The Independent’s Kate Devlin speaks from Nato summit’s second day
Vladimir Putin offered Wagner soldiers the chance to continue fighting under a different commander- known by his nom de guerre, ‘Sedoi’ or ‘Grey Hair’.
“Sedoi” is a highly decorated veteran of Russia‘s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. He is from St Petersburg, Putin’s home town, and has been pictured with the president.
The Russian president made the offer last month, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant, days after the attempted mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“All of them could have gathered in one place and continued to serve,” Kommersant quoted Putin as saying.
“And nothing would have changed for them. They would have been led by the same person who had been their real commander all that time.”
Putin said that many of the commanders had nodded their heads at his suggestion but Prigozhin, who was sitting at the front, did not see this, Kommersant said.
“‘No, the boys won’t agree with such a decision’,” Putin quoted Prigozhin as saying.
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Putin offered Wagner the chance to keep fighting under ‘Grey Hair’ commander
Vladimir Putin offered Wagner soldiers the chance to continue fighting, but under a different commander- known by his nom de guerre, ‘Sedoi’ or ‘Grey Hair’.
“Sedoi” is a highly decorated veteran of Russia‘s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. He is from St Petersburg, Putin’s home town, and has been pictured with the president.
The Russian president made the offer last month, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant, days after the attempted mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“All of them could have gathered in one place and continued to serve,” Kommersant quoted Putin as saying.
“And nothing would have changed for them. They would have been led by the same person who had been their real commander all that time.”
Putin said that many of the commanders had nodded their heads at his suggestion but Prigozhin, who was sitting at the front, did not see this, Kommersant said.
“‘No, the boys won’t agree with such a decision’,” Putin quoted Prigozhin as saying.
(Sputnik)
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 09:03
Ukraine receives cluster munitions, pledges limited use
Ukraine has received cluster bombs from the United States, munitions banned in more than 100 countries, but has pledged to only use them to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.
Valeryi Shershen, a spokesman for the Tavria, or southern, military district on Thursday confirmed an announcement by his commander that the weapons had arrived a week after the United States said it would send them as part of an $800-million security package.
The Pentagon also announced their arrival.
Moscow has denounced their shipment. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu warned on Thursday that Russia could resort to deploying similar weaponry if faced with their use.
Ukrainian officials say their deployment is justified in view of Russia‘s mining of vast tracts of land it has seized.
“They will not be used on Russian territory…They will be used only in areas where Russian military forces are concentrated in order to break through enemy defences.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 12:50
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin ‘dead or in prison’ after Putin meeting, former US commander claims
Russia’s top mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin has probably been murdered after leading a failed rebellion against the Kremlin regime, a former senior US military leader has suggested.
Prigozhin, the Wagner Group chief, ordered his soldiers to march on Moscow last month amid an ongoing feud with Russia’s top military brass about its strategy in the Ukraine war.
“I personally don’t think he is, and if he is, he’s in a prison somewhere,” Robert Abrams, a retired general, told ABC News when asked if he thought the warlord was alive.
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 12:25
Russian general says he has been fired for telling truth about dire situation on Ukraine frontlines
A Russian general says he has been dismissed as a commander after telling the military leadership about the dire situation on the frontline in Ukraine – a sign of mounting tensions in the country’s military in the wake of the Wagner mercenary group’s mutiny.
Major General Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Army fighting in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, which is a focal point in the Ukrainian counteroffensive, said in an audio statement to his troops that he was dismissed after a meeting with the top military brass in what he described as a “treacherous” stab in the back to the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
Maj Gen Popov said that the military leadership was angered by his frank talk about the challenges faced by his forces.
“The top officers apparently saw me as a source of threat and rapidly issued an order to get rid of me, which was signed by the defence minister in just one day,” he said. “The Ukrainian military has failed to break through our army’s defenses, but the top commander hit us in the rear, treacherously and cowardly beheading the army at this most difficult moment.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 12:00
Who is the veteran mercenary that Putin proposed command Wagner?
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had proposed to Wagner Group fighters that a senior mercenary known as “Sedoi”, which means “grey hair” in Russian, command them instead of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
* “Sedoi” is the nom de guerre of Andrei Troshev, a senior Wagner commander, according to European Union sanctions documents, French official documents, sources with knowledge of the matter and Russian media reports. France’s Treasury describes Troshev’s call sign as “Siedoy”.
His associates include Dmitry Utkin, a former GRU military intelligence special forces officer and a founder of Wagner, the EU said.
Pro-Wagner channels on Telegram have repeatedly said Troshev is known by the call sign “Sedoi” and that he is one of Wagner’s most senior commanders.
The Kommersant newspaper quoted Putin as saying that “Sedoi” had been the real commander of Wagner.
