Ukraine recaptures area from Russian forces as Russia claims assassination attempt
Despite Ukrainian forces having some “partial success”, they have failed to produce a major breakthrough.
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Ukraine forces have recaptured 37 square kilometres from Russian forces, several weeks after announcing a highly anticipated counteroffensive.
“Over the past week ... the area liberated (in the east) was increased by nine square kilometres,” Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said today, adding that Ukrainian forces had wrested another 28 kilometres squared in the south.
It comes after Ukraine said on Sunday that Russian troops were advancing in four areas in the east of the country amid “fierce fighting” but reported its forces moving forward in the south.
Ms Maliar said that Russian troops were advancing near Avdiivka, Mariinka, Lyman and Svatove.
Ukrainian forces have made gradual progress in their counteroffensive launched last month but have so far failed to produce a major breakthrough and have urged Western allies to escalate pledges of military support.
Ms Maliar also said Ukrainian troops were advancing with “partial success” on the southern flank of Bakhmut in the east and near Berdyansk and Melitopol in the south.
The latest developments on the battlefield came after Ukrainian officials said Russia launched its first overnight drone attack on the capital Kyiv in 12 days.
Ukraine said all the drones were downed.
RUSSIA THWARTS ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
Russia’s FSB security service has thwarted an attack on the Moscow-installed head of the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, and arrested a suspect, Russian news agencies reported today.
“An assassination attempt organised by Ukraine’s special services targeting the head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, was foiled,” Russian state-run agency TASS reported, citing an FSB statement.
The FSB said in their statement that the detained individual was “a Russian national born in 1988 who had been recruited by officers of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU)”.
It added that the suspect was detained while “removing the explosive device from its hiding place”.
Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after a referendum widely regarded as a sham by Kyiv and Western countries.
The peninsula has been regularly targeted by strikes and attacks targeting Russian-installed officials over recent months that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.
UKRAINE SAYS RUSSIA IS ADVANCING
Russian troops are advancing in four areas of the front line in eastern Ukraine amid “fierce fighting”, Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister said on Sunday, local time.
“Fierce fighting is going on everywhere,” Hanna Maliar wrote on social media, adding: “The situation is quite complicated”.
“The enemy is advancing in Avdiivka, Mariinka, Lyman sectors. The enemy is also moving forward in the Svatove sector,” she said.
Maliar said Ukrainian troops were advancing with “partial success” on the southern flank of Bakhmut, as well as near Berdyansk and Melitopol in southern Ukraine.
In the south, she said Ukrainian forces faced “intense enemy resistance, remote mining, deploying of reserves” and were only advancing “gradually”.
“They are persistently and unceasingly creating conditions for as fast an advance as possible,” she said.
The advance comes as a top Russian propagandist on Sunday accused Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin of “going off the rails” after receiving billions in public funds, after Wagner’s brief mutiny.
Last weekend head of the Wagner mercenary group, Prigozhin, led his forces in a short-lived rebellion against Russia’s top military brass, in a huge embarrassment for the Kremlin.
“Prigozhin has gone off the rails because of big money,” Dmitry Kiselev, one of the main faces of the Russian propaganda machine, said on his weekly television show on Sunday.
“He thought that he can challenge the defence ministry, the state itself and the president personally.”
Without providing any evidence, Kisilev said Wagner had received more than 858 billion rubles (A$14.5 billion) in state funds.
In a stunning admission earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said for the first time that Russian authorities “fully” financed the paramilitary outfit.
Private mercenary groups are banned under Russian law.
‘GENERAL ARMAGEDDON’ ARRESTED OVER REBELLION
General Sergei Surovikin, the ruthless one-time leader of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has reportedly been arrested over his alleged involvement in the rebellion by Wagner mercenary forces.
Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” by the Russian media for his reputed ruthlessness, is a veteran of Russia’s wars in Chechnya and Syria who has been decorated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The top Russian military leader is thought to have had advance knowledge of the weekend’s armed mutiny in Russia, according to sources cited by the Moscow Times newspaper and a Russian military blogger.
