President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has praised Ukrainian troops for advancing “in all sectors” in his nightly address, after visiting frontline soldiers in the east and south of the country amid the turmoil in Russia caused by the Wagner uprising.
“Today in all sectors, our soldiers made advances. It is a happy day. I wished the guys more days like this,” Zelenskiy said on Monday night, speaking from a train after visiting two frontline areas.
His upbeat remarks follow the extraordinary but brief rebellion of Vladimir Putin’s mercenary force over the weekend, led by founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Russian president made a fresh unscheduled TV address on Monday in which he said that the enemies of Russia “wanted Russian soldiers to kill each other, to kill military personnel and civilians, so that in the end Russia would lose, and our society would split, choke in bloody civil strife”.
He identified the enemies as “the neo-Nazis in Kyiv, their western patrons and other national traitors”.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said the special services were already investigating whether western intelligence services were involved in Prigozhin’s rebellion.
Putin’s appearance came just hours after Prigozhin issued a defiant 11-minute statement in which he defended the Wagner uprising and denied that he had sought to topple the Russian president.
Prigozhin said the rebellion had shown that there were “serious problems with security on the whole territory of our country” and that “society demanded it” because of the failures of Russia’s military leadership in the invasion of Ukraine. “It was not our goal to overthrow the regime,” Prigozhin said in the voice memo.
“We stopped at that moment, when it became clear that much blood would be spilled,” he continued, describing the progress of a military convoy that reached striking distance of Moscow. “That’s why we believe that the demonstration of what we were planning to do was enough. Our decision to turn back had two factors: we didn’t want to spill Russian blood. Secondly, we marched as a demonstration of our protest.”
President Joe Biden denied on Monday that the US or Nato played any part in the unrest, aware that Putin could use accusations of western involvement to his advantage. “We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Biden said. He called the uprising and the longer-term challenges it posed for Putin “a struggle within the Russian system”.
Biden and other western allies supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion have made a pointed effort of being seen to stay out of the uprising, the biggest threat to Putin in his two decades leading Russia.
Biden’s national security team briefed him hourly as Prigozhin’s forces were on the move, the president said. He had directed them to “prepare for a range of scenarios” as Russia’s crisis unfolded, he said, but did not elaborate on the scenarios.
In Ukraine, fighting has continued. On Monday night, the Ukrainian president’s office posted four videos of Zelenskiy’s journey, which he said covered “hundreds of kilometres” and appeared to present encounters in at least three locations.
One site was in eastern Donetsk region, a focal point in the 16-month-old conflict; one was located in what was described as the Berdiansk sector in the south – in areas where Ukrainian forces have captured villages; and another was also on the southern front, further to the west.
In the last of the videos, Zelenskiy said he had seen “various brigades, all different and absolutely heroic people.
“Different but with one goal – victory over the Raschists,” he said, in a derogatory reference to Russian soldiers.
The visit to Donetsk region, according to the president’s office, involved the Khortytsia operational-strategic group, including soldiers who have fought Russian troops in and around Bakhmut, where battles have been intense.
The first video showed Zelenskiy handing out awards at an undisclosed indoor location and poring over maps with Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces.
“I have the honour to be here today, talk to the commander and first of all thank you, thank you for protecting our country, sovereignty, our families, children, Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said.
A second video showed Zelenskiy at a fuel station. Dressed in his trademark military khaki T-shirt, he stood alongside troops in a queue at a counter and posed for photos with the soldiers and women working there.
In the third video, Zelenskiy handed out awards, poses with soldiers and again examines maps with officers. Loud booms resound at least twice during the video.
Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had regained control over Rivnopil, a village west of a cluster of settlements recaptured during offensive operations. The village appeared to be the ninth retaken by Ukraine this month.
Ukraine says it has been making advances since launching a counteroffensive, but Russian forces still hold swathes of Ukrainian territory following their invasion in February 2022.
