State of Ukraine: How a “Peace Mission” has Missioned to Ukraine and When it Came to an Abrupt Succession
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A group of African leaders traveled to Ukraine and Russia on what they described as a “peace mission,” but their meetings with leaders of both countries ended without any visible progress.
The situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is extremely fragile, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The United Nations put Russian forces on its list of shame for killing 136 children in Ukraine last year, as well as wounding hundreds more kids and attacking schools.
The U.S. made a huge aid pledge for rebuilding the country of Ukraine last Wednesday. The European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Monday that the bloc will give money for military aid for Ukraine.
The Pentagon said it miscalculated how much weaponry it sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the actual value, a sum a spokesperson said would go toward future weapons drawdowns.
Nine villages were taken back by Russian forces so far, Ukraine said, and it is making slow progress. Russia claims to be foiling Ukranian attacks. British military officials believe both sides are suffering high casualties.
The group of mercenaries under Yevgeny Prigorzyns led a brief revolt in Russia. Prigozhin accused Sergei Shoigu of ordering a missile strike against the group in Ukraine, where the mercenaries are fighting on Russia’s behalf. Wagner forces took control of a southern Russian city and went on to march toward Moscow. The rebellion was called off after a possible trade for exile and amnesty in the nearby country of Belarus.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1181901001/russia-ukraine-war-news-prigozhin-wagner
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Lithuania: Putin’s infamous “armed rebellion” frustrated by the Kremlin
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will be inLithuania next week for an upcoming NATO summit. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to hold talks with the prime minister of Estonia.
Prigozhin said Monday, without elaborating, that the Belarusian leadership proposed solutions that would allow Wagner to operate “in a legal jurisdiction,” but it was unclear what that meant.
It also wasn’t clear whether he would be able to keep his mercenary force. In his speech, Putin told Prigozhin’s fighters that they either had to come under Russia’s Defense Ministry’s command or leave service.
Putin thanked his team over the weekend, implying support for Shoigu. Earlier, the authorities released a video of Shoigu reviewing troops in Ukraine.
The Kremlin showed Putin meeting with top security officials, including the defense minister, who had sought to have him removed.
Even though President Putin branded them traitors after he ended the revolt on Saturday, the Kremlin said it wouldn’t prosecute Prigozhin and his fighters.
Russia’s leadership has been rattled by the short-lived insurrection over the weekend, which was the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule in more than two decades.
A business jet that Prigoszin uses apparently landed near the capital on Tuesday.
The Kremlin said Prigozhin would be exiled to neighboring Belarus, but neither he nor the authorities there have confirmed that.
The charge of mounting an armed mutiny has a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Prigozhin escaping prosecution poses a stark contrast to how the Kremlin has been treating those staging anti-government protests.
Russian authorities closed a criminal investigation into an armed rebellion that was started by a mercenary chief with no charges against him or the other people involved.
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said its investigation found that those involved in the mutiny “ceased activities directed at committing the crime.”