The Chinese embassy in Moscow on Friday criticized “brutal and excessive law enforcement by Russia” after five Chinese citizens were denied entry into the country.
In a post on Chinese social media platform WeChat, the embassy said the incident had “seriously damaged the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens.”
On attempting to enter Russia on July 29, the group of Chinese citizens was “repeatedly” questioned for “up to 4 hours,” according to the statement. They had their tourist visas canceled and were refused entry, it said.
The incident is “inconsistent with the overall situation of friendly Sino-Russian relations and the trend of increasingly close friendly exchanges of personnel between the two countries,” added the embassy. “The Russian side is required to immediately find out the cause of the incident, take active measures to eliminate the bad influence, and ensure that similar incidents will not recur in the future.”
Beijing committed to a “no-limits partnership” with Moscow just two days before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. It is among the Kremlin’s top remaining allies, and has not condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion.
Representatives of the Chinese government this weekend are joining more than 40 countries in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Saudi-hosted — and Kremlin-free — Ukraine peace talks.
Russia will not rejoin a U.N.-brokered pact designed to prevent famines across the developing world as a result of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
Speaking at the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St. Petersburg, Putin again said his government would “refuse to extend” the Black Sea grain deal, which has allowed 32.9 million tons of agricultural products to leave Ukraine’s blockaded ports and reach the global market.
Putin, who accused Western nations of receiving the bulk of the deliveries and refusing to lift sanctions on Russia, insisted Moscow would instead move toward “a more just system of resource distribution.”
“In the coming three or four months we would be ready to provide to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea up to 50,000 tons of grain each. We will ensure free shipping of these cargo,” he went on.
Investigations have shown Russia has systematically stolen Ukrainian grain during its occupation of the south of the country and, following Moscow’s withdrawal from the deal, the country’s forces launched strikes against agricultural stores. Kyiv says as much as 60,000 tons of grain were destroyed.
The African Union earlier Thursday urged Moscow to reinstate the Black Sea grain deal, designed to ensure Ukrainian and Russian agricultural products can reach the global market, despite the raging war affecting Black Sea shipping routes, and avoid shortages.
“The problem of grains and fertilizers concerns everyone,” Comoros President Azali Assoumani, who heads the 55-member African Union, told Russian state media. “We will talk about this in St. Petersburg, we will discuss it with Putin to see how we can restart this agreement.”
Putin last week announced his country would unilaterally pull out of the arrangement and, shortly afterward, his forces launched strikes against Ukraine’s export infrastructure.
Analysts have previously warned that a continued refusal to renew the deal could mean African nations are dependent on one-off deals with Moscow to secure supplies, with price volatility and insecurity of supply as a result.
Billed as an effort to foster closer relations between Russia and the Global South, the summit has been overshadowed by strict security and COVID-19 testing requirements, and the Kremlin has complained that “pressure” from the the U.S. and EU countries has meant only 17 heads of state out of a total of more than 50 African countries confirmed they would attend.
Russia said Monday it will closely follow talks on Ukraine set to take place in Saudi Arabia early next month.
Saudi Arabia is planning to host peace talks including Ukraine, Western nations and selected major developing countries in August, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
Russia — which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and continues to pound Ukraine with missile attacks — was not invited to the talks, but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow will “follow this meeting,” reported Russian state-owned media outlet RIA Novosti on Monday.
“It remains to be fully understood what goals are set and what, in fact, the organizers plan to talk about,” said Peskov, adding that any attempts to promote a peaceful settlement are “worthy of a positive assessment.” Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said there could be no cease-fire while Ukrainian forces are “on the offensive.”
The upcoming Saudi-hosted talks, which could bring together officials from up to 30 countries, are set to take place in Jeddah on August 5 and 6.
The U.K., South Africa, Poland and the EU have all confirmed attendance, and U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is also expected to attend, the Wall Street Journal said. India and Brazil have also been invited.
Earlier this summer, leaders and senior officials from more than a dozen countries gathered in Copenhagen to discuss a possible peace plan for Ukraine.
But some major developing countries are still hesitant to condemn the war, as evident during last month’s EU summit with Latin American leaders.
According to the Journal, officials are hoping the upcoming talks could garner international support for Ukraine’s peace demands, and potentially lead to a summit later this year. Western diplomats reportedly said that Saudi Arabia was picked to host this round of talks partly in hopes of persuading China — which has close ties to Saudi Arabia — to participate.
