Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin says Wagner uprising was ‘doomed to fail’

Putin and Prigozhin reappear in public for first time since mutiny called off

Pjotr Sauer

Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin have both reappeared in public for the first time since the Russian warlord abandoned his armed mutiny on Saturday evening, with the Russian president thanking mercenary fighters and commanders who had stood down to avoid bloodshed.

In a late night televised address to on Monday evening, Putin said: “Any blackmail or way to bring confusion to Russia is doomed to failure… I made steps to avoid large bloodshed.”

He added: “The organisers of the rebellion, having betrayed their country, their people, betrayed those who were drawn into the crime, pushed them, pushed them to death, under fire, to shoot at their own”.

The Russian president appeared to suggest that the Wagner group would still be shut down, saying that Wagner fighters had the choice to sign a contract with the ministry of defence or relocate to Belarus if they wanted as part of a settlement negotiated with the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko.

“The majority of Wagner commanders and fighters are patriots. They were used covertly against their brothers-in-arms,” he said.

Putin’s unscheduled appearance came just hours after Prigozhin issued a defiant 11-minute statement in which he defended the Wagner uprising and denied that he had sought to topple the Russian president.

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In a late night televised address to on Monday evening, Putin said: “Any blackmail or way to bring confusion to Russia is doomed to failure… I made steps to avoid large bloodshed.”

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“The majority of Wagner commanders and fighters are patriots. They were used covertly against their brothers-in-arms,” he said.

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Russian president Vladimir Putin has said the attempted Wagner rebellion “would have been suppressed anyway” and that “any blackmail or way to bring confusion to Russia is doomed to failure.”

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Good evening, I’m Sammy Gecsoyler and I’ll be covering the latest developments.

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Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is due to make a number of “important” statements shortly, Russian media reported, citing the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

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The purported address comes after Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin reappeared for the first time since abandoning his armed mutiny on Saturday evening, issuing a defiant 11-minute statement in which he defended the Wagner uprising and said that “society demanded it”.

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In the statement, Prigozhin denied that Wagner sought to topple Putin and said that the uprising had shown that there were “serious problems with security on the whole territory of our country”. “It was not our goal to overthrow the regime,” Prigozhin said in the voice memo, which was uploaded to his Concord Group’s Telegram page.

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The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s headlines:

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The Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has reappeared for the first time since abandoning his armed mutiny on Saturday evening, issuing a defiant 11-minute statement in which he defended the Wagner uprising and said that “society demanded it”. In the statement, Prigozhin denied that Wagner sought to topple Putin and said that the uprising had shown that there were “serious problems with security on the whole territory of our country”. “It was not our goal to overthrow the regime,” Prigozhin said in the voice memo, which was uploaded to his Concord Group’s Telegram page.

The US was not involved in the weekend mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Vladimir Putin. “We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Joe Biden said at a White House event on high-speed internet. “This was part of a struggle within the Russian system. “We’re going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend’s events and the implications for Russia and Ukraine. But it’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”

Two Russian Su-27 fighter jets intercepted three British military aircraft heading over the Black Sea towards the Russian border on Monday, the Russian defence ministry said. According to the ministry, the intercepted planes were an RC-135 reconnaissance and electronic warfare plane and two Typhoon fighter jets, Reuters reported.

The US plans to announce as soon as Tuesday a new military aid package for Ukraine worth up to $500m (£390m), showing that the US resolve to help Ukraine fight Russia was undeterred by the attempted mutiny over the weekend among Russian fighters. The military aid package will include ground vehicles as Ukraine presses its counteroffensive, two US officials said. Expected to be included are 30 Bradley fighting vehicles and 25 Stryker armoured personnel carriers, one of the officials said.

Senior Ukrainian officials in Kyiv have argued that the attempted coup in Russia shows that Vladimir Putin does not guarantee stability – and instead makes it more likely the Russian state will collapse. In a tweet, Mikhail Podolyak, a senior adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pushed back against the idea that any successor to Putin might turn out to be worse. “Sometimes one can hear an opinion from our western allies: whatever Putin may be, today he is the key guarantor of stability in the Russian powder keg. The events of recent days prove us otherwise.”

