Russia Ukraine war: Wagner forces training soldiers in Belarus after Prigozhin exile

Fighters from Russia‘s Wagner mercenary group are training soldiers in Belarus, the Belarusian defence ministry said on Friday.

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

“Wagner fighters acted as instructors in a number of military disciplines,” the Belarusian defence 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.

Under the deal, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin stood down his mercenaries and agreed to move to Belarus in exchange for Russia dropping mutiny charges.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is still waiting for a response from Vladimir Putin on a proposal to extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain beyond Monday, a UN spokesperson has said.

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

The last ship travelling under the deal is loading its cargo at Ukraines Odesa port.

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

Moscow has threatened to quit the deal, brokered last year, saying its demands to improve its own grain and fertiliser exports have not been met.

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

“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,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address after chairing a meeting with top commanders.

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

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

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

He had no plans to contact U.S. counterparts while in Jakarta, according to his spokesperson, Maria Zakharova.

But Lavrov did meet top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi. The two sides would “strengthen strategic communication and coordination”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Russia shows no sign of changing direction in its war on Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday, as foreign ministers from two dozen countries met in Indonesia’s capital for Southeast Asia’s annual security-focused gathering.

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

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

“I didn’t hear anything from Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov that suggested any change in direction when it comes to what Russia is doing in Ukraine,” Blinken said, adding that Russia was focused on blaming the United States for the world’s problems.

An alleged Russian intelligence operative accused by the United States of smuggling U.S.-origin electronics and ammunition to Russia to help its war against Ukraine was extradited from Estonia, federal prosecutors said on Friday.

The defendant Vadim Konoschenok is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court in Brooklyn later on Friday.

Prosecutors are requesting he be detained pending trial, calling him an irremediable flight risk.

Russia has not made any statements on the extension of the Black Sea grain deal, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Earlier, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was in agreement with Russia‘s President Vladimir Putin that the deal, which allows the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, should be extended.

Some media construed Erdogan’s comments as suggesting that a deal 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 on its implementation are met

Evan Gershkovich appeared tense as he paced back and forth inside a glass cage in the Moscow City Court on 22 June, Bevan Hurley writes.

Wearing a black T-shirt and light blue jeans, Gershkovich was briefly paraded before cameras inside the courtroom box known as an “aquarium”, a relic of Soviet show trials.

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

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s obvious impatience over Nato’s slow-moving decision-making process has reportedly irritated US officials enough that they reconsidered Ukraine’s invitation to join the alliance.

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

Then, after Nato countries failed to deliver a specific timeline to Mr Zelensky on Nato membership before the summit this week, Mr Zelensky’s frustration resulted in a more aggressive approach in the form of a tweet.

Some fighters from Russia‘s Wagner mercenary group 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.