Notorious Wagner boss welcomes fighters in new video ‘to hell’
The notorious Wagner Group’s top leaders have appeared in a new video from Belarus promising a new “beginning” for the mercenary group.
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The notorious Wagner Group’s top leaders have appeared in a new video from Belarus promising a new “beginning” for the mercenary group.
In video posted to Telegram by a Wagner account, Yevgeny Prigozhin greets massed ranks of mercenaries.
“You have done a lot for Russia. But what is happening at the (Ukrainian) front now is a disgrace in which there is no need for us to participate,” Mr Prigozhin said.
“And so the decision has been taken for us to stay in Belarus for some time.”
Wagner called off its armed rebellion against Moscow last month following a deal brokered by Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko that guaranteed Mr Prigozhin and his Wagner fighters safe passage to his country. However, there had been confusion over Mr Prigozhin’s whereabouts, The Times reports.
“We will get ready, increase our level (of combat skills) and (onwards) to a new path – to Africa. Maybe we will return to the special military operation, if we are sure we won’t be forced to disgrace ourselves,” Mr Prigozhin told cheering troops.
He also vowed that Wagner would help to make the Belarusian army one of the strongest in the world.
Satellite images showed a large convoy of Wagner fighters arriving at a military base in southern Belarus. Mr Lukashenko said on Tuesday that the Wagner mercenaries were already at the camps.
“If Belarus needs them, we will instantly call upon the Wagner private military company to defend the nation,” he said.
The fighters were also addressed in the video by a man claiming to be Dmitry Utkin, a notorious Wagner commander.
“This is not the end. This is only the beginning of the biggest work in the world, which will be carried out very soon! Welcome to hell!” he said.
Separately, the Kremlin was reported to be planning for Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure a new six-year term of office with a record vote share following an election campaign that is expected to revolve around anti-western rhetoric.
Officials have reportedly been instructed to ensure that Mr Putin secures over 80 per cent of the vote at elections that are due in March. Although election results are tightly controlled in Russia, the Kremlin is usually keen to provide an illusion of democracy.
Mr Putin has yet to formally announce his candidacy, but it is thought he will do so at a forum called “Russia, Let’s Go!” in Moscow in November.
“These are elections on which the fate of not only Russia, but the world will depend for many years to come. And our colleagues understand this,” Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s election committee, has told Mr Putin.
RUSSIAN MILITARY BASE FIRE FORCES CRIMEAN EVACUATIONS
A fire broke out Wednesday at a military training field in annexed Crimea, the Russian-installed governor said, prompting authorities to order the evacuation of more than 2000 civilians.
Authorities did not specify the cause of the blaze, but some Russian media reported that detonations were heard in the area and footage showed columns of black smoke in the sky.
The news comes after Ukraine this week used waterborne drones to attack the Kerch bridge, a key military supply artery from mainland Russia to annexed Crimea.
“The temporary evacuation of residents of four localities adjacent to the military field in the Kirovsky district is planned. That’s more than 2000 people,” said the Moscow-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov.
A section of the Tavrida highway that crosses the peninsula had been closed due to the fire.
Footage posted on the Telegram account of state-backed Izvestia newspaper purporting to show footage of the fire showed plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.
Several Russian online media outlets reported that detonations had been audible in the area for over two hours.
Bus traffic on inter-regional routes had been “temporarily redirected”, Nikolay Lukashenko, the head of Crimea’s transport ministry, wrote on messaging app Telegram.
The Tavrida highway connects the eastern Crimean port of Kerch to the port of Sevastopol on the peninsula’s Black Sea coast.
Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence denied that its head Kyrylo Budanov had issued a comment on the fire in Crimea.
Spokesman Andriy Yusov told broadcaster Suspilne that comments carried by several media outlets “that the explosion at the training ground in Crimea was the work of the armed forces and the GUR is a fake.”
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 in a move not recognised by the international community.
Kyiv has repeatedly said it plans to take back the peninsula.
RUSSIA CARRIES OUT ‘MASS REVENGE STRIKE’
Russia says it carried out a “mass retaliation strike” against sites in Ukraine’s Odessa port that it claimed were involved in planning an attack on Moscow’s bridge to Crimea.
“The armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a mass retaliatory strike overnight using precision sea-based weapons against facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using uncrewed boats,” the Russian ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
It said it had struck a ship repair plant near Odessa where such boats – thought to be naval drones of the kind Russia believes were used to attack the Crimean bridge – were being built.
“In addition, storage facilities holding around 70,000 tons of fuel used to supply the Ukrainian military’s equipment were destroyed” near the cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa, it read.
It claimed all the targets had been struck and destroyed, citing fires and detonations as evidence.
Ukraine’s air force said earlier that six Kalibr cruise missiles and 31 out of 36 drones had been shot down, mostly over the coastal Odessa and Mykolaiv regions in the south.
Meanwhile, Crimea’s Russian-installed governor Sergei Aksyonov said on Telegram that 28 drones sent by Ukraine had been downed or destroyed during the night.
“There are no victims,” he said.
Drone attacks in Crimea have increased in recent weeks as Ukraine wages a counteroffensive against Russian forces.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move not recognised by the international community.
