Mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group will help train Belarusian special forces during exercises at a military range near the border with NATO-member Poland, the Belarusian defense ministry said on Thursday.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was shown in a video on Wednesday welcoming his fighters to Belarus, telling them they would take no further part in the Ukraine war for now but ordering them to gather their strength for Africa while they trained the Belarusian army.
“The armed forces of Belarus continue joint training with the fighters of the Wagner PMC (Private Military Company),” the Belarusian defense ministry said.
“During the week, special operations forces units together with representatives of the Company will work out combat training tasks at the Brest military range.”
Poland said earlier this month it would send 500 police to shore up security at its border with Belarus to cope with rising numbers of migrants crossing as well as any potential threats after Wagner mercenaries relocated to Belarus.
Wagner’s failed June 23-24 mutiny has been interpreted by the West as a challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s rule that illustrates the weakness of the 70-year-old Kremlin chief and the strain of the Ukraine war on the Russian state.
The Kremlin rejects that interpretation and says the Russian people have rallied around Putin and the military.
Mercenary plans
A deal was struck on June 24 under which the mercenaries would move to Belarus in return for charges against them being dropped. Putin said the fighters could either leave for Belarus, come under the command of the defense ministry or go back to their families.
Wagner has lost 22,000 of its men in the Ukraine war while 40,000 have been wounded and up to 10,000 fighters will end up in Belarus, according to a post by a senior commander which was republished by Wagner’s Telegram channel.
Reuters could not confirm what looks like the most detailed breakdown of Wagner numbers for several months. But if accurate they give an insight into the extent of the losses both sides are suffering in the Ukraine war – and of the continued strength of one of the world’s most battle-hardened mercenary forces.
The senior commander known by his nom de guerre “Marx”, Wagner’s chief of staff, said in the post that a total of 78,000 Wagner men had participated in what he cast as “the Ukrainian business trip”, 49,000 of them prisoners.
Wagner helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014, fought ISIS militants in Syria, operated in the Central African Republic and Mali and took the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut for Russia earlier this year with considerable losses on both sides.
“Up to 10 thousand fighters have gone or will go to Belarus,” he said. “About 15 thousand have gone on holiday.”
The post contradicted remarks by a Russian lawmaker who said that as many as 33,000 Wagner fighters had signed contracts with the defense ministry.
“If all the dead and those who went on holiday signed up then I suppose it is possible,” Marx said.
Greek authorities on Saturday rescued nearly 60 migrants in inflatable dinghies trying to cross from Türkiye to the nearby eastern Aegean Sea islands in two separate incidents, the coast guard said.
In recent weeks Greece has seen a rise in such arrivals, mostly in small unseaworthy boats provided by smugglers.
A coast guard statement said a patrol boat located 41 people early Saturday on a drifting inflatable dinghy off the island of Lesbos. All were safely evacuated and taken to a reception center on the island.
Following a chase earlier Saturday, a coast guard patrol boat stopped another dinghy carrying 17 people near the eastern Aegean islets of Arkii. The migrants were taken to the island of Patmos, while one of them was arrested on suspicion of belonging to a smuggling ring.
Greek officials have blamed the increase in arrivals largely on conflicts in Africa that are adding pressure on the main smuggling routes to Europe, and also on a burgeoning black market industry in Türkiye that produces low-quality inflatable boats. Better summer sailing conditions have also contributed to the hike in numbers.
The Greek government says it has not changed its policy of intercepting boats at sea which had significantly reduced arrivals of migrants in recent years.
Human rights groups have accused Greece of carrying out illegal summary deportations to Türkiye of people who managed to reach Greek shores. Athens strongly denies that.
A Ukrainian drone targeted a military airfield in Russia’s Novgorod region, causing a fire and damaging one warplane, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
The ministry said nobody had been hurt in what it called “a terrorist attack.”
It said further that the fire had been quickly extinguished.
The Novgorod region lies northwest of Moscow.
Iranian cinema directors have ridiculed a six-month suspended prison sentence handed down to Saeed Roustayi and his producer for showcasing their movie at last year’s Cannes Film Festival without authorization, saying it was designed to divert attention from the upcoming anniversary of the eruption of nationwide protests.
They also said international reaction to the sentence earlier this week was laughable.
The Iranian Cinema Directors Association said in an Instagram post that it was “the strangest judiciary sentence in the history of Iranian cinema”.