The United States on Tuesday sharply limited Hungary’s participation in its visa waiver program over security concerns regarding new passports issued between 2011 and 2020.
Under the American Visa Waiver Program, citizens of participating countries can travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for up to 90 days without a visa, and simply need a so-called Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
But starting Tuesday, ESTA validity for Hungarian passport holders will be reduced from two years to one, and an ESTA will only be valid for a single use.
The unprecedented move, in response to security concerns, affects Hungary as the only one of 40 countries participating in the U.S. program.
After coming to power in 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government implemented a major policy change that granted citizenship to ethnic Hungarians abroad — including in Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. Domestic critics say Orbán’s controversial move was designed to boost his electoral prospects.
David Pressman, the U.S. ambassador in Budapest, told POLITICO in an interview ahead of the announcement, “There are hundreds of thousands of passports that have been issued by the government of Hungary as part of the simplified naturalization program without stringent identity verification mechanisms in place.”
The U.S. government has been engaging the Hungarian government on this “security vulnerability” for many years and across multiple administrations, Pressman said. But “the government of Hungary has opted not to close” it.
Responding to the American decision, Hungary’s interior ministry said the country “will not disclose the data of Hungarians beyond the border with dual citizenship because that would risk their security” and accused the White House of “taking revenge on Hungarians with the new visa waiver limit.”
“This is a really unfortunate day,” Pressman said. “This is not the outcome the United States sought or is seeking.”
Washington’s move comes at a time when Hungary’s relationship with Western partners is at a low point.
Budapest’s NATO allies are deeply frustrated that Hungary’s parliament has yet to ratify Sweden’s bid to join the alliance.
There are also ongoing concerns about senior Hungarian officials promoting Kremlin-style narratives at home, as well as over efforts to water down European sanctions targeting Moscow. Earlier this year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on a Hungary-based bank linked to Russia.
Many Western countries have spoken out about deteriorating democratic standards in Hungary, as well as policies and rhetoric they say undermine the rights of LGBTQ+ people there.
Pressman underscored how American experts had previously identified ways the security concerns could be addressed.
The U.S. in 2017 made Hungary’s status in the visa waiver program provisional, while security concerns were also behind a decision to render Hungarians born outside the country ineligible starting in 2020.
Now, however, all Hungarian passport holders will be affected.
“This is about a choice,” the ambassador said. “The Hungarian government thus far has chosen not to address that security concern, which has led the United States to respond.”
This article has been updated with a response from the Hungarian interior ministry.
The pictures posted on the Chinese company’s website show a tall, Caucasian man with a crew cut and flattened nose inspecting body armor at its factory.
“This spring, one of our customers came to our company to confirm the style and quantity of bulletproof vests, and carefully tested the quality of our vests,” Shanghai H Win, a manufacturer of military-grade protective gear, proudly reported on its website in March. The customer “immediately directly confirmed the order quantity of bulletproof vests and subsequent purchase intention.”
The identity of the smiling customer isn’t clear, but there’s a fair chance he was Russian: According to customs records obtained by POLITICO, Russian buyers have declared orders for hundreds of thousands of bulletproof vests and helmets made by Shanghai H Win — the items listed in the documents match those in the company’s online catalog.
Evidence of this kind shows that China, despite Beijing’s calls for peace, is pushing right up to a red line in delivering enough nonlethal, but militarily useful, equipment to Russia to have a material impact on President Vladimir Putin’s 17-month-old war on Ukraine. The protective gear would be sufficient to equip many of the men mobilized by Russia since the invasion. Then there are drones that can be used to direct artillery fire or drop grenades, and thermal optical sights to target the enemy at night.
These shipments point to a China-sized loophole in the West’s attempts to hobble Putin’s war machine. The sale of so-called dual-use technology that can have both civilian and military uses leaves just enough deniability for Western authorities looking for reasons not to confront a huge economic power like Beijing.
The wartime strength of China’s exports of dual-use products to Russia is confirmed by customs data. And, while Ukraine is a customer of China too, its imports of most of the equipment covered in this story have fallen sharply, the figures show.
Russia has imported more than $100 million-worth of drones from China so far this year — 30 times more than Ukraine. And Chinese exports of ceramics, a component used in body armor, increased by 69 percent to Russia to more than $225 million, while dropping by 61 percent to Ukraine to a mere $5 million, Chinese and Ukrainian customs data show.
