is no direct threat of offensive actions from Belarus and Russia in the zone that is the responsibility of the Northern Group of Forces,” ‘North’ Commander General Serhiy Naev said.
But he said moves to strengthen Ukraine’s defence capabilities were needed in the event of a growing threat, and added: “Our intelligence does not stop work[ing] to obtain information.”
Putin discussed with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi the situation around Ukraine and how Moscow had resolved an armed mercenary mutiny, the Kremlin and New Delhi have said.
“While discussing the situation in Ukraine, PM [Modi] reiterated his call for dialogue and diplomacy,” the Indian government said in a statement on Friday.
The boss of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, shocked the world by leading Saturday’s armed revolt, only to abruptly call it off as his fighters approached Moscow.

A Belarusian journalist has been sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of “aiding extremist activities” as the country continues a crackdown on the opposition and independent journalists, which it has stepped up since the start of the Russian war on Ukraine.
The trial of Pavel Padabed was held behind closed doors. His conviction and sentencing on Friday were reported by the Belarusian Association of Journalists. Padabed worked with Belsat, a Polish-funded satellite channel that broadcasts into Belarus and is considered by the Belarusian government to be “extremist media”.
President Alexander Lukashenko has taken an increasingly repressive line towards the opposition and independent journalists since mass protests engulfed the country in 2020 after he was re-elected in an election that was widely regarded as fraudulent.
Central bank data show that Ukraine had a current account deficit of $1.43bn in the first five months of the year.
In the same period last year, Ukraine recorded a current account surplus of $3.07bn.
Ukraine’s export-driven economy has been hit hard by Russia’s invasion, which began in February 2022, with exports dropping due to disrupted logistics.
Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor has blocked media outlets linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner mercenary group, Russian newspaper Kommersant reports.
While authorities have not outlawed the Wagner Group, its fighters have been given the option of being integrated into Russia’s regular armed forces, joining their leader in exile in Belarus or returning home.
Commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military says its counteroffensive plans are hindered by the lack of adequate firepower, from modern fighter jets to artillery ammunition, in an interview with the Washington Post.
Valery Zaluzhny said it “pisses me off” that some in the West complain about the slow progress of the counteroffensive and that Ukraine is still awaiting F-16 fighters promised by its allies.
“I do not need 120 planes. I’m not going to threaten the whole world. A very limited number would be enough,” he told the newspaper.
“But they are needed. Because there is no other way. Because the enemy is using a different generation of aviation.”
“[The counteroffensive] is not a show the whole world is watching and betting on or anything. Every day, every meter is given by blood,” he said.

Belgium’s prime minister says Russia’s frozen assets could provide 3 billion euros ($3.27bn) a year to rebuild Ukraine.
“We’re working on a method based on windfall profits. … If we find a stable legal platform, we could use it for Ukraine,” Prime Minister Alexander de Croo told journalists at the European Council summit.
“A windfall profit system will be developed, and the current estimation is that the total returns could be 3 billion euros a year.”
The EU said it has frozen more than 200 billion euros ($218bn) of Russian central bank assets in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine with another 30 billion euros ($33bn) of Russian oligarchs’ private assets also blocked.
While most European leaders agree on using the frozen assets to pay for the reconstruction, the legality of how to extract this money is complex and still needs to be researched.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the future of Wagner forces in various African countries is a matter for those governments that write up the contracts.
Lavrov said Wagner had worked in Central African Republic and other countries on the basis of contracts drawn up directly with the governments concerned.
He added that Russia’s defence ministry has “several hundred” military advisers working there.
Click here for a roundup of the key events from day 492 of the war.
KEEP READING
Putin discussed the conflict in Ukraine and the Wagner mutiny in a telephone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Kremlin said.
The statement from the Kremlin added that Modi had expressed support for the Russian leadership’s decisive actions in handling the rebellion last Saturday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered his top military commanders to boost defences in the northern military sector as the Wagner Group leader arrives in Belarus.
“The decision … is for Commander-in-Chief [Valeriy] Zaluzhnyi and North commander [Serhiy] Naev to implement a set of measures to strengthen this direction,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
During the meeting, government and military leaders also heard a report from the country’s intelligence and security forces about the situation in Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbour.
On Tuesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin flew to Belarus from Russia under a deal negotiated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that ended the Wagner Group’s mutiny on Saturday.
Pope Francis says there is no apparent end in sight to the war in Ukraine as his peace envoy completes three days of talks in Moscow.
“The tragic reality of this war that seems to have no end demands of everyone a common creative effort to imagine and forge paths of peace,” the pope told a religious delegation from the patriarchate of Constantinople.
The Vatican added that the papal envoy, Italian cardinal Matteo Zuppi, had finished his consultations in Moscow, where he had met one of Putin’s advisers, Yuri Ushakov, and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
“[The visit was] aimed at identifying humanitarian initiatives, which could open roads to peace,” the statement said.
It added that further steps would be taken but gave no details.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, says Ukraine is preparing to commit a “terrorist” attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
On Telegram, Zakharova wrote: “Additional devices have been installed in Kyiv to measure radiation, city officials said. Recently, in a number of regions of Ukraine, exercises began in case of an accident at the ZNPP.”
“Kyiv authorities are preparing to commit another terrorist attack!”
The World Bank has approved a $1.5bn loan to Ukraine to support reconstruction and recovery, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
On Telegram, Shmyhal said, along with guarantees from the Japanese government, the funds would be channelled to support social security and economic development.
“In particular, the loan will help support subsidies for internally displaced people and pension payments,” Shmyhal said.
On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund’s board completed its Ukrainian loan review, allowing Kyiv to immediately withdraw $890m for budget support.
The finance ministry said so far it received $3bn in budget support from Ukraine’s partners in June, with 40 percent of it provided as grants.
Russia has demanded an explanation from Poland over its arrest of Russian citizens, state news agency RIA reported, citing foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
Poland said it arrested a Russian ice hockey player on suspicion of having spied for Moscow while playing for a Polish club.
“The detained man is a professional athlete from a first division hockey club,” said a Polish government statement, adding that the Russian national, living in Poland since 2021, was charged with espionage and remanded into custody for three months.
“On the territory of Poland, he carried out tasks for foreign intelligence, including identification of critical infrastructure in several regions,” the statement added.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin also accused Poland of having a “frenzied Russophobic position”.
Ukrainian prosecutors have charged a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with war crimes over the alleged deportation of dozens of orphans from Kherson.
The charges brought by Ukraine’s prosecutors follow a wider investigation carried out in cooperation with the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), which also issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for his alleged involvement in the deportations of children.
Yuliia Usenko, head of Ukraine’s Department for the Protection of Children’s Interests, told the Reuters news agency, “It was not a one-day event. 48 children … in the Kherson Region Children’s Home were forcibly displaced, deported.”
“We don’t know how these children are, in what conditions they are kept, or what their fate is.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met with the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg and prominent European figures forming a working group to address ecological damage from the war.
The working group includes former Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Margot Wallström, European Parliament Vice President Heidi Hautala and former Irish President Mary Robinson.
Zelenskyy said forming the group is “a very important signal of supporting Ukraine. It’s really important. We need your professional help.”
Thunberg said Russian forces “are deliberately targeting the environment and people’s livelihoods and homes and, therefore, also destroying lives”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denies that Russia intentionally attacked civilian targets in Ukraine, saying it only targeted military infrastructure or other military targets.
Speaking at a news conference, Lavrov instead accused Ukraine of deploying troops and heavy weapons at places such as schools and apartment buildings.
He said such tactics were war crimes.
Ukraine and its Western allies have repeatedly accused Moscow of targeting civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, power stations and residential buildings.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said he believed the West somehow wanted to freeze the conflict in Ukraine to buy time to pump more weapons into that country.
Speaking at a news conference, Lavrov accused Western countries of taking a “schizophrenic” approach to the conflict.
At first, he said, the West wanted to see Russia lose on the battlefield and for its leaders to go on trial and only then to press for peace in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister says forces are advancing in all directions in their counteroffensive against Russian troops.
“If we talk about the entire front line, both east and south, we have seized the strategic initiative and are advancing in all directions,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television.
Maliar added that troops were moving “confidently” around Bakhmut.
“In the south, we are moving with varying success, sometimes there are days when it is more than a kilometre, sometimes less than a kilometre, sometimes up to two kilometres,” she said.