James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, said the aborted mutiny by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, represented an unprecedented challenge to Vladimir Putin. “Prigozhin’s rebellion is an unprecedented challenge to president Putin’s authority and it is clear cracks are emerging in Russian support for the war,” he told parliament.

The EU’s high representative on foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, has said the EU’s view of the future of Russia had changed over the past 48 hours, with political instability and internal fragility in a nuclear power adding to the military danger already posed by Moscow. “It is clear now that our vision of Russia is quite different. It is not just a threat because it has military capability of provoking war, which it has shown already, but also internal political stability.”

Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs has called on the US to speed up the training of fighter pilots give it the air force it needs in its defence and counter-offensive efforts against Russia. Dmytro Kuleba also called for a global ban on dual use technologies that can be sold to Russia for drones but used for military operations.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has moved to reassure allies in Africa that thousands of Wagner group fighters deployed to the continent will not be withdrawn after the mutiny led by their commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin, over the weekend. In an interview with Russia Today, Lavrov pledged that “instructors” and “private military contractors” would remain in Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Wagner has the biggest presence.

Ukrainian forces have liberated the south-eastern village of Rivnopil from Russian control, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said on Monday. Rivnopil lies west of a cluster of settlements that Ukraine said it recaptured from Russian forces earlier this month after launching a counteroffensive. “Defence forces have brought Rivnopil back under our control. We are moving ahead,” Maliar wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Moldova’s prime minister said the aborted mutiny in Russia has exposed Moscow’s weakness and that what he described as the Kremlin’s interference in his own country was getting less effective over time. The former Soviet republic wedged between Ukraine and Romania has repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in its affairs, particularly over the breakaway region of Transnistria – accusations Russia denies.

Serhiy Lysak, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast, reports that two people have been killed and another wounded in an attack on Nikopol. He posted to Telegram: “In the afternoon, the Rashists hit Nikopol with heavy artillery. A private enterprise was struck. Two employees were killed – a 51-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man.”

Ukraine expects to receive a clear invitation for simplified accession to Nato when the military alliance holds a summit next month in Lithuania, a senior official said on Monday. Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential staff, reiterated Ukraine’s position on Nato accession in comments published after Russia thwarted a march by mercenaries heading towards Moscow at the weekend, Reuters reported.

Russia’s defence minister has appeared on state TV and emergency counter-terrorism measures have been cancelled in Moscow and surrounding regions as the Kremlin seeks to restore calm following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny.

The defence ministry released footage on Monday that it claimed showed Sergei Shoigu “visiting the forward command post of one of the formations of the ‘western’ group of troops”. In the video, Shoigu is shown riding in a vehicle and arriving at a command post, where he listens to reports from officers and pores over a battlefield map. The video was released without sound and it was unclear when and where it was filmed, nonetheless, the footage showed tacit government support for Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising.

The weekend’s events have “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, saying he had discussed the turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.

The Russian rouble opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trade on Monday, responding for the first time to the Wagner mutiny.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that Russia attacked Ukraine overnight from the south with three Kalibr cruise missiles and eight Shahed drones – two missiles and seven drones were shot down. Also, it claimed, four drones of an unknown type were launched from the north, and all of them were shot down.

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That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. Thanks for following along.

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Two Russian Su-27 fighter jets intercepted three British military aircraft heading over the Black Sea towards the Russian border on Monday, the Russian defence ministry said.

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According to the ministry, the intercepted planes were an RC-135 reconnaissance and electronic warfare plane and two Typhoon fighter jets, Reuters reported.

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“When approached by Russian fighters, the foreign military aircraft turned back from the state border of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said.

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The US was not involved in the weekend mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Vladimir Putin.

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“We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Joe Biden said at a White House event on high-speed internet. “This was part of a struggle within the Russian system.

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“We’re going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend’s events and the implications for Russia and Ukraine. But it’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”

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James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, said the aborted mutiny by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, represented an unprecedented challenge to Vladimir Putin.