“What is very clear is that China, for all its claims that it is a neutral actor, is in fact supporting Russia’s positions in this war,” said Helena Legarda, a lead analyst specializing in Chinese defense and foreign policy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin think tank.
Were China to cross the red line and sell weapons or military equipment to Russia, Legarda said she would expect the EU to enforce secondary sanctions targeting enablers of Putin’s war of aggression.
But, she added, equipment like body armor, thermal imaging, and even commercial drones that can be used in offensive frontline operations are unlikely to trigger a response.
“Then there’s this situation that we’re in at the moment — all these dual-use components or equipment and how you handle those,” Legarda explained. “I would not expect the EU to be able to agree to sanctions on that.”
Disappearing customer
Shanghai H Win, like other Chinese companies producing dual-use equipment, has enjoyed a surge in business since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to customs records obtained by POLITICO, Russia has ordered hundreds of thousands of bulletproof vests and helmets made by Shanghai H Win | Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
“Because of the war, a lot of trading companies are looking for us and ask: ‘Are you making this kind of vest?’ We received a lot of inquiries,” a sales representative told POLITICO over the phone.
At first, the representative said Shanghai H Win wasn’t allowed to export directly to Russia unless the Chinese military issues a certificate and it can provide documentary proof of its final customer.
Yet when asked who the man in the pictures was, and where he was from, the representative denied that he was even a customer — even though the website said so.
“He is our customer’s customer. We cannot ask him directly, ‘Where are you from?’ But I guess maybe he is from Europe — maybe Ukraine, maybe Poland, even maybe from Russia. I’m not sure.”
Shortly after the call, Shanghai H Win took down the post featuring the mystery shopper from its website.
Who are the buyers?
So, who exactly are those customers? Evidence of deals — importers, suppliers, and product descriptions — can be found in a registry of declarations of conformity by anyone with access to the Russian internet who is familiar with international customs classifications.
In an earlier story, POLITICO searched these filings and found evidence that sniper bullets made in the United States were reaching Russia, where they were freely available on the black market.
The declarations enable the final buyer to certify that the products are genuine and, in effect, make it possible to import goods without the express consent of the maker. If goods are traded through an intermediary, the maker may not even be aware that its goods are going to Russia. The registry is, however, searchable so it’s still easy to find the ultimate buyers of the Chinese kit.
One is Silva, a company headquartered in the remote Eastern Siberian region of Buryatia. It filed declarations in January of this year detailing orders for 100,000 bulletproof vests and 100,000 helmets. The manufacturer? Shanghai H Win.
Such importers often bear the hallmarks of “one-day” firms, as shell companies are known in Russia, set up by actors who want to conceal their dealings. They tend to be new, listed at obscure residential addresses, and have few staff or assets. Their financial statements often don’t report the levels of turnover that the filings would imply.
According to public records, Silva was registered only last September. It reported zero revenues for 2022. A Google Street View search of its address in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, takes visitors to a dilapidated apartment block.
POLITICO tried to contact Silva but the phone number given on its filings rang off the hook and a message sent to its email address bounced.
The sale of so-called dual-use technology that can have both civilian and military uses leaves enough deniability for Western authorities looking for reasons not to confront China | STR/AFP via Getty Images
Another Russian company called Rika declared a smaller shipment of body armor from Shanghai H Win in March. Before that, in January, Rika declared a consignment of helmets from a company called Deekon Shanghai, which shares an address with Shanghai H Win. The two companies are affiliated, another Shanghai H Win representative said.
A woman who answered the phone at Rika said: “We buy in Russia, not in China.” The company didn’t reply to a follow-up email from POLITICO.
The denial is hardly plausible: In addition to the protective gear, a search of declarations by Rika threw up hits for deals for thermal optical equipment from China. That was corroborated by customs data accessed by POLITICO, which revealed more than 220 shipments, worth $11 million, for thermal optics and protective equipment since the outbreak of the war. Rika advertises Chinese-made night sights right at the top of its website.
Another Russian company called Legittelekom, whose homepage reveals it to be a Moscow freight forwarding company, also appears as a buyer of 100,000 items of headgear and 100,000 suits of outerwear from Deekon Shanghai, according to filings dated last November 24.
A man who answered a call to Legittelekom declined to comment on POLITICO’s findings and would not say whether the company supplied the Russian military.
“This is a commercial activity and we do not disclose our commercial activities,” the man said in response to both questions.
Bigger deal
Then there’s Pozitron, a company based in Rostov-on-Don, the southern city briefly captured by warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries in their failed uprising last month. It imported more than $60 million-worth of “airsoft helmets,” “miscellaneous ceramics,” and other items from Chinese firm Beijing KRNatural in November and December 2022, according to customs data shared by ImportGenius.
These flows check out with Pozitron’s own declarations of conformity between late October and December 2022, for a total of 100,000 helmets. The declarations also reveal that Pozitron acquired a range of drones from Chinese multinational SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd last December.
Although the quantity is unclear, the models specified include ones known to have been used in the Ukrainian theater of war, like DJI’s Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced quadcopter or the Mini 2 lightweight drone.
At first sight, the product descriptions in the declarations and customs records appear harmless enough — the “airsoft helmets,” for example, are said to be for use in paintball games and “not for military use, not for dual use.”
Sanctions and defense experts say, however, that it’s common practice to mislabel dual-use goods as being for civilian purposes when they’re in fact destined for the battlefield.
At any rate, Pozitron, which was only founded in March 2021, is having a very good war: Its revenues exploded from 31 million rubles — around $400,000 — in 2021 to 20 billion rubles — almost $300 million — in 2022, according to its financial statement.
Reached by email, Pozitron’s general director, Andrey Vitkovsky, said that his company has “never imported drones and similar products” from the People’s Republic of China.
“The main activity of Pozitron LLC is the purchase and sale of consumer goods, sporting goods, and fabrics, both produced in the Russian Federation and imported from China,” Vitkovsky added, saying that his company’s activities were “exclusively peaceful in nature, in compliance with all rules and restrictions.”
The denial is typical — Russian companies have good reason to fear Western sanctions if they are implicated in trade that supports the Kremlin’s war effort. After POLITICO reported in March that a company called Tekhkrim was importing Chinese assault weapons, and declaring them as “hunting rifles,” the firm was sanctioned by the United States.
Pozitron is on the West’s radar, said one sanctions expert, who was granted anonymity as they are not authorized to speak publicly.
As for Beijing KRNatural, POLITICO was able to trace a company with a similar name at the address given in the Pozitron filings. The company, Beijing Natural Hanhua International Trade Co., Ltd, is listed as a “small and micro enterprise.” It was founded in April 2022, a few months before the Pozitron deals. Nobody answered when POLITICO called.
Heavenly mechanics
In contrast to the bulk consignments of protective gear that appear intended to equip a large fighting force, the orders for drones found by POLITICO are more dispersed among different buyers — both companies and individuals.
In addition to Pozitron, buyers of drones from DJI and its subsidiaries include firms called Gigantshina and Vozdukh — neither of which responded to emailed requests for comment. Another is Nebesnaya Mekhanika (“Heavenly Mechanics”), which before the war was the Chinese company’s official distributor in Russia.
A DJI spokesperson said that the company and its subsidiaries had voluntarily stopped all shipments to, and operations in, Russia and Ukraine on April 26, 2022 — two months after the war broke out.
“We stand alone as the only drone company to clearly denounce and actively discourage use of products in combat,” the spokesperson said in comments emailed to POLITICO.
DJI said it had also broken off its relationship with Nebesnaya Mekhanika, although the Russian company filed further declarations for shipments of the Chinese company’s drones last September 15 and on March 27 of this year.
The spokesperson said that DJI was not in any way involved in the drafting of the declarations of conformity found by POLITICO: “These documents would have been filled out by Russian parties, and they do not indicate in any shape or form who ex- or imported the products that are being declared conform.”
“We have seen media reports and other documents that appear to show how our products are being transported to Russia and Ukraine from other countries where they can be bought off-the-shelf,” the spokesperson added. “However, it is not in our power to influence how our products are being used once they leave our control.”
Still, a search of ImportGenius shows that a Chinese company called Iflight has continued to ship DJI drones to Nebesnaya Mechnika via Hong Kong, care of a local company called Lotos. The most recent consignment was delivered last October 10. In an apparent anomaly, Russia is stated as the country of origin for the shipments.
Nebesnaya Mekhanika, which still advertises DJI drones on its website, did not respond to a request for comment.
Political will
The trafficking of low-tech body armor to high-tech drones and thermal optics highlights a vulnerability in the Western sanctions regime. The ambiguity surrounding the dual-use status of this equipment, coupled with the fact that a significant portion of it is manufactured in China, seems, at least for now, to have placed the possibility of the West taking meaningful action beyond reach.
