Most Wagner fighters still however in occupied areas of Ukraine, says Pentagon press secretary
Wagner mercenaries are no longer participating in “any significant capacity” in combat operations in Ukraine, the Pentagon said Thursday, more than two weeks after the group’s aborted mutiny in Russia.
“At this stage, we do not see Wagner forces participating in any significant capacity in support of combat operations in Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder told a news briefing, per AFP.
The US president, Joe Biden, has said he doesn’t believe there is “any real prospect” of Vladimir Putin using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Biden made the comment in response to a question about whether the Russian president could escalate actions in Ukraine after the disarray caused by last month’s failed Wagner mutiny. The US president was speaking during a press conference with the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, in Helsinki after the US-Nordic leaders’ summit.
Biden also said he was “serious about prisoner exchange” when asked about the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in a Moscow prison for more than 100 days.
The European Commission is helping the UN and Turkey try to extend a deal allowing the Black Sea export of Ukraine grain and is open to “explore all solutions”, an EU spokesperson said on Thursday, ahead of the deal’s possible expiration on Monday.
Three people have been killed by Russian shelling across Ukraine. A man in his 40s was killed by shelling in the Zaporizhzhia region. A 60-year-old in Sumy and an 85-year-old woman in Kherson were also killed by Russian shelling.
Russia’s nuclear chief denies claims Moscow has plotted to blow up Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station. Alexei Likhachev said that only “a complete idiot” would do such a reckless thing.
Ukraine’s armed forces have received cluster munitions promised by the US to help boost Kyiv’s slow-moving counteroffensive, senior military officials from the two countries say. “We just got them, we haven’t used them yet, but they can radically change [the battlefield],” Ukrainian army commander Oleksandr Tarnavskyi told CNN on Thursday.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said he is certain Ukraine will become part of Nato after Russia’s war against the country ends. Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Austin said on Thursday: “I have no doubt that will happen, and we heard just about every country in the room say as much.”
Ukraine’s top security official has dismissed criticism of Kyiv from the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, suggesting Wallace misspoke due to a surfeit of emotion. “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what he said,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s security council, told the Guardian in Kyiv on Thursday after Wallace said Ukraine should show more gratitude for the help it has received from the west. “Everyone can say something when they are emotional and then regret it … I know for sure this isn’t his actual position.”
A Russian general said he had been fired as a commander after telling the military leadership “the truth” about the dire situation at the front in Ukraine, as tensions in the Russian army grow in the aftermath of Wagner’s short-lived mutiny. Maj Gen Ivan Popov, who commanded the 58th Combined Arms Army, which is fighting on the front in Ukraine near Zaporizhzhia, said in a voice message that he had been fired after he brought up problems on the battlefield.
A senior Russian official has described Gen Sergei Surovikin as “resting” and “not available”. The general, who previously led the invasion force in Ukraine, hasn’t been seen in public since the Wagner mutiny.
