The month of May has seen a brazen drone attack on the Kremlin and a major incursion by Russian rebels across the border war into the Russian region of Belgorod. Could this lead to Russians pushing Vladimir Putin out of power? Or all-out civil war?
Tag: wagner group
Having claimed conquest over Bakhmut, Wagner Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin says his troops will begin to leave the city Thursday and hand control over to the official Russian army. But there are plenty, especially inside of Russia, who have no interest in seeing Wagner go. A showdown with the Kremlin looms.
Wagner-like military groups are being formed in Crimea. Are they preparing to fight the Ukrainian army? Or to evacuate the local oligarchs?
Head of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin’s furious videos have been aimed in the past at Putin’s deputies and generals. Now, he’s taking aim at the tsar himself.
Whether Ukraine or Russia is behind the clamorous attack on the Kremlin, which Moscow says was an assassination attempt against Vladimir Putin, it is bound to shape the imminent counter-offensive.
Desperate to supply depleting forces in Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry has taken up the dubious recruiting method of offering prisoners freedom in exchange for going off to war. The same technique was begun but then halted in February by the Wagner Group mercenaries. It’s Putin’s latest attempt to avoid a nationwide mobilization.
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Sudan And The Specter Of A Proxy War
Hundreds are dead, thousands are injured and the health system is collapsing in Sudan. It’s a war being fought by two factions of the armed forces in Sudan that risks escalating when outside forces, from Egypt to the UAE to Russia’s Wagner Group, step in.
The Ukrainian and Russian presidents made separate visits to the frontline recently, in closer physical proximity than anytime since the war began. It was a sign that we should not expect negotiations anytime soon.
Even as Ukraine struggles to hold onto the last remaining bits of the eastern city, military experts say the official Russian military apparatus may have decided to rid itself of the Wagner mercenaries and bury them all in Bakhmut.
Independent Russian media Vazhnyye Istorii has obtained a major data leak from the top Kremlin information agency that reveals the scale and extent of anti-war protests across the Russian Federation.
Heavy fighting continues in Bakhmut, as Russia steps up efforts to take the besieged eastern Ukrainian city. But there is a subplot taking place between competing Russian factions that are forcing all sides to double down. And there are many more battles to come.
Many of the convicts that the Wagner Group mercenary outfit enlisted to fight in Ukraine are dead or missing, which has created a major recruitment problem for the paramilitary group headed by Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian businessman and politician, who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, believes more can be done to defeat Putin, by truly crippling the Russian economy:
The Russian army is fighting fiercely for every kilometer in the Donbas, amid reports of new masses of troops arriving in Ukraine. By most accounts, it looks like Putin has moved up the calendar on a major assault that was originally planned after the winter thaw.
Tens of thousands of Russian prisoners who’ve been recruited by the Wagner Group mercenary outfit have escaped from the frontlines after volunteering in exchange for freedom. Some appear to be seeking political asylum in Europe thanks to a “cleared” criminal record.
As Vladimir Putin’s end increasingly seems near (political or physical), the battle to replace the Kremlin strongman heats up. Here are the main characters in this very Russian blood sport.
The choice of General Valery Gerasimov to replace General Sergey Surovikin is a political defeat for Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov — and a sign that Putin may be getting skittish on the home front.
Fighting has been fierce for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. What is the price of a victory that is, above all, symbolic?
The Russian public is worried that waves of battle-hardened convicted murderers and rapists will soon be roaming the streets.
Putin used to keep his respectable and criminal circles of friends separate. But the increasing power of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former prisoner and head of the Wagner paramilitary group, has many inside and outside the Kremlin worried.
At least 12 missiles over the past 24 hours were fired at or near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] The surrounding territory and the plant itself, also known as ZNPP, are currently controlled by Russian forces, but the plant is a crucial source of energy for much of Ukraine. The Ukrainian […]
An inmate of the penal colony in the town of Kopeysk reveals the different ways convicts are recruited in the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, whose founder and Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin personally sought the most violent criminals with vows to pay big sums and expunge their sentences.
Ukrainians, Russians and much of the rest of the world are still trying to make sense of Moscow’s decision last week to abandon the southern city of Kherson. Do not, for certain, underestimate the significance.
French President Macron used his bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping to try to convince China to take a tougher line with Moscow.
Kyiv has no intentions of letting Russian troops regroup with any “operational pause.” Events will begin to move quickly in Donbas, and may be heading for Crimea sooner rather than later.
A senior Ukrainian official said that Kyiv was not being pressured to negotiate with Russia, but would do so under certain strict conditions: restoring Ukraine’s borders, compensation for Russian attacks and punishing those responsible for war crimes. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] Mykhaylo Podolyak, a Ukrainian official advisor to the head of the Office of the President, speaking to […]
Turkish-Brokered deal Is back on after a call between Putin and Ergogan.
As Moscow and Kyiv direct their troops toward the southern Ukrainian city, the strategic and symbolic value cannot be overstated.
Backed in a corner with this month’s successful Ukrainian counter-offensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin made allusions last week to Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. Putin’s veiled threat has prompted a mixture of warnings and posturing over the past 72 hours. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a weekend interview on U.S. network NBC that […]
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met on Thursday at a summit in Uzbekistan, their first face-to-face encounter since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage. Sign up to our free daily newsletter. The meeting comes as Russia is […]
Deploying up to one million troops to try to regain territory would be a significant political and morale boost. But there are also key economic reasons to preserve access to the Black Sea.