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“Prigozhin’s rebellion is an unprecedented challenge to president Putin’s authority and it is clear cracks are emerging in Russian support for the war,” he told parliament.

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The Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has reappeared for the first time since abandoning his armed mutiny on Saturday evening, issuing a defiant 11-minute statement in which he defended the Wagner uprising and said that “society demanded it”.

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In the statement, Prigozhin denied that Wagner sought to topple Putin and said that the uprising had shown that there were “serious problems with security on the whole territory of our country”.

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“It was not our goal to overthrow the regime,” Prigozhin said in the voice memo, which was uploaded to his Concord Group’s Telegram page.

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“We stopped at that moment, when it became clear that much blood would be spilled,” he continued, describing the progress of a military convoy that reached striking distance of Moscow. “That’s why we believe that the demonstration of what we were planning to do was enough. Our decision to turn back had two factors: we didn’t want to spill Russian blood. Secondly, we marched as a demonstration of our protest.”

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He once again accused the Russian defence ministry of targeting his troops with artillery fire, calling it the “trigger for us to move out immediately”.

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“The goal of the march was to not allow the destruction of the Wagner private military company and hold to account the officials who through their unprofessional actions have committed a massive number of errors. Society demanded it.”

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Prigozhin acknowledged that his troops had killed Russian airmen during their uprising, saying they “regretted that they were required to carry out strikes against aircraft but they were hitting our forces with bombs and rocket strikes”.

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He also claimed that the troops movement into Russia was a “masterclass” in how Russia should have carried out its 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which failed to achieve its goal of taking Kyiv.

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Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has made his first comments since Saturday.

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He said the “march” was to avoid the destruction of the private military group and that Wagner was bound to cease existence on 1 July, Reuters reports.

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Mercenary leader Prigozhin said that it had been intended to register a protest at the ineffectual conduct of the war in Ukraine, not to overthrow the government in Moscow.

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Prigozhin spoke in an 11-minute audio message released on the Telegram messaging app.

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Serhiy Lysak, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast, reports that two people have been killed and another wounded in an attack on Nikopol. He posted to Telegram:

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n

In the afternoon, the Rashists hit Nikopol with heavy artillery. A private enterprise was struck. Two employees were killed – a 51-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man.

n

Another 49-year-old man was injured. He has a mine-explosive injury and a shrapnel wound. He was hospitalised in moderate condition.

n

There is destruction. The consequences of the attack are being clarified.

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The claims have not been independently verified.

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Lysak’s post was accompanied by pictures of an industrial-looking building with shattered windows

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Britain is prepared for a range of scenarios in Russia, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday, noting the potentially destabilising impact of the tensions between the Wagner group and President Vladimir Putin.

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Putin faced an unprecedented challenge to his authority over the weekend from an abortive mutiny by heavily armed mercenary fighters from the Wagner group, Reuters reported.

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The extraordinary events left governments, both friendly and hostile to Russia, groping for answers to what could happen next in the country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.

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Sunak said Britain was monitoring events carefully.

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“It’s too early to predict with certainty what the consequences of this might be, but of course we are prepared as we always would be for a range of scenarios,” Sunak told reporters.

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“It’s a situation that we’ve been analysing and monitoring for some time because we’re aware of the potentially destabilising impact of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine and indeed, the tensions between the Wagner group and the Putin regime.”

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Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in Russia was “the monster acting against his creator”, the EU’s foreign policy chief has said.

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“The political system is showing fragilities, and the military power is cracking,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Luxembourg as he arrived for a meeting with ministers from across the 27-member bloc.

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Wagner group mercenary forces under Prigozhin seized control of military headquarters in southern Russia and began to move towards Moscow on Saturday before suddenly heading back to eastern Ukraine after a deal with the Kremlin.

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“The most important conclusion is the war against Ukraine launched by Putin and the monster that Putin created with Wagner, the monster is fighting, the monster is acting against his creator,” Borrell said.