He earlier was reported to have gone missing amid rumors he was being interrogated for possible “complicity in the rebellion.”
Surovikin, deputy commander of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, was last seen telling the Wagner Group mercenaries to stop their uprising in an uncomfortable appeal likened to “a hostage video.”
“Surovikin has not been seen since Saturday,” when that video was filmed, according to the well-connected Rybar Telegram channel.
“It is not known for certain where General Armageddon is located,” the outlet said, using the nickname linked to Surovikin’s fearsome reputation.
“There is a version that he is under interrogation,” the outlet noted.
US officials first told the New York Times that Surovikin appeared to have advanced knowledge of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans for an armed mutiny, one that President Vladimir Putin later likened to an attempted “civil war.”
Rybar said the revolt sparked “a general atmosphere of suspicion” among Russian leadership — one in which Surovikin and his allies “are accused of complicity in the rebellion.”
The armed rebellion of PMC [private military company] ‘Wagner’ became the reason for large-scale purges” and a “test of the ministry for loyalty,” according to the outlet.
BIDEN MAKES MAJOR UKRAINE GAFFE TWICE
US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that “pariah” Vladimir Putin is “losing” the war in Ukraine, but it is too early to tell whether the Russian president has been weakened by the mercenary Wagner group’s aborted rebellion.
Asked by reporters at the White House whether Mr Putin is now weaker, Mr Biden said: “It’s hard to tell, but he’s clearly losing the war” in Ukraine and “he’s losing the war at home.” Putin is now “a pariah around the world,” Mr Biden added.
In his brief remarks, Mr Biden mistakenly referred to Russia “losing the war in Iraq” – a gaffe he also made late Tuesday when he told a group of re-election campaign donors that he’d united the West in opposing Moscow’s “onslaught on Iraq.”
The White House remains cautious on interpreting the fallout from last week’s extraordinary events in Russia where the forces from the Wagner group – one of the most capable parts of the Russian military in Ukraine – mutinied and threatened to attack Moscow, before reversing course.
Mr Biden, 80, is leading a Western drive to support Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion launched in February last year.
‘GAVE UP TOO QUICKLY’
Kyiv has downplayed the impact of the Wagner mutiny on the fighting as Ukraine attempts to repel the Russian invasion.
Days after Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted rebellion, widely seen as the biggest threat to Kremlin authority in decades, Kyiv said the mutiny’s influence on fighting was minimal.
“Unfortunately, Prigozhin gave up too quickly. So there was no time for this demoralising effect to penetrate Russian trenches,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CNN in a video published Wednesday.
As Belarus welcomed Prigozhin into exile on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin moved to shore up his authority by thanking regular troops for averting a civil war.
But as Moscow announced preparations to disarm Wagner fighters, Putin’s arch-foe, jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, launched a stinging attack on the president in his first comments since the aborted mutiny by the paramilitaries.
“There is no bigger threat to Russia than Putin’s regime,” Navalny said on social media.
Putin’s supporters, however, insisted that his rule was not weakened by the revolt.
Asked whether Putin’s power was diminished by the sight of Wagner’s rebel mercenaries seizing a military HQ, advancing on Moscow and shooting down military aircraft along the way, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused political commentators of exaggerating, adding that: “We don’t agree.”
Putin himself attempted to portray the dramatic events at the weekend as a victory for the Russian army.
“You de facto stopped civil war,” Putin told troops from the defence ministry, National Guard, FSB security service and interior ministry gathered in a Kremlin courtyard to hold a minute’s silence for airmen slain by Wagner.
In a separate meeting with defence officials, Putin confirmed Wagner was wholly funded by the Russian federal budget, despite operating as an independent company, adding that, in the past year alone since the assault on Ukraine, Moscow had paid the group 86.262 billion rubles (about $1 billion) in salaries.
The feud between Wagner and the army had escalated for months, with Prigozhin making increasingly scathing statements against the generals’ handling of the offensive in Ukraine, blaming them for thousands of Russian losses.
