Ukraine Russia war: Wagner mercenaries arrive in Belarus in ‘several hundreds’ – live

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that it had thwarted a Ukrainian drone attack attempt near the port of Sevastopol in Crimea.

“This morning, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by seven unmanned aerial vehicles and two unmanned semi-submersible boats on objects on the territory of the Crimean peninsula near the city of Sevastopol was thwarted,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

The claim could not immediately be independently verified.

Some Wagner Group fighters have arrived in Belarus, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has said.

In its latest update, the MoD said that the Russian security apparatus enetered a “period of confusion” in the aftermath of Wagner’s shortlived rebellion last month.

“In recent days, an interim arrangement for the future of the group has started to take shape,” the MoD added.

“The Russian MoD announced that Wagner had handed over 2000 pieces of military equipment, including tanks. As of 15 July 2023, at least a small contingent of Wagner fighters have arrived at a camp in Belarus.

“Concurrently, some Wagner-associated social media groups have resumed activity, with a focus on highlighting the group’s activities in Africa.

“Based on recent announcements by Russian officials, the state is likely prepared to accept Wagner’s aspirations to maintain its extensive presence on the continent.”

A top Russian official has addressed the whereabouts of a senior general who has not been seen in public since the Wagner mutiny.

Andrei Kartapolov, head of the state Duma defence committee, said that general Sergei Surovikin is “resting” and “not available right now”.

It follows reports that Wagner boss Yevgeny Priogozhin has likely been murdered or incarcerated after leading a failed rebellion against the Kremlin regime.

Russia’s air defence forces and fleet in the Black Sea intercepted eight Ukrainian drones over the Crimean port of Sevastopol early on Sunday, a Moscow-installed official said.

“No objects, either in the city or in the water area were damaged,” Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said on the Telegram messaging app.

One drone was shot down over the sea, five were intercepted by Russia’s electronic warfare forces and two water surface drones were destroyed on the outer shore, he added.

The attacks were over the harbour of Sevastopol and the city’s Balaklava and Khersones districts, Razvozhaev said earlier.

Ukrainian courts have found at least 53 Russian nationals guilty of war crimes, the country’s prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said.

He said 200 suspects in such crimes have already been charged, and the evidence has been submitted to the court.“Over 300 people have been identified and become suspects.

These are not only identified potential Russian criminals but there is evidence that confirms that these people committed a particular crime,” the prosecutor said, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

“Some may say that this is not much. When I talk to international partners, they are surprised,” he added.

A large convoy carrying fighters from the Wagner private army was spotted entering Belarus from Russia yesterday, Ukrainian and Polish officials said.

“Wagner is in Belarus,” Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian border agency, said in a statement. He said the movement of “separate groups” from Russia had been observed in Belarus.

The Belarusian defence ministry released a video on Friday, showing what it said were Wagner fighters instructing Belarusian soldiers at a military range near the town of Osipovichi.

Poland’s deputy minister coordinator of special services, Stanislaw Zaryn, said Warsaw also has confirmation of Wagner fighters’ presence in Belarus.“There may be several hundred of them at the moment,” he tweeted.

The independent monitoring group Belaruski Hajun, which tracks the movements of armed forces in Belarus, said at least 60 trucks, buses and other large vehicles crossed into the eastern European country accompanied by Belarusian police.

The convoy headed toward a military base outside Osipovichi, a town 230km north of the Ukrainian border.

Russia’s air defence forces and fleet in the Black Sea were engaged in repelling Ukrainian drone attacks over the Crimean port of Sevastopol this morning, a Moscow-installed official said.

The attacks were over the harbour of Sevastopol and the city’s Balaklava and Khersones districts, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said.

There were no immediate details of the scale of the attack or any damage from the attacks on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Less than a month after leaving the Kremlin quaking as his Wagner mercenaries marched on Moscow, leaked photographs of Yevgeny Prigozhin in his underwear in a tent have been leaked online amid an ongoing campaign to discredit the exiled mutineer.

As Vladimir Putin – whose grip on power is perceived by many to have been severely weakened by the popular mercenary boss’s armed rebellion – sought to insist that Wagner had never actually existed, images showing a dishevelled-looking Mr Prigozhin in a state of semi-nudity appeared on Telegram.

In the latest bizarre twist of the saga, the president insisted to the Kommersant newspaper on Friday that the private military company “simply doesn’t exist” as a legal entity under Russian law – while his emboldened ally Alexander Lukashenko claimed that some of the exiled mercenaries were now training Belarus’s military.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace has pledged his support for Ukraine after suggesting the invaded country should show “gratitude” for the military support it has been given.

Mr Wallace, who revealed in The Sunday Times he plans to resign at the next Cabinet reshuffle and stand down as an MP at the next election, tweeted a lengthy thread in Ukrainian to clarify his comments.

He had made the remark after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky branded it “absurd” for Nato to insist there were still conditions for his nation to meet before it can gain membership once the war with Russia is over.

Mr Wallace tweeted: “My comments about how best to support Ukraine caused a lot of interest and were somewhat misrepresented.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said in televised remarks that Russia was living in a “constructed mythology”, after Ukraine was blamed for an alleged plot to kill two Russian jorunalists.

A Moscow court on Saturday issued criminal charges against seven people “motivated by national hatred” to kill two prominent Russian journalists in a Ukrainian-backed plot, Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency said.

Asked about the case in an interview, Podolyak played down its significance, saying the journalists “do not play any important role” in the war, nor in the loss of Russia’s positions on the world stage.