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Russia’s defence minister has appeared on state TV and emergency counter-terrorism measures have been cancelled in Moscow and surrounding regions as the Kremlin seeks to restore calm following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny.

The defence ministry released footage on Monday that it claimed showed Sergei Shoigu “visiting the forward command post of one of the formations of the ‘Western’ group of troops”. In the video, Shoigu is shown riding in a vehicle and arriving at a command post, where he listens to reports from officers and pores over a battlefield map. The video was released without sound and it was unclear when and where it was filmed, nonetheless, the footage showed tacit government support for Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising.

The Wagner chief has not been seen or heard from since he left Rostov with his troops on Saturday evening with an apparent deal offering him amnesty and exile in Belarus, however, Russian state-owned media reports that a criminal investigation into his actions has not ended.

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The rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group in Russia demonstrates that Moscow has committed a strategic mistake by waging war on Ukraine, Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Monday. “The events over the weekend are an internal Russian matter, and yet another demonstration of the big strategic mistake that President Vladimir Putin made with his illegal annexation of Crimea and the war against Ukraine,” he told reporters on a visit to Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

Events over the weekend show that Russia’s military power is “cracking” and the “monster Putin has created is turning against him”, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, has said. But he warned that the instability in Russia was dangerous for Europe and must be taken into account in the coming days and weeks.

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The weekend’s events have “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, saying he had discussed the turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.

The Russian rouble opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trade on Monday, responding for the first time to the Wagner mutiny.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that Russia attacked Ukraine overnight from the south with three Kalibr cruise missiles and eight Shahed drones – two missiles and seven drones were shot down. Also, it claimed, four drones of an unknown type were launched from the north, and all of them were shot down.

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RIA Novosti, the Russian state-owned news agency, is reporting that the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin over the mutiny has not been dropped. It was reported at the weekend that investigation into him would be closed as part of the deal that brought the march on Moscow to an end. RIA posted to Telegram to say:

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The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been terminated, a source in the prosecutor general’s office told RIA Novosti.

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The aborted mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group in Russia demonstrates that Moscow committed a strategic mistake by waging war on Ukraine, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday.

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“The events over the weekend are an internal Russian matter, and yet another demonstration of the big strategic mistake that President [Vladimir] Putin made with his illegal annexation of Crimea and the war against Ukraine,” he told reporters on a visit to Lithuania’s capital Vilnius.

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Reuters reports he added: “As Russia continues its assault, it is even more important to continue our support to Ukraine.”

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Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said he was cancelling the counter-terrorism regime imposed in the Russian capital during what the authorities on Saturday called an armed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group.

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Sobyanin made the announcement in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging application on Monday, in which he thanked residents for their “calmness and understanding.”

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Reuters reports that separately, Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said the situation in the country was “stable”.

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This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at [email protected].

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Chinese officials have described the abandoned Wagner rebellion as Moscow’s “internal affairs”, while one state media mouthpiece dismissed the divisions in Russia as an “illusion” being exploited by the west.

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Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko held previously unannounced talks in Beijing on Sunday. It was not clear if they had been planned in advance or came as a result of the Wagner mutiny.

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China’s foreign ministry said it supported Russia in maintaining its national stability, without explicitly referring to Putin’s leadership.

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“As a friendly neighbour and comprehensive strategic partner in the new era, China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity,” it said.

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Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has visited troops in Ukraine, Russian news agency Ria has reported, his first public appearance since the Wagner mutiny at the weekend.

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Shoigu has not commented on the rebellion, during which Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin demanded that the defence minister meet him in Rostov before calling off the mutiny.

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In a post on Telegram, Ria reported that Shoigu met Colonel-General Nikiforov, commander of the ‘western’ grouping:

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The minister also paid special attention to the organization of support for the troops involved in the special military operation and the creation of conditions for the safe deployment of personnel.

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In a video released by the Russian defence ministry, Shoigu is described as being in the western sector of the “special military operation” – Russia’s preferred term for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is nothing in the video which gives an indication of where or when it was filmed.

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The Russian rouble has opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trade on Monday, responding for the first time to the Wagner mutiny, according to Reuters.

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By 0415 GMT, the rouble was 2.1% weaker against the dollar at 86.50, after earlier hitting 87.2300, its weakest point since late March 2022. It had lost 2.2% to trade at 94.37 versus the euro and shed 2.1% against the yuan to 11.95.

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More from Reuters:

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With the rouble not trading over the weekend, Russian banks were offering exchange rates well above official rate beyond 90 to the dollar.

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Monday’s full trading session begins at 0700 GMT. Investors globally were watching for ripple effects from the aborted mutiny, with some expecting a move into safe havens such as US government bonds and the dollar.

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Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia’s main export, was up 0.2% at $74.03 a barrel.

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Ukraine’s military says it has advanced between 600 metres and 1,000 metres on the southern and northern flanks around Bakhmut, the city which was taken by Wagner forces in May.

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The military also reported advances in the area on Saturday, as Wagner forces were marching on Moscow. It was not possible to verify the reports.

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AFP reported fierce clashes in the area on Sunday, with Ukrainian soldiers telling the news agency that the Wagner mutiny had not noticeably affected fighting in the area.

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“As it attacked yesterday, Russia continued to attack today,” one soldier said, adding. “Most people, most military, understand very well that the circus from Russia is still here.” Another said that for Ukraine, the fighting was going “according to plan”.

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Kyiv has said that the unrest in Russia offered a “window of opportunity” for its long-awaited counter-offensive.

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EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1687754493000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”00.41 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1687754494000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”00.41 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”00.41″,”title”:”Ukraine advances up to 1km near Bakhmut”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Mon 26 Jun 2023 16.28 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Mon 26 Jun 2023 00.32 EDT”},{“id”:”6498d2808f084ea43c440419″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine and the crisis in Russia.

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Ukraine’s military says it has advanced between 600 metres and 1,000 metres on the southern and northern flanks around Bakhmut, the city which was taken by Wagner forces in May. The military also reported advances in the area on Saturday, as Wagner forces were marching on Moscow. It was not possible to verify the reports.

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AFP reported fierce clashes in the area on Sunday, with Ukrainian soldiers telling the news agency that the Wagner mutiny had not noticeably affected fighting in the area. “As it attacked yesterday, Russia continued to attack today,” one soldier said, while another said that for Ukraine, the fighting was going “according to plan”.

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The Russian rouble has opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trading on Monday, responding for the first time to the rebellion.

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At 0402 GMT, the rouble was 2.1% weaker against the dollar at 86.37, hitting 86.8800 on market opening, its weakest point since late March 2022, Reuters reported.

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In other key developments:

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US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said the Wagner uprising showed “real cracks” in Vladimir Putin’s government and may offer Ukraine a crucial advantage as it conducts a counteroffensive that could influence the outcome of the war. “This is an unfolding story and I think we’re in the midst of a moving picture,” Blinken told the CBS News programme Face the Nation. “We haven’t seen the last act.”

There has been no word from Putin or Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin since the rebellion ended and their whereabouts are unclear. Putin appeared on Russian state TV on Sunday but the comments appeared to have been recorded before the mutiny. In an interview broadcast on state television he made no reference to the rebellion but renewed his commitment to the war in Ukraine, calling the “special military operation” his top priority.

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda warned that Nato would need to strengthen its eastern flank if Prigozhin is exiled to Belarus as agreed with Moscow. Following a state security council meeting on the mercenary group’s attempt to revolt against Russian military leadership, Nausėda said: “If Prigozhin or part of the Wagner group ends up in Belarus with unclear plans and unclear intentions, it will only mean that we need to further strengthen the security of our eastern borders.”

State television also said Putin would attend a meeting of Russia’s Security Council this week, without elaborating. Belarus’ Belta news agency said Putin and President Alexander Lukashenko, who negotiated with Prigozhin to end the mutiny, spoke again on Sunday, after at least two calls on Saturday.

The weekend’s events have “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, saying he had discussed the turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.

The Ukrainian president said he had also held “positive conversations” with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Polish president Andrzej Duda. They discussed “hostilities on the frontline” and the “further strengthening of Ukrainian troops”.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said that the revolt highlighted divisions within the Russian government. Speaking to the Provence newspaper on Sunday, Macron said that Wagner’s march to Moscow “shows the divisions that exist within the Russian camp, and the fragility of both its military and its auxiliary forces.”

Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said he spoke to US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, and described the Russian authorities as “weak”. Reznikov wrote on Twitter: “We talked about recent events in Russia. We agree that the Russian authorities are weak and that withdrawing Russian troops from Ukraine is the best choice for the Kremlin. Russia would be better served to address its own issues.”

Russian officials said that houses and roads had been damaged because of the rebellion by the Wagner mercenaries. Nineteen houses had been damaged in the village of Yelizavetovka as a result of a firefight involving Wagner forces while about 10,000 square metres of roads in Rostov had been damaged by tank tracks.

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Russian president Vladimir Putin is holding a meeting with the country’s top security officials on Monday evening, Interfax reports.

Defence minister Sergei Shoigu, prosecutor general Igor Krasnov, interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and the director of the FSB security service Alexander Bortnikov are reportedly among the attendees.

Putin and Prigozhin reappear in public for first time since mutiny called off

Pjotr Sauer

In a late night televised address to on Monday evening, Putin said: “Any blackmail or way to bring confusion to Russia is doomed to failure… I made steps to avoid large bloodshed.”

“The majority of Wagner commanders and fighters are patriots. They were used covertly against their brothers-in-arms,” he said.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko is no longer due to make a statement tonight, his press office has said on Telegram.

Vladimir Putin also appeared to suggest in his address that the Wagner group would be shut down, saying that fighters from the mercenary group had the choice to sign a contract with the ministry of defence. Putin added he would honour his promise to allow Wagner fighters to relocate to Belarus if they wanted.

“The majority of Wagner commanders and fighters are patriots. They were used covertly against their brothers-in-arms,” he said.

Armed rebellion ‘would have been suppressed’, says Putin

Russian president Vladimir Putin has said the attempted Wagner rebellion “would have been suppressed anyway” and that “any blackmail or way to bring confusion to Russia is doomed to failure.”

The White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the US does not know the details of the deal reached between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin that put a stop to the uprising.

Kirby added that he did not know Prigozhin’s whereabouts.

Belarusian president and Kremlin ally Alexander Lukashenko may also be making a statement tonight.

The president’s press office sent a cryptic message on Telegram: “A lot of questions, stuffing, versions and assumptions… The first one will TELL everything, ANSWER everything. Very soon! Follow the agenda!“

The Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin not been seen or heard from since he left Rostov with his troops on Saturday evening with an apparent deal offering him amnesty and exile in Belarus, however, Russian state-owned media reports that a criminal investigation into his actions has not ended.

On Sunday, Belarus’ Belta news agency said Putin and Lukashenko spoke on Sunday, after at least two calls on Saturday.

Putin to make ‘important statements’

Good evening, I’m Sammy Gecsoyler and I’ll be covering the latest developments.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is due to make a number of “important” statements shortly, Russian media reported, citing the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

Summary

The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s headlines:

The Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has reappeared for the first time since abandoning his armed mutiny on Saturday evening, issuing a defiant 11-minute statement in which he defended the Wagner uprising and said that “society demanded it”. In the statement, Prigozhin denied that Wagner sought to topple Putin and said that the uprising had shown that there were “serious problems with security on the whole territory of our country”. “It was not our goal to overthrow the regime,” Prigozhin said in the voice memo, which was uploaded to his Concord Group’s Telegram page.
The US was not involved in the weekend mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Vladimir Putin. “We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Joe Biden said at a White House event on high-speed internet. “This was part of a struggle within the Russian system. “We’re going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend’s events and the implications for Russia and Ukraine. But it’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”
Two Russian Su-27 fighter jets intercepted three British military aircraft heading over the Black Sea towards the Russian border on Monday, the Russian defence ministry said. According to the ministry, the intercepted planes were an RC-135 reconnaissance and electronic warfare plane and two Typhoon fighter jets, Reuters reported.
The US plans to announce as soon as Tuesday a new military aid package for Ukraine worth up to $500m (£390m), showing that the US resolve to help Ukraine fight Russia was undeterred by the attempted mutiny over the weekend among Russian fighters. The military aid package will include ground vehicles as Ukraine presses its counteroffensive, two US officials said. Expected to be included are 30 Bradley fighting vehicles and 25 Stryker armoured personnel carriers, one of the officials said.
Senior Ukrainian officials in Kyiv have argued that the attempted coup in Russia shows that Vladimir Putin does not guarantee stability – and instead makes it more likely the Russian state will collapse. In a tweet, Mikhail Podolyak, a senior adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pushed back against the idea that any successor to Putin might turn out to be worse. “Sometimes one can hear an opinion from our western allies: whatever Putin may be, today he is the key guarantor of stability in the Russian powder keg. The events of recent days prove us otherwise.”
James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, said the aborted mutiny by Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, represented an unprecedented challenge to Vladimir Putin. “Prigozhin’s rebellion is an unprecedented challenge to president Putin’s authority and it is clear cracks are emerging in Russian support for the war,” he told parliament.
The EU’s high representative on foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, has said the EU’s view of the future of Russia had changed over the past 48 hours, with political instability and internal fragility in a nuclear power adding to the military danger already posed by Moscow. “It is clear now that our vision of Russia is quite different. It is not just a threat because it has military capability of provoking war, which it has shown already, but also internal political stability.”
Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs has called on the US to speed up the training of fighter pilots give it the air force it needs in its defence and counter-offensive efforts against Russia. Dmytro Kuleba also called for a global ban on dual use technologies that can be sold to Russia for drones but used for military operations.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has moved to reassure allies in Africa that thousands of Wagner group fighters deployed to the continent will not be withdrawn after the mutiny led by their commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin, over the weekend. In an interview with Russia Today, Lavrov pledged that “instructors” and “private military contractors” would remain in Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Wagner has the biggest presence.
Ukrainian forces have liberated the south-eastern village of Rivnopil from Russian control, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said on Monday. Rivnopil lies west of a cluster of settlements that Ukraine said it recaptured from Russian forces earlier this month after launching a counteroffensive. “Defence forces have brought Rivnopil back under our control. We are moving ahead,” Maliar wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Moldova’s prime minister said the aborted mutiny in Russia has exposed Moscow’s weakness and that what he described as the Kremlin’s interference in his own country was getting less effective over time. The former Soviet republic wedged between Ukraine and Romania has repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in its affairs, particularly over the breakaway region of Transnistria – accusations Russia denies.
Serhiy Lysak, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast, reports that two people have been killed and another wounded in an attack on Nikopol. He posted to Telegram: “In the afternoon, the Rashists hit Nikopol with heavy artillery. A private enterprise was struck. Two employees were killed – a 51-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man.”
Ukraine expects to receive a clear invitation for simplified accession to Nato when the military alliance holds a summit next month in Lithuania, a senior official said on Monday. Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential staff, reiterated Ukraine’s position on Nato accession in comments published after Russia thwarted a march by mercenaries heading towards Moscow at the weekend, Reuters reported.
Russia’s defence minister has appeared on state TV and emergency counter-terrorism measures have been cancelled in Moscow and surrounding regions as the Kremlin seeks to restore calm following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny.
The defence ministry released footage on Monday that it claimed showed Sergei Shoigu “visiting the forward command post of one of the formations of the ‘western’ group of troops”. In the video, Shoigu is shown riding in a vehicle and arriving at a command post, where he listens to reports from officers and pores over a battlefield map. The video was released without sound and it was unclear when and where it was filmed, nonetheless, the footage showed tacit government support for Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising.
The weekend’s events have “exposed the weakness of Putin’s regime”, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said, saying he had discussed the turmoil in Russia in a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden. In a statement, Zelenskiy called for global pressure to be exerted on Russia and said that he and Biden had also discussed expanding defence cooperation with an emphasis on long-range weapons.
The Russian rouble opened at a near 15-month low against the dollar in early morning trade on Monday, responding for the first time to the Wagner mutiny.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that Russia attacked Ukraine overnight from the south with three Kalibr cruise missiles and eight Shahed drones – two missiles and seven drones were shot down. Also, it claimed, four drones of an unknown type were launched from the north, and all of them were shot down.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. Thanks for following along.

Russia says its jets intercept British military aircraft over Black Sea

Two Russian Su-27 fighter jets intercepted three British military aircraft heading over the Black Sea towards the Russian border on Monday, the Russian defence ministry said.

According to the ministry, the intercepted planes were an RC-135 reconnaissance and electronic warfare plane and two Typhoon fighter jets, Reuters reported.

“When approached by Russian fighters, the foreign military aircraft turned back from the state border of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said.

Moldova’s prime minister said the aborted mutiny in Russia has exposed Moscow’s weakness and that what he described as the Kremlin’s interference in his own country was getting less effective over time.

The former Soviet republic wedged between Ukraine and Romania has repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in its affairs, particularly over the breakaway region of Transnistria – accusations Russia denies.

“What we have seen in recent days is a clear indication of the weakness of the Russian leadership and the Russian management of the army,” Dorin Recean told Reuters in an interview.

“Russia is much weaker than people perceived it to be,” he added, speaking in Zurich before a meeting of the European Free Trade Association in neighbouring Liechtenstein where he is due to sign a free trade agreement.

Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin surprised the world by leading Saturday’s armed revolt, only to abruptly call it off as his fighters approached Moscow having shot down several aircraft but meeting no resistance on the ground.

The events could prove a military and morale boost to Ukraine as it fought off Russia’s invasion, Recean said. “It is important to have even more commitment from the west to supply Ukraine with what it needs in order to defend the country and to push Russian troops out.”

Moldova, which hopes to join the European Union by 2030, has accused Russia of mounting a series of attempts to undermine its security, including a coup attempt, bomb hoaxes, internet hacks and fake conscription call-ups.

The Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said that he was not aiming to oust the Russian leadership by marching towards Moscow, but that he was acting to protect his Wagner group from being disbanded.

Yevgeny Prigozhin breaks silence after abandoning armed mutiny in Russia – audio

Jason Burke

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has moved to reassure allies in Africa that thousands of Wagner group fighters deployed to the continent will not be withdrawn after the mutiny led by their commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin, over the weekend.

In an interview with Russia Today, Lavrov pledged that “instructors” and “private military contractors” would remain in Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Wagner has the biggest presence.

Both are considered strategic prizes by the Kremlin, which sees them as a springboard to greater influence on the continent and a source of lucrative natural resources.

“At their request, several hundred servicemen are working in the CAR as instructors – this work, of course, will continue … Both the CAR and Mali appealed to the Wagner PMCs with a request to ensure the safety of their leadership,” Lavrov said. “Regarding the reports about who is panicking and about what, I did not see any panic. I did not see any changes in the relations of the relevant African countries with the Russian Federation.”

US not involved in mutiny, says Biden

Chris Stein

The US was not involved in the weekend mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Vladimir Putin.

“We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Joe Biden said at a White House event on high-speed internet. “This was part of a struggle within the Russian system.

The US plans to announce as soon as Tuesday a new military aid package for Ukraine worth up to $500m (£390m), showing that the US resolve to help Ukraine fight Russia was undeterred by the attempted mutiny over the weekend among Russian fighters.

The military aid package will include ground vehicles as Ukraine presses its counteroffensive, two US officials said. Expected to be included are 30 Bradley fighting vehicles and 25 Stryker armoured personnel carriers, one of the officials said.

As a part of the aid package, Ukraine will receive munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars), anti-tank weapons including Javelins and munitions for Patriot and Stinger anti-aircraft systems, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.