Russian officials have been trying to put the crisis behind them for three days, with the FSB dropping charges against rank-and-file Wagner troops and the military preparing to disarm the group.
But, questions remain over how the Kremlin allowed the violence of its operation in Ukraine to spill back into Russia.
Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko is seeking credit for stepping in to mediate Wagner’s U-turn on the road to Moscow, and on Tuesday he criticised Russia’s handling of the issue.
Meanwhile, the death toll from a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in eastern Ukraine rose to nine on Wednesday. Three children were among the dead at the Ria Pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, while at least 56 people were injured in the attack.
The eatery is popular with both soldiers and journalists in the town, one of the largest still under Ukrainian control in the east.
“Search and rescue operations and debris removal are ongoing,” Ukraine’s state emergency service said on social media.
“The bodies of nine dead people – including 3 children – were retrieved from under the rubble,” it said.
‘SQUASHED LIKE A BUG’
Russian mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in his Belarus exile with the country’s president Alexander Lukashenko revealing he had convinced Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin not to kill the Wagner leader.
It came as Putin admitted for the first time how close Russia came to civil war through the aborted mutiny, which only ended after Kremlin-backed Lukashenko negotiations.
Part of those agreed negotiations are to see Wagner forces surrender their heavy weapons to Russia’s military this week and sign contracts by July 1 to serve under Russia’s command.
Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 29 years propped up by Kremlin subsidies, said he told Prigozhin he would be “squashed like a bug” if he entered Moscow.
He also warned Putin not to allow Wagner’s protest march on the capital to turn into a bloodbath.
“I said to Putin ‘we could waste (Prigozhin), no problem. If not on the first try, then on the second’,” he recalled. “I told him ‘don’t do this’.”
Speaking from the capital Minsk, Lukashenko said he told Prigozhin during 10 calls with the “semi-mad” rebel leader over the weekend that he could not win.
He also said there was nothing to fear, he would happily host Wagner troops in his country with their “priceless” military knowledge and experience to be shared with his own troops.
“Please – we have a fence, we have everything – put up your tents,” he told Wagner in handing over an old military base to his guests and adding they were welcome to stay “for some time” at their own expense.
The 62-year-old Prigozhin arrived in Minsk on his private jet on Tuesday, local time, under the deal to end the Wagner group’s march to Moscow on the weekend in the 36-hour rebellion and threatened march on Moscow.
Following Putin defiant televised address on Tuesday, Putin has met with 2,500 members of Russia’s National Guard and Kremlin security forces and conceded they were close to civil strife.
“You have saved our Motherland from upheaval. In fact, you have de facto stopped a civil war,” Putin said at the Kremlin gathering.
He also revealed to the gathered troops he has ordered authorities to close proposed criminal prosecutions against those involved in the rebellion under the agreed deal.
But he authorised financial wrongdoing charges against Prigozhin and his Concord Group umbrella business which had earned more than AUD$1.4 billion from a catering contracts with the Kremlin.
“I hope that while doing so they didn’t steal anything, or stole not so much,” Putin said, adding that authorities would look closely at Concord’s contract. Russian police had raided his St Petersburg offices and found AUD$72 million in cash worth of roubles packed up in trucks outside, apparently intended for the families of his troops.
Many in Russia remain in disbelief that Prigozhin escaped prosecution for mounting an armed mutiny that carries a 20 year jail term.
NATO alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said whether “Moscow or Minsk” member nations would defend themselves as he agreed to strengthen eastern flank defences, notably with German troops.
“It’s too early to make any final judgment about the consequences of the fact that Prigozhin has moved to Belarus and most likely also some of his forces will also be located to Belarus,” Stoltenberg said. “What is absolutely clear is that we have sent a clear message to Moscow and to Minsk that NATO is there to protect every ally and every inch of NATO territory.”
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda warned of the risk of Wagner fighters being based in Belarus.
“If Wagner deploys its serial killers in Belarus, all neighbouring countries face even greater danger of instability,” he told the news conference.
– With AFP
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