It said the movie, “Leila’s Brothers”, had been approved by the government and the Iranian government itself had participated at the Cannes festival for years. “Such a strange sentence is a futile attempt to humiliate this young and intelligent filmmaker of Iranian cinema,” the association said, Reuters reported.
Roustayi and Javad Noruzbegi have enjoyed heavy government funding throughout their careers.
Several independent filmmakers said they saw the sentence as a diversion from the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 16, 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini. She had been detained for allegedly flouting the dress code and her death sparked nationwide protests against Iran.
“The sentence is a joke. They (the authorities) want us to forget Mahsa’s anniversary,” filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi told Reuters.
She also said international filmmakers’ reaction was laughable as they had fallen into what she called the authorities’ trap in giving the sentence too much importance.
Filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have shared a petition calling for “justice” for Roustayi and Noruzbegi.
Roustayi, 34, and Noruzbegi, 57, will only serve one-twentieth of their jail sentence, about nine days. The remainder will be suspended over five years, according to the reformist Etemad newspaper.
During their suspension period, the defendants will have to take a film-making course on the “preservation of national and ethical interests”. They will also not be allowed to meet with other cinema professionals.
“Please, Mr. Scorsese! Do not, for a six-month suspended sentence, divert the attention from Mahsa’s anniversary and women’s demands for their rights which are being increasingly violated by the day,” said an Iranian film director, asking not to be identified further.
Iranian air radar systems detected and monitored the flight of American F-35 fighter jets in the Gulf to the south of Iran, the deputy commander of operations of the Army Air Defense, Brigadier General Reza Khajeh, announced.
Reports said the US and Iran are trying to ease tensions and revive nuclear deal talks.
The United States boosted its military presence in the Gulf waters in the face of Iran’s growing threats to ships and oil tankers.
Recently, 3,000 American soldiers crossed the Red Sea towards the US bases in the Gulf when the US-led joint international forces warned commercial ships and tankers of approaching Iranian waters.
F-35 and F-16 aircraft flew over the Strait of Hormuz this week as part of the ongoing operations to guard commercial ships in the region.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed Tuesday that the US continues to pressure Iran, against the background of its controversial nuclear program, despite the prisoner exchange deal.
The Fars news agency affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) quoted Khajeh as saying: Recently, several of these planes were flying over the Persian Gulf and were fully monitored by our radars from the moment they took off.”
He added, “All radars located in the south of the country were monitoring these planes momentarily, adding that all foreign forces’ sorties in the Gulf region, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman are monitored and will be warned if necessary.
– Increase in the military industry
Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported, quoting the Executive Director of the Social Welfare Organization in the Armed Forces, Majid Ibn al-Ridha, that Iranian missile production has increased by 64 percent.
The commander also indicated that the production of speedboats upped 40 percent.
– Shadow of war
Meanwhile, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi criticized the classification of the IRGC on the terrorist list, defending its regional role and program to develop ballistic missiles and drones.
Raisi said, on the second day of the IRGC annual conference, that some claim their assumption of running the country will eliminate the possibility of war, whereas the shadow of war is eliminated by forces such as IRGC, the army, and the Basij that ensure security.
The Iranian President implicitly referred to one of the slogans raised by former President Hassan Rouhani during his 2013 and 2017 presidential campaigns.
Raisi said that Iran enjoys prestige, strength, and respect, and the enemies no longer consider threatening the country because of the effective deterrence force, such as missile and drone production.
The President directed his sharp criticism of Western powers, repeating previous statements that hadn’t it been for the regional presence of the IRGC and its convergence with popular forces in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, ISIS would have taken control.
He continued, “If it were not for the presence of the IRGC in the region, Takfiri terrorism would have taken the entire Europe today.”
Since April 2019, the US has classified the IRGC on the terrorist list. Western powers, especially European countries, have discussed the possibility of taking a similar step by blacklisting the forces after Iran provided Russia with drones during the past months.
It was the first general conference of the IRGC leaders post-COVID-19. Raisi arrived at the headquarters accompanied by senior leaders and the daughter of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the al-Quds Force whom the US assassinated in Iraq.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Guide, Ali Khamenei, gave the first speech, describing the IRGC as the “largest counterterrorism” organization.
Khamenei defended the role of the IRGC in the economy, infrastructure, and construction of roads, dams, and oil refineries.
He said the phrase “military options are on the table” to the IRGC’s deterrence power and capabilities has become “trivial, meaningless, and worthless.”
Khamenei and Raisi accused the Western power of “creating plots and sedition” over the past two years.
