Closing summary
The time in Kyiv is almost 9pm. Here is a roundup of today’s headlines:
The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on his private jet on Tuesday, as Moscow claimed the paramilitary force had agreed to hand over its weapons after the group’s failed insurrection. “Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said in comments first reported by Belta, the country’s national news agency.
Lukashenko, said on Tuesday that he had convinced Prigozhin in an emotional, expletive-laden phone call to end a mutiny by his Wagner militia that has jolted Russia. Under a deal brokered by Lukashenko, an old friend, Prigozhin abandoned what he called a “march for justice” by thousands of his men on Moscow, in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus.
The Wagner mercenary group was entirely financed by the Russian state, which spent 86bn roubles ($1bn) on it between May 2022 and May 2023, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said. In addition, Prigozhin, who led the group’s brief mutiny on Saturday, made almost as much during the same period from his food and catering business, Putin said at a meeting with security forces.
Lukashenko on Tuesday told his defence minister that Wagner soldiers could provide Belarus with “priceless” information about warfare. “If their commanders come to us and help us … They will tell us about weapons: which worked well, and which did not. And tactics … how to attack, how to defend … This is what we can get from Wagner,” he said.
The movement of Wagner group troops to Belarus is a negative signal for Poland, president Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday, as he headed for talks with other Nato leaders in the Netherlands. “We see what is happening, the relocation of Russian forces in the form of the Wagner group to Belarus, and the head of the Wagner group going there, those are all very negative signals for us which we want to raise strongly with our allies,” he told reporters.
Lukashenko says he has offered the Wagner group an abandoned military base in the country. While Belarus is not yet building camps for the mercenary group, it will accommodate them if they require it, he said.
Latvia and Lithuania called on Tuesday for Nato to strengthen its eastern borders in response to expectations that Wagner mercenaries would set up a new base in Belarus.
The aborted mutiny in Russia would not affect efforts by African leaders to seek an end to the war in Ukraine, South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, said on Tuesday after holding talks with her visiting German counterpart. The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said Saturday’s mutiny showed Putin was destroying his own country, Reuters reported.
Putin on Tuesday told members of Russia’s security services that they “essentially prevented a civil war” by acting “clearly and coherently” during Prigozhin’s armed mutiny on Saturday. “The people and the army were not on the side of the mutineers,” Putin said, speaking outside the Kremlin in front of the heads of Russia’s main domestic security service, including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising.
The US will provide Kyiv with a new military package worth up to $500m, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, in a show of support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia as Moscow deals with the aftermath of the mutiny. The package will include ground vehicles including Bradley fighting vehicles and Stryker armoured personnel carriers, and munitions for high mobility artillery rocket systems, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Putin’s recent flare of public statements indicates that he is eager to project a sense of unity, after the biggest crisis in his 23 years in power, says Prof Sam Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London. “Putin is hoping – through a series of set-piece events, like last night’s security meeting and today’s address on Cathedral Square, to rewrite the narrative of Prigozhin’s putsch as one of consolidation and consensus,” Greene said in a tweet.
Russian forces have carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians detained in connection with its attack on Ukraine, summarily executing more than 70 of them, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday. The global body interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the conflict, most of them by Russia.
Ukraine’s government reprimanded Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, on Tuesday as city officials faced criticism over the state of bomb shelters after the deaths of three people locked out on the street during a Russian air raid. The government said it had also approved the dismissal of the heads of two Kyiv districts and two acting heads of districts, Reuters reported. It was not immediately clear whether Klitschko, a former boxer, would face any further action.
Russia’s national guard will be equipped with heavy weaponry and tanks, the RIA news agency has quoted its head, Viktor Zolotov, as saying on Tuesday, after units of the guard came close to having to defend Moscow against heavily armed mutineers. Zolotov also said the Wagner mercenaries who carried out the short-lived weekend mutiny would not have been able to take Moscow if they had reached the Russian capital, the Tass news agency reported.
Explosions were heard in Kremenchuk after a Russian airstrike on Tuesday, according to media reports, exactly one year later a Russian rocket hit a crowded shopping centre in the city, killing at least 21 civilians. “Explosions were heard in Kremenchuk,” said the air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat. “We are waiting to hear from regional administrations about the implications of the explosions.”
Russia and China’s foreign ministries held a round of consultations on anti-missile defence, the Russian foreign ministry said. “A thorough exchange of views took place on various aspects of this issue, including its global and regional dimensions,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.
Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader, is “ready to continue to fight” for an alternative to Putin, despite being in solitary confinement and facing new charges that could put him in jail for decades, his friends and supporters have said. Launching a campaign in front of the European parliament on Tuesday, Maria Pevchikh, a Russian journalist and CEO of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, said he had been locked up in “punishment cell” for 180 days on fake charges, including not washing his teeth at the correct time.
The Italian cardinal Matteo Zuppi, tasked by Pope Francis to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the war in Ukraine, will visit Moscow this week as a followup to his trip to Kyiv, the Vatican said on Tuesday. A statement said Zuppi would be in the Russian capital on Wednesday and Thursday.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated
Russia and China’s foreign ministries on Tuesday held a round of consultations on anti-missile defence, the Russian foreign ministry said.
“A thorough exchange of views took place on various aspects of this issue, including its global and regional dimensions,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.
“The intention was reaffirmed to hold such consultations on a regular basis in the future.”
Since invading Ukraine in February 2022 in what it calls a “special military operation”, Russia has increasingly courted China for trade and diplomatic support, Reuters reported.
China has not condemned the invasion, and Washington and other Western allies said earlier this year that China was considering providing weapons to Russia, something Beijing denies.