Kyiv has repeatedly said it plans to take back the peninsula. Waterborne drones struck the sole bridge connecting Russia to Crimea on Monday, in a deadly attack on a vital supply route claimed by Ukraine’s security services.
The explosion hit the Kerch bridge, a major conduit for Russia’s troops in Ukraine, just hours before a crucial deal to export Ukrainian grain was to expire.
UKRAINE ADMITS CARRYING OUT DEADLY BRIDGE ATTACK
Ukraine’s military has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on the bridge connecting the annexed Crimean peninsula to Russia’s mainland.
The strike, which Russia said was carried out by two Ukrainian maritime drones, killed two people and left their daughter seriously injured.
A member of Ukraine’s Security Service told CNN the attack on the Kerch Bridge, which is a key supply route for Russia, was a joint operation with Ukraine’s naval forces.
It is the second time since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine that the crossing was the target of an attack.
The husband and wife killed in the strike were identified by Russian media as Alexei and Natalia Kulik.
The pair were driving to Crimea for a summer holiday with their 14-year-old daughter, who suffered chest and brain injuries when the drones hit, The New York Post reports.
TOURISTS STRANDED AFTER ATTACK
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the incident.
Mr Putin has ordered authorities to repair the road and help tourists stranded in Crimea.
Commercial flights to Moscow-annexed Crimea were suspended after the start of the Ukraine war, and most Russian tourists drive to Crimea through the bridge.
With traffic jams building up, officials proposed that tourists drive 400 kilometres through territories held by the Russian army, some seriously affected by fighting.
“I ask residents and guests of the peninsula to refrain from travel on the Crimea bridge and with the aim of safety choose an alternative overland route through the new regions,” said the Moscow-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov.
Russian state television aired a map of the route, which goes through occupied Melitopol to the port of Mariupol and ends in the southern Russian city of Rostov.
It reminded people to take their passports with them.
Officials in occupied Ukraine said they would reduce curfew times to let tourists through and that the Russian army would tighten security.
“Safety is ensured by the Russian army, it will be strengthened,” said Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region controlled by Moscow.
He said he had “minimised” the curfew to “let the transit transport through.”
Saldo warned that there would be checkpoints to avoid “sabotage” but that formalities will be “reduced.”
Crimea’s transport ministry published a checklist of what tourists should be aware of before the journey.
“Give way to army vehicles and columns,” read one of the instructions. It also recommended that travellers bring cash with them and warned of police and military checkpoints along the way.
Russian television aired footage of some of the queues, with some tourists hesitant to take the route.
“We are thinking about what to do,” one woman said. “To go back on holiday or go to Melitopol?” Melitopol fell to Russian forces early in their offensive last year and has been regularly targeted by attacks.
State news agency RIA Novosti said there were around 50,000 tourists in Crimea, and most of them came by car.
NEW SANCTIONS OVER RUSSIA’S DEPORTATION OF CHILDREN
The UK on Monday announced new sanctions in response to “Russia’s attempts to destroy Ukrainian national identity,” targeting those involved in the “forced deportation” of children from Ukraine to Russian-controlled territory.
Foreign minister James Cleverly announced the 14 sanctions ahead of a speech at the UN Security Council (UNSC) as part of a session on the war in Ukraine.
Among those sanctioned include Russia’s Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Moscow Region, Ksenia Mishonova, said a Foreign Office statement.
The UK accused them of playing “an insidious role in Russia’s calculated program of deportation, designed to erase Ukrainian cultural and national identity.”
It added that “over 19,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia or temporarily Russian controlled territory by Russian authorities.” Many of those deported are relocated to a network of re-education camps, “where they are exposed to Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic, and military education,” said the UK.
“In his chilling program of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see (Russia President Vladimir) Putin’s true intention – to wipe Ukraine from the map,” said Cleverly.
“Today’s sanctions hold those who prop up Putin’s regime to account, including those who would see Ukraine destroyed, its national identity dissolved, and its future erased.”
London has already sanctioned Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova “for her alleged involvement in the forced transfer and adoption of Ukrainian children.”
Two individuals were also sanctioned Monday for “spreading abhorrent propaganda designed to incite violence and hatred towards Ukraine and its people,” including Anton Krasovsky, a former Russia Today presenter.
Russian Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova is also targeted for “using her position to support the Russian state’s damaging anti-Ukrainian policies.”
The UK and international partners have sanctioned over 1,600 individuals and entities since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
RUSSIA ENDS UKRAINE GRAIN DEAL
Britain said on Monday a statement by Moscow that the Ukraine grain deal had effectively ended, hours before it was due to expire, was “disappointing” and accused Russia of risking global “suffering”.
“Clearly that is very disappointing,” UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman told reporters following the Kremlin announcement, adding Moscow “will be robbing millions of people of access to vital grain”.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen condemned Russia’s announced exit on Monday from the Ukraine grain export deal and branded the move “cynical”.
“I strongly condemn Russia’s cynical move to terminate the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” she tweeted.
– With AFP
Originally published as Notorious Wagner boss welcomes fighters in new video ‘to hell’
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