The President attacked Britain, after the recent interview of its former foreign minister, David Owen, with the Guardian newspaper.
Owen demanded the UK acknowledge its leading role in the 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, “for the sake of Britain’s credibility and the Iranian reform movement.”
Owen, who led the British diplomatic service from 1977 to 1979, said the “rule of the mullahs would be far worse than the rule of the shah in terms of human rights and personal happiness.”
“Sadly, that has been proven to be correct.”
He indicated that the Western powers made a mistake in the calculations when they left the negotiating table and were defeated by the Iranian people.
The Iranian President did not refer to the ongoing negotiations on the prisoners’ deal after Iran allowed four US citizens to move to a hotel under house arrest. A fifth detainee is already under house arrest.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived in Nevada late Friday for more rest and relaxation.
The first couple is renting a private home on Lake Tahoe, the massive alpine lake that abuts California and Nevada and is a tourist attraction, particularly in the winter for its ski resorts.
The president flew there from Camp David, where he hosted a summit Friday with the leaders of South Korea and Japan.
The home in the Glenbrook community belongs to Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor. Steyer is an investor, climate activist and Democratic donor. He ran for president in 2020.
The Bidens are renting the home for fair market value, the White House said, and will spend about a week in the area.
The Bidens will halt their vacation for a day on Monday to visit Maui, where a wildfire ripped through the historic town of Lahaina and killed at least 114 people. They will meet with survivors, first responders, and local officials while surveying the damage.
Biden vacationed earlier this month at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he went on bike rides, visited beaches and went for a date night with the first lady to a showing of the blockbuster film “Oppenheimer.”
The office of Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog announced on Friday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded to his request to pardon an Israeli prisoner charged of possession and attempted smuggling of khat.
Danny Awka, 35, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the possession and attempted smuggling of khat through Türkiye in 2019 when he was arrested with 34 kilograms of khat in his suitcase.
Khat is considered illegal for personal use under Turkish law and in many European nations.
Awka was accused of joining an Israeli gang that exports khat to various Western countries through various smuggling methods. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 Turkish liras.
The Israeli man spent three years in actual prison, and was later transferred to another facility over harassment by Syrian and Iranian inmates.
He was released during the COVID-19 period, when the Turkish authorities decided to reduce the number of prisoners to a minimum. However, he remained in house arrest in Türkiye.
Herzog had personally asked Erdogan for his intervention to release Awka, stressing that he is a peaceful citizen, discharged from the Israeli army with no criminal record.
The President also said that Awka thought that the use and trafficking of khat are legal in Türkiye, as is the case in Israel, where it is cultivated and sold publicly.
According to Herzog’s office, “The Turkish authorities responded to his request as a gesture of goodwill recognizing the humanitarian aspect of this case.”
An Israeli network is currently selling khat to Western countries, inciting a diplomatic turmoil. In Israel, the substance is legal. However, in European countries, khat is banned and considered an illegal narcotic drug.
The Chinese military launched drills around Taiwan on Saturday as a “stern warning” over what it called collusion between “separatists and foreign forces,” its defense ministry said, days after the island’s vice president stopped over in the United States.
Taiwanese Vice President William Lai’s recent trip to Paraguay to reinforce relations with his government’s last diplomatic partner in South America included stops in San Francisco and New York City. The mainland’s ruling Communist Party claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and says it has no right to conduct foreign relations.
A spokesperson for China’s Eastern Theater Command said in a brief statement that the military exercises involved the coordination of vessels and planes and their ability to seize control of air and sea spaces.
It was also testing the forces’ “actual combat capabilities,” Shi Yi said. The drills were a warning over provocations from pro-Taiwan independence forces and foreign forces, he added.
The command released footage of the drills online that showed soldiers running, as well as military boats and planes.
State media CCTV reported that missile-equipped boats and fighter jets were involved in the operation and that units worked together to simulate the surrounding of Taiwan.
Taiwan’s defense ministry strongly condemned what it called “irrational, provocative moves” in a statement. It said it would deploy appropriate forces to respond to the drills and take action to “safeguard freedom and democracy.”
It said its military would stand ready in the face of the threats posted by the Chinese army, adding that its forces have “the ability, determination and confidence to safeguard national security.”
It posted a video on Facebook that showed previous military drills and said the Chinese military exercises reflected a militaristic mentality.
The Taiwanese government’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council also said that Taiwan’s people are determined to defend themselves and will never succumb to threats of force.
China should stop using force and intimidation and start dialogue, it said in a statement.