She noted that the effectiveness of the counteroffensive should be evaluated by “a lot of different military tasks”.
“Therefore, all these tasks are being carried out and only the military can assess this correctly and accurately, and according to their assessment, everything is going according to plan,” she said.
In response to a question about the Wagner Group’s aborted mutiny last weekend, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said his country has always emerged stronger and more resilient from any difficulties.
“We do not have to explain anything or give assurances to anyone. We are acting transparently, the president and all the political forces in our country have spoken on the subject. If there are doubts in the West, that’s your problem,” said Lavrov.
“Russia has always emerged more resilient and stronger after any difficulties,” he added.
Lavrov also said the reaction of many Western officials, who had said that the facade of Russian power had cracked, showed that the same officials were at war with Moscow.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov described the West’s attitude to the Black Sea grain deal as “outrageous” and denounced that grain was not being exported to poorer countries.
Moscow has threatened to end the deal on July 18 unless a series of demands are met, including removing obstacles to Russian grain and fertiliser exports.
The deal was initially brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July to help tackle a global food crisis.
Sweden’s prime minister says his Hungarian counterpart has assured him that Budapest will not delay Stockholm’s NATO accession.
“I spoke to [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban yesterday, and he confirmed very clearly that what he said to me last time still applies,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said.
“Hungary will not delay Sweden’s ratification process in any way,” he told reporters. Kristersson did not specify whether Orban’s comments implied a vote could take place before the NATO summit in Vilnius.
Sweden hopes to become a member by the NATO summit in July, but the Hungarian parliament will not vote on its membership next week.
Sweden applied last year to join the military alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey and Hungary have blocked ratification.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency says Russia is reducing the number of personnel at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
The Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ministry of Defence (GUR) said on Telegram that the first to leave the power plant were three employees of Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom, who had been “in charge of the Russians’ activities”.
It added that Ukrainian employees who have signed a contract with Rosatom had also been advised to depart by July 5 and preferably go to the Crimean Peninsula.
GUR said the number of military patrols was also gradually decreasing around the plant and in the nearby city of Enerhodar, and the remaining staff had been told to blame Ukraine “in case of any emergency situations”.
Ukraine will receive $1.5bn from the World Bank to support reconstruction and recovery, according to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
The funds will be provided with guarantees from the Japanese government and channelled to support social security and economic development, Shmyhal said on the Telegram messaging app.
Human Rights Watch has said it uncovered new evidence of indiscriminate use of banned antipersonnel landmines by Ukrainian forces against Russian troops who invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The group called on Ukraine’s government to follow through with a commitment made earlier this month not to employ such weapons, investigate their suspected use and hold accountable those responsible.
“The Ukrainian government’s pledge to investigate its military’s apparent use of banned [antipersonnel] mines is an important recognition of its duty to protect civilians,” Steve Goose, Human Rights Watch’s arms director, said in a statement.
HRW said it shared its findings with the Ukrainian government in a May letter, to which it received no response.
Former US President Donald Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says Putin has been “somewhat weakened” by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for Washington to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.
“I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war,” Trump told the Reuters news agency in a telephone interview.
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”.
Hungary rejects the European Commission’s plans to grant more money to Ukraine and is not willing to contribute additional money to finance the EU’s increased debt service costs, according to Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban, speaking on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels, said it was a “ridiculous” request from the Commission that Hungary should contribute more money when Budapest – along with Poland – has not received funds from the EU recovery fund amid a rule of law dispute.
The European Union plans to provide Ukraine with 50 billion euros ($54.30bn) in aid for 2024-27 after a review of the EU’s budget for the period.
European Union leaders have declared they will make long-term commitments to bolster Ukraine’s security.
At a summit in Brussels, the leaders restated their condemnation of Russia’s war against Ukraine and said the EU and its member countries “stand ready” to contribute to commitments that would help Ukraine defend itself in the long term.
In a text summarising the conclusions of the summit, the leaders said they would swiftly consider the form these commitments would take.
 
Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent Ze­len­skyy says man who ‘spot­ted’ for Russ­ian forces at­tack on restau­rant charged with trea­son.
As the war en­ters it 492nd day, these are the main de­vel­op­ments.
As the war en­ters it 491st day, these are the main de­vel­op­ments.
Follow Al Jazeera English:

source