* The EU described him as the “executive director (chief of staff) of the Wagner Group” in its 2021 document which also says he was a founding member of the group.
“Andrei Troshev is directly involved in the military operations of the Wagner Group in Syria,” the EU said.
“He was particularly involved in the area of Deir al-Zor. As such, he provides a crucial contribution to (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad’s war effort and therefore supports and benefits from the Syrian regime.” Britain also described him in its Syria sanctions documents as the chief executive of Wagner.
* Troshev was born in Leningrad, the Soviet-era name for St Petersburg, on April 5, 1962, according to Russian sources. Western sanctions documents list his date of birth as April 5, 1953. It is unclear why.
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 11:35
Kremlin says Wagner’s legal status needs reviewing
The Kremlin said on Friday that the status of the private Wagner mercenary group needed to be “considered”, a day after President Vladimir Putin said the group had no legal basis.
Putin told a reporter from Kommersant newspaper on Thursday that Wagner, which staged a brief armed mutiny last month, “does not exist” in a legal sense because there is no law in Russia relating to private military companies.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the status of companies such as Wagner was “rather complicated” and needed to be studied.
Asked if new legislation was likely on the status of private military companies, he said: “This question will at least be under consideration.”
Wagner has waged the fiercest battles of the Ukraine war for Russia but uncertainty has surrounded its fate and that of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin since last month’s mutiny, when it seized control of a southern city and advanced towards Moscow.
The defence ministry said this week that Wagner was completing the transfer of its weapons to the regular army under the accord with the Kremlin that brought the mutiny to an end.
he had offered Wagner mercenaries the opportunity to keep fighting for Russia during a meeting held five days after the mutiny but suggested Prigozhin be moved aside in favour of a different commander.
Under the terms of the agreement ending the June 23-24 mutiny, Prigozhin was meant to go into exile in Belarus, a close ally of Russia. However, he has not been seen in public since June 24 and his current whereabouts are unknown
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 11:19
Poland will respond in kind if Russia closes consulate, PM says
Poland will respond in kind if Russia closes down its diplomatic missions, the Polish prime minister said on Friday, after Moscow said it had decided to close Warsaw’s consulate in Smolensk.
The war in Ukraine has brought relations between Warsaw and Moscow to new lows. Poland accuses Russia of trying to destabilise the country with disinformation campaigns and espionage, while Moscow has hit out at what it sees as Warsaw’s hostile rhetoric.
“We regularly receive information about aggressive diplomatic actions from Russia,” Mateusz Morawiecki told a press conference. “If in the end it comes to it that Russia starts to liquidate our offices we will respond in kind.”
Interfax news agency said Russia took the decision to close the consulate due to what it called Poland’s “anti-Russian actions”.
The consulate in Smolensk holds a special significance for Poland as it is charged with looking after two sites of national rememberance – the cemetery complex in Katyn and the site of the 2010 Smolensk air disaster.
Polish officers were murdered by Soviet forces in the Katyn forest in western Russia in 1940.
In 2010, President Lech Kaczynski and 95 other people including top politicians and military officers were killed when their plane crashed in thick fog in Smolensk as they travelled to mark the anniversary of the Katyn killings.
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 10:37
Russia’s Lavrov has no plans to contact U.S. side during Indonesia meeting, spokeswoman says
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has no plans for contacts with U.S. officials during his current visit to Indonesia, his spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken are both in Jakarta for the ASEAN Regional Forum, a security gathering.
(RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY )
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 09:55
Poland will respond in kind if Russia closes consulates, says PM
Poland will respond in kind if Russia closes down its diplomatic missions, the Polish prime minister said on Friday, in response to reports that Moscow had decided to close the Polish consulate in Smolensk.
“We regularly receive information about aggressive diplomatic actions from Russia“, Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference. “If in the end it comes to it that Russia starts to liquidate our offices we will respond in kind.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 09:35
Russia launches overnight drone attack on Ukrainian president’s hometown
A 56-year-old man was injured in an overnight Russian drone strike on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown, the central city of Kryvyi Rih, the regional governor said on Friday.
The attack damaged a number of buildings in Kryvyi Rih but Ukraine‘s air force said 16 of the 17 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones launched by Russia overnight had been shot down in southern and eastern areas of the country.
Falling debris damaged a municipal enterprise, two residential buildings and a transport company in Kryvyi Rih, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on the Telegram messaging app.
City mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said windows had been blown out in apartment blocks and private houses, hospitals and schools.
The drone launches were the latest in a series of attacks in which the capital Kyiv came under attack on three successive nights this week. Russia did not comment on the attacks, and denies deliberately targeting civilians.
Maryam Zakir-Hussain14 July 2023 08:28