As for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, it stated that as well as trying to put pressure on the island, China’s military drills are also intended to influence Taiwan’s elections, which take place in January.
Russia’s air defense forces shot down a Ukraine-launched missile over the Crimean Peninsula overnight, Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday.
There were no casualties and no damage, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
President Vladimir Putin visited the commander of Russia’s operation in Ukraine and other top military brass, the Kremlin said on Saturday, a meeting that came after Ukraine claimed counteroffensive gains on the southeastern front.
“Vladimir Putin held a meeting at the headquarters of the special military operation group in Rostov-on-Don,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Russia, which launched its invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, calls its actions a special military operation.
The Kremlin added that Putin, Russia’s supreme commander-in-chief, listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Army in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other top military commanders and officers.
The meeting came after Ukraine, whose counteroffensive to recapture land taken by Russia in the first months of the war has been slower than expected, said it liberated a small village along the frontline, its first since July.
The Kremlin did not provide any additional details of the meeting and it was not clear when the meeting took place. Videos published by the RIA state news agency showed Gerasimov greeting Putin in what appeared to be night-time and leading him into a building after a brief handshake.
The United States, Japan and South Korea have agreed to a new security pledge committing the three countries to consult with each other in the event of a security crisis or threat in the Pacific, according to Biden administration officials.
Details about the new “duty to consult” commitment emerged as President Joe Biden on Friday welcomed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
Before the three-way talks, Biden met separately with Yoon and then Kishida in mid-morning.
The agreement is one of several joint efforts that the leaders are expected to announce at the daylong summit, as the three countries look to tighten security and economic ties amid increasing concerns about North Korea’s persistent nuclear threats and China’s provocations in the Pacific.
“Suffice it to say, this is a big deal,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday shortly before the start of the summit. “It is a historic event, and it sets the conditions for a more peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, and a stronger and more secure United States of America,”
Kishida, before departing Tokyo on Thursday, told reporters the summit would be a “historic occasion to bolster trilateral strategic cooperation” with Seoul and Washington.
“I believe it is extremely meaningful to hold a Japan-US-South Korea summit where leaders of the three countries gather just as the security environment surrounding Japan is increasingly severe,” he said.
Before it even began, the summit drew harsh public criticism from the Chinese government.
“The international community has its own judgment as to who is creating contradictions and increasing tensions,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters Friday.
“Attempts to form various exclusive groups and cliques and to bring bloc confrontation into the Asia-Pacific region are unpopular and will definitely spark vigilance and opposition in the countries of the region,” Wang said.
Sullivan pushed back against the Chinese concerns.
“It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” Sullivan said. “This partnership is not against anyone, it is for something. It is for a vision of the Indo-Pacific that is free, open, secure and prosperous.”
The “duty to consult” pledge is intended to acknowledge that the three countries share “fundamentally interlinked security environments” and that a threat to one of the nations is “a threat to all,” according to a senior Biden administration official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the coming announcement.
Under the pledge, the three countries agree to consult, share information and align their messaging with each other in the face of a threat or crisis, the official said.
The summit is the first Biden has held during his presidency at the storied Camp David. The three leaders met for talks on Friday and were scheduled to hold a press conference later. Biden was hoping to use much of the day with the two leaders as a more informal opportunity to tighten their bond.
The US president planned to take Kishida and Yoon on a walk on the picturesque grounds and host them—and a few senior aides— for a lunch.
The retreat 65 miles (104.6 kilometers) from the White House was where President Jimmy Carter brought together Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in September 1978 for talks that established a framework for a historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in March 1979. In the midst of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at the retreat — then known as Shangri-La — to plan the Italian campaign that would knock Benito Mussolini out of the war.
Biden’s focus for the gathering is to nudge the United States’ two closest Asian allies to further tighten security and economic cooperation with each other. The historic rivals have been divided by differing views of World War II history and Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
But under Kishida and Yoon, the two countries have begun a rapprochement as the two conservative leaders grapple with shared security challenges posed by North Korea and China. Both leaders have been upset by the stepped-up cadence of North Korea’s ballistic missile tests and Chinese military exercises near Taiwan, the self-ruled island that is claimed by Beijing as part of its territory, and other aggressive action.
Yoon proposed an initiative in March to resolve disputes stemming from compensation for wartime Korean forced laborers. He announced that South Korea would use its own funds to compensate Koreans enslaved by Japanese companies before the end of World War II.