Then there is the flow of technology through China that may include components made in the West that could be of direct military use.
Russia is fully aware of the China loophole and is using it to buy Western technology to fight its war against Ukraine, according to a recent analysis by the KSE Institute, a think tank affiliated to the Kyiv School of Economics. More than 60 percent of imported critical components in Russian weapons found on the battlefield came from U.S. companies, the researchers found.
It’s an issue that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up on a visit to Beijing last month — the first by Washington’s top diplomat in five years. He told reporters that China had given assurances that “it is not and will not provide lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine.” Blinken, however, expressed “ongoing concerns” that Chinese firms may be providing technology that Russia can use to advance its aggression in Ukraine. “And we have asked the Chinese government to be very vigilant about that.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that China had given assurances that “it is not and will not provide lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine” during a visit to Beijing last month | Pool photo by Leah Millis/AFP via Getty Images
France is also concerned that China is delivering dual-use equipment to Russia. “There are indications that they are doing things we would prefer them not to do,” Emmanuel Bonne, President Emmanuel Macron’s top diplomatic adviser, told the recent Aspen Security Forum. Pressed on whether China was supplying weapons, Bonne said: “Well, kind of military equipment … as far as we know they are not delivering massively military capacities to Russia but (we need there to be) no delivery.”
Yet there’s little the West can do to twist Beijing’s arm into halting flows of dual-use products into Russia. Only the United States would have the real power to impose an outright ban on dollar-denominated transactions — as Washington did when it sanctioned Iran over its secret nuclear program.
The EU, however, lacks such a strong sanctions weapon because the euro is far less ubiquitous on global markets. It’s also been hesitant to act. In its latest package of Russia sanctions last month, the EU compiled a list of seven Chinese companies that shouldn’t be allowed to trade with the bloc. But, after lobbying by Beijing, Brussels dropped four companies from the blacklist.
Elina Ribakova, one of the authors of the KSE Institute report, said indirect shipments via China pose challenges in terms of both the scope and enforcement of Western sanctions. Secondary sanctions may not be sufficient, she said. She called for manufacturers to be forced to take responsibility for where their products end up — just as banks were required by regulators to step up customer oversight and anti-money laundering operations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
“What we can do differently is to create the same infrastructure for the corporates,” explained Ribakova, who is director of the international program at the Kyiv School of Economics. “We have to threaten them with serious fines.”
Maxim Mironov, a sanctions expert and assistant professor of finance at the IE Business School in Madrid, reckons that the West, despite expanding sanctions to punish Putin’s helpers, lacks the political conviction to enforce them against Beijing.
“Do politicians have enough will to put sanctions on China? Basically, the answer is no,” said Mironov.
“China signals: You can try, but I don’t care what you are trying to do,” Mironov added. “And the European Union is like: If you don’t like it, we are not going to do it. And if the Chinese see that, they are just going to continue doing what they think is in their best interest.”
The European Commission, the U.S. National Security Council and the Chinese Mission to the EU did not respond to requests for comment.
Stuart Lau contributed reporting.
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Sarah Anne Aarup, Sergey Panov and Douglas Busvine
African leaders have long been reluctant to criticize Russia and now that President Vladimir Putin has killed off a deal to allow Ukraine to export grain, they know they are more dependent than ever on Moscow’s largesse to feed millions of people at risk of going hungry.
Having canceled the pact on Monday, Moscow unleashed four nights of attacks on the Ukrainian ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk — two vital export facilities — damaging the infrastructure of global and Ukrainian traders and destroying 60,000 tons of grain. In the latest assault, on Thursday night, a barrage of Kalibr missiles hit the granaries of an agricultural enterprise in Odesa.
“The decision by Russia to exit the Black Sea Grain Initiative is a stab [in] the back,” tweeted Abraham Korir Sing’Oei, a senior foreign ministry official from Kenya, one of the African countries that has received donations of Russian fertilizer in recent months.
The resulting rise in global food prices “disproportionately impacts countries in the Horn of Africa already impacted by drought,” he added.
Sing’Oei’s was a solitary voice, however. Rather than reproaching Moscow, African leaders have remained largely silent as they prepare to attend a summit hosted by Putin in St Petersburg next week. This follows an African mission led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last month to Kyiv and St Petersburg in a bid to broker peace.
The diplomatic stakes could hardly be higher.
Putin had been due to make a return visit to Africa next month to attend a summit of the BRICS emerging economies in Johannesburg. That trip