“Ukraine – Russia”

In Kreminna’s Forest of Surprises, combat is almost face-to-face

I’m running. Shells explode around me. Sometimes they roar like thunder; sometimes they whistle on approach. Large parts of the forest are on fire. Smoke rolls by like dry ice.

“Run. Run. Run,” says Dima. I follow him over the fallen trunks of trees felled by artillery; over shell craters that have become pools; through the deep grooves of old vehicle tracks. I’m slowing down now. My ill-fitting helmet is slick with sweat. Droplets sting my eyes.

#Ukraine: On the left bank of the Dnipro River, just outside Oleshky, #Kherson Oblast, a Russian Tigr-M infantry mobility vehicle was destroyed by Ukrainian forces. pic.twitter.com/GuqK4aT07M

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 1, 2023

Despite having the trappings of a functional constitution Russia remains an autocracy in which, from Peter the Great to Stalin, leaders either anoint their successors or are removed by bloody force

In the history of a nation famed for its blood-spattered successions, it was the most savage liquidation of an autocrat — and is ever in the mind of a history-obsessed Russian ruler who this week may be feeling the insecurity of a system in which the despot seems omnipotent but in which there is no orderly succession nor safe retirement and in which the jeopardy is intensified by his own merciless war. At midnight on March 23, 1801, Tsar Paul, successor and son of Catherine the Great, heard footsteps on the stair of his impregnable new residence, Mikhailovsky Castle. He did not have time to wonder how the assassins had gained access, nor how none of his multiple security agencies had reported the conspiracy, nor why this paradomaniacal military enthusiast was about to be challenged by his own elite officers.

In the days since the brief revolt by the Wagner Group fighters and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin has appeared in public several times, praising the Russian security forces as being “united” in their response and having prevented “civil war” in Russia.

But how were the fighters in the private military company able to take control of the southern military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don so easily, with little resistance? How did they occupy the air base in Millerovo, further north, and other military facilities along the route to Moscow, before stopping some 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the Russian capital? And did Prigozhin have support from within the Russian military?

The Canadian government has quietly designated Ukraine and Latvia’s networks as “systems of importance,” extending the services of its cyber intelligence agency to cover the two eastern European countries.

According to the Communications Security Establishment’s annual report, Defence Minister Anita Anand signed two ministerial orders last year to bring the electronic information and network systems of Ukraine and Latvia under Canada’s defence umbrella.

The orders were signed on March 17, 2022, less than a month after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

In his consultations with NATO leaders and allies during the bubbling cavitation that trailed Russian warlord Yevgeny’s Prigozhin’s columns of tanks and troop carriers during that spectacular tantrum Prigozhin threw last weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden got it right: Stay on message, and for the love of God don’t say anything stupid.

In the hours after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s army of ex-convicts and mercenaries halted their advance on Moscow, the Kremlin set out to seize full control of the global empire built by the notorious military entrepreneur.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister flew to Damascus to personally deliver a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad : Wagner Group forces would no longer operate there independently. Senior Russian foreign ministry officials phoned the president of the Central African Republic, whose personal bodyguards include Wagner mercenaries, offering assurances that Saturday’s crisis wouldn’t derail Russia’s expansion into Africa. Government jets from Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations shuttled from Syria to Mali, another of Wagner’s key foreign outposts.

#Ukraine: South of Novopetrivka, #Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian forces destroyed a Russian SAM system- as claimed, a Buk-M1(-2) TELAR. pic.twitter.com/hP5mj8l2gg

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 28, 2023

A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks.

The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Mr. Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power.

Carlson comments on Ukraine’s suspended elections.

Ep. 7 Irony Alert: the war for democracy enables dictatorship. pic.twitter.com/tk7aOZ4H6n

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 28, 2023

US spy agencies shared detailed intelligence with British officials on the Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s preparations for a mutiny against the Russian military several days before the insurgency, according to a report.

The information gathered by US intelligence on Prigozhin’s unprecedented challenge to the authority of President Putin was guarded so closely that it was shared only with select allied powers, including the UK, and not with the whole of Nato, CNN reported.

#Russia: A Russian Il-22M communications aircraft (reportedly RF-75917) was shot down by Wagner forces in #Voronezh Oblast. pic.twitter.com/CKhy4KRXoh

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 24, 2023

Ukraine has for the first time liberated territory which has been under Russian control since 2014, British intelligence officials said.

The small patch of land is in an area near Krasnohorivka, some 10 miles south west of the city of Donetsk.

The capture marks the first time since Russia’s invasion in February last year that Ukraine’s forces have been able to retake land seized in the initial Donbas invasion eight years prior.

#Ukraine: On the left bank of the Dnipro River, just outside Oleshky, #Kherson Oblast, a Russian BMD-2 airborne IFV was destroyed after running into AT mines- likely remotely deployed by Ukrainian forces, or even placed by Russian forces. pic.twitter.com/JIpOrNzTWm

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) June 27, 2023

Was it a mutiny, a rebellion, a failed coup, or a putsch?

It doesn’t help that such terms apply to “normal” states. There’s nothing normal about the gangland oligarchy Vladimir Putin has made of the Russian Federation, so nobody knows what happened in Russia over the weekend exactly, except that whatever it was went poof and whatever else there is to know consists of details that may be fascinating but are otherwise extraneous.

Yevgeny Prigozhin may have boasted he had the loyalty of all 25,000 members of his mercenary army, but it seems that may have shifted as quickly as the Wagner Group’s rebellion petered out.

In online messages analysed by BBC Verify, Wagner troops and their relatives raged against Prigozhin’s decision to halt his dramatic march on Moscow and withdraw from the captured city of Rostov. “The bald waste of space destroyed Wagner PMC with his own hands. And screwed everyone he could,” fumed one online poster claiming to be a Wagner fighter on a Telegram channel with 200,000 followers.

Russia’s criminal case against Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin remains open, in spite of an agreement found with the Kremlin which would allow the renegade warlord to avoid prosecution for leading a mutiny against President Vladimir Putin’s regime, according to media reports.

“The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been terminated,” Russian state-owned newswire Ria Novosti reported Monday, quoting a “source in the Prosecutor General’s Office,” and confirming previous Russian media reports, including from the other major Russian state-owned newswire, TASS.

Russian intelligence services threatened to harm the families of Wagner leaders before Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his advance on Moscow, according to UK security sources.

It has also been assessed that the mercenary force had only 8,000 fighters rather than the 25,000 claimed and faced likely defeat in any attempt to take the Russian capital.

Vladimir Putin will now try to assimilate Wagner Group soldiers into the Russian military and take out its former leaders, according to insights shared with The Telegraph.

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday that the Wagner head had agreed to leave Russia for Belarus as part of a deal to end his armed revolt, while charges against him for organising the rebellion would be dropped. Peskov added that Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko had guaranteed Prigozhin’s personal safety.

The warlord’s current whereabouts is unknown. He was last seen leaving the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don late on Saturday to a rapturous reception, with crowds of men gathering around him.