Yoon also traveled to Tokyo that month for talks with Kishida, the first such visit by a South Korean president in more than 12 years. Kishida reciprocated with a visit to Seoul in May and expressed sympathy for the suffering of Korean forced laborers during Japan’s colonial rule,
The effort to sustain the trilateral relationship won’t be without challenges.
Beijing sees the tightening cooperation efforts as the first steps of a Pacific-version of NATO, the transatlantic military alliance, forming against it. US officials expect that North Korea will lash out—perhaps with more ballistic missile test and certainly blistering rhetoric.
Polls show that a solid majority of South Koreans oppose Yoon’s handling of the forced labor issue that’s been central to mending relations with Japan. And many in Japan fear that bolstering security cooperation will lead the country into an economic Cold War with China, its biggest trading partner.
Biden’s predecessor (and potential successor) Republican Donald Trump unnerved South Korea during his time in the White House with talk of reducing the US military presence on the Peninsula.
“If an ultra-leftist South Korean president and an ultra-right wing Japanese leader are elected in their next cycles, or even if Trump or someone like him wins in the US, then any one of them could derail all the meaningful, hard work Biden, Yoon and Kishida are putting in right now,” said Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security ’s Indo-Pacific Security Program.
The three leaders are also expected to detail in their summit communique plans to invest in technology for a three-way crisis hotline and offer an update on progress the countries have made on sharing early-warning data on missile launches by North Korea.
Other announcements expected to come out of the summit include plans to expand military cooperation on ballistic defenses and to make the summit an annual event. Sullivan said the leaders would commit on Friday to a multiyear planning process for joint military exercises.
The leaders are also likely to discuss the long-running territorial conflicts in the disputed South China Sea involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.
Earlier this month, the Philippine government summoned China’s ambassador and presented a strongly worded diplomatic protest over the Chinese coast guard’s use of water cannons in a confrontation with Philippine vessels in the South China Sea.
That tense hours-long standoff occurred near Second Thomas Shoal, which has been occupied for decades by Philippine forces stationed onboard a rusting, grounded navy ship. It is also claimed by China.
Russia has charged a jailed American citizen with espionage, state news agencies reported, upping the pressure on US President Joe Biden’s administration which has been trying to find a way to bring several detained citizens back home from Russia.
Russia’s RIA and TASS news agencies said that Moscow’s Lefortovo court had remanded Gene Spector in pre-trial custody on suspicion of espionage, which is punishable with a jail term of 10 to 20 years.
“The court granted the request of the investigation to detain a US citizen Spector on charges under Article 276 (espionage) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” TASS quoted an unidentified source at the court as saying.
The news agencies did not report any details of the new charges, but said the court session was held behind closed doors as the case materials were classified.
Spector is already serving a 3-1/2-year sentence after pleading guilty to his role in bribing an assistant of ex-Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, according to the news agencies.
Spector was born in what is now St. Petersburg and then moved to the United States. Before his 2021 arrest, he served as chairman of the board of Medpolymerprom Group, a company specializing in cancer-curing drugs, TASS said.
Speaking on CNN, White House spokesperson John Kirby said the administration was still collecting information about the case and had no comment yet.
A State Department spokesperson said they were aware of reports of charges against a US citizen in Russia and were monitoring the situation, but declined to comment further.
The United States has been talking to Russia about ways to bring back several American citizens detained in Moscow, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan.
The Kremlin has confirmed that it has held some discussions with Washington but has repeatedly said swaps can only be considered after trials and has cautioned that US attempts to speak publicly about the talks will undermine efforts.
Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said on Wednesday that Moscow and Washington operate an effective channel to swap prisoners.
The Journal’s Gershkovich was arrested in March on espionage charges that he, the Journal and Washington deny. Russia says he was caught red handed.
Former US Marine Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian penal colony after being convicted of espionage charges that Washington also says are a sham. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone to Whelan this month.
Last December, US basketball star Brittney Griner was released in a prisoner swap, having been sentenced to nine years in a penal colony for possessing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil – which is banned in Russia – after a judicial process labelled a sham by Washington.
Since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022, the United States has repeatedly told its citizens to leave Russia due to the risk of arbitrary arrest or harassment by Russian law enforcement agencies.
In June, Michael Travis Leake, a US musician and former paratrooper, was shown in court, locked in a metal cage. He was arrested on drug dealing charges. Reuters was unable to reach him for comment.
Brazil this year refused a US request to extradite Sergey Cherkasov, who Western intelligence agencies say is a Russian spy who tried to use a false identity to infiltrate the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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