Zelenskiy says Russia doing everything it can to stop Ukrainian troop advance; Putin says he tried and failed to have Prigozhin replaced as Wagner leader in Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukrainians must understand that Russia is deploying all possible resources to stop Kyiv’s forces from advancing in the east and south of Ukraine. It comes after reports of the counteroffensive advancing slowly. The Ukrainian president said on Friday: “We must all understand very clearly, as clearly as possible, that Russian forces in our southern and eastern lands are doing everything they can in order to stop our soldiers.”
The head of the Ukrainian president’s office said battles were difficult but that western allies were not putting pressure on Kyiv to advance faster. Andriy Yermak said: “Today it’s advancing not so quickly. If we are going to see that something is going wrong, we’ll say so. No one is going to embellish.”
Vladimir Putin has said he sought and failed to have Yevgeny Prigozhin replaced as the leader of Wagner’s fighters in Ukraine. Putin’s version of events, which appeared in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, was a surprise admission that the Russian president was still negotiating a takeover of the Wagner mercenary group.
Boris Johnson has criticised Nato’s “mealy mouthed procrastination” and called for a timetable to be drawn up for Ukraine to join, after this week’s difficult summit in Lithuania. Writing in the Daily Mail, the former British prime minister said it was “no wonder” that Volodymyr Zelenskiy “found it hard” to conceal his frustration at the joint declaration released on Tuesday that stopped short of outlining a roadmap to Nato membership.
Vladimir Putin has agreed to extend the Black Sea grain deal, which expires next week, according to the Turkish president. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday that he had spoken with his Russian counterpart about the crucial deal allowing for the export of Ukrainian grain to ease a global food crisis. Moscow played down Erdoğan’s comments, saying an agreement had not yet been reached.
A Kyiv court has ordered pre-trial detention for a senior cleric of a branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with historic links to Moscow on suspicion of sympathising with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian news reports said a Kyiv district court set bail at more than 33 million hryvnias (about $900,000). The church denies the allegations and says it severed all ties with Moscow last year. Metropolitan Pavlo had been under house arrest since April on suspicion of inflaming religious hatred and justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
An alleged Russian intelligence operative accused by the US of smuggling American-developed technology and ammunition to Russia to help its war against Ukraine was extradited from Estonia, federal prosecutors said on Friday.
Russian air defence systems shot down two UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles that Ukraine had fired at Melitopol and Berdiansk on Thursday, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Zaporizhzhia, Yevhen Balitsky, has claimed.
Mercenary fighters from Russia’s Wagner group are training Belarusian soldiers in Belarus, the country’s defence ministry has said. “[Wagner] fighters acted as instructors in a number of military disciplines,” it said on Friday.
A Ukrainian court has jailed a man for 10 years after finding him guilty of plotting with Russia to blow up transport infrastructure to disrupt foreign arms supplies. Ukraine’s domestic security agency said it detained the man in February before he had been able to carry out his mission.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy held a meeting with Ukraine’s intelligence chief and said on Telegram that according to intelligence data, there was no threat of invasion from Belarus.
Russia has accused the west of sponsoring “nuclear terrorism” after authorities said a Ukrainian drone struck the western Russian town of Kurchatov, where a nuclear power station similar to the Chornobyl plant is located. Roman Starovoit, the Kursk oblast governor, said on Telegram that no residents were injured. “Critical facilities were not damaged as a result of the drone crash and its subsequent detonation.”
