Russia Ukraine War News: Wagner forces train soldiers in Belarus after Putin Prigozhin exile

Fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are training soldiers in Belarus, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced on Friday.

The ministry released a video showing Wagner fighters instructing Belarusian soldiers at a firing range near the town of Osipovichi, about 90 km (56 miles) southeast of the capital Minsk.

“Wagner’s fighters acted as instructors in a number of military disciplines,” the Belarusian Defense Ministry said.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko helped broker a deal to end a brief armed mutiny by Wagner on June 23-24, when the group took control of the southern Russian city of Rostov and marched towards Moscow, shooting down a number of military helicopters and killing their pilots. .

As part of the deal, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin resigned from his mercenaries and agreed to move to Belarus in exchange for Russia dropping mutiny charges.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is still awaiting a response from Vladimir Putin on a proposal to extend a deal allowing the safe export of Ukrainian grain to the Black Sea beyond Monday, a spokesman said. of ONU.

António Guterres wrote to Putin on Tuesday asking him to extend the deal in exchange for connecting a subsidiary of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the international payment system SWIFT, sources said.

The last ship traveling under the agreement loads its cargo at the Ukrainian port of Odessa.

Russia has not agreed to register new ships since June 27, and the initiative will expire on Monday if Moscow does not agree to extend it.

Moscow threatened to back out of the deal struck last year, saying its demands for improvements in its own grain and fertilizer exports had not been met.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainians must understand that Russia was deploying all possible resources to prevent Kyiv forces from advancing in the east and south of the country.

“We must all understand very clearly, as clearly as possible, that the Russian forces in our southern and eastern lands are doing everything they can to stop our soldiers,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address after he chaired a meeting with senior commanders.

“And every thousand meters we advance, every success of every combat brigade deserves our gratitude.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said separately that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had “aggressively” rejected a call to withdraw troops from Ukraine.

Lavrov said earlier this week that the war would not end until the West “abandons its plans to preserve its dominance”, including its “obsessive desire” to strategically defeat Russia.

He had no intention of contacting his American counterparts in Jakarta, according to his spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova.

But Lavrov met with senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi. The two sides would “strengthen strategic communication and coordination,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Russia shows no signs of changing direction in its war against Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday, as foreign ministers from two dozen countries gathered in the Indonesian capital for the annual gathering focused on security in Southeast Asia.

Senior diplomats from China, the United States and Russia were among those who traveled to Jakarta for the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), where broad-based agendas are usually hijacked by geopolitical flare-ups.

Speaking to reporters after talks ended, Blinken said there was no indication Russia was willing to engage in meaningful diplomacy over the war, which Moscow calls a “special military operation” launched in February 2022 to “denazify” his neighbour.

“I haven’t heard anything from Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov suggesting a change of direction with regard to what Russia is doing in Ukraine,” Blinken said, adding that Russia was focusing on state responsibility. United for the problems of the world.

A suspected Russian intelligence agent accused by the United States of smuggling American-made electronics and ammunition into Russia to aid in its war against Ukraine has been extradited from Estonia, federal prosecutors announced Friday.

Defendant Vadim Konoschenok is scheduled to make his first appearance in federal court in Brooklyn later Friday.

Prosecutors are asking that he be held pending trial, calling him an irretrievable flight risk.

Russia has made no statement on extending the Black Sea grain deal, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Earlier, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin on extending the deal, which allows Ukrainian grain to be exported via the Black Sea.

Some media interpreted Erdogan’s comments as suggesting an agreement had been reached to extend the deal, which expires on Monday. Russia has said it will only agree to extend the deal if its own conditions for implementation are met

Evan Gershkovich appeared tense as he paced inside a glass cage outside the Moscow City Court on June 22, Bevan Hurley writing.

Dressed in a black T-shirt and light blue jeans, Gershkovich briefly paraded in front of the cameras inside the courtroom known as the “aquarium,” a relic of Soviet show trials. .

After the media left, he chatted with his parents in the public gallery while waiting for a judge to rule on an appeal challenging his pre-trial detention, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s obvious impatience with NATO’s slow decision-making process would have angered US officials enough to reconsider Ukraine’s invitation to join the alliance.

But NATO countries have been reluctant – not wanting to rock the boat too much with Russia in the middle of the war.

Then, after NATO countries failed to provide Mr. Zelensky with a clear timeline on NATO membership before this week’s summit, Mr. Zelensky’s frustration prompted a more aggressive approach under the shape of a Tweeter.

Some fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are now in Belarus and have been there since at least Tuesday, two sources close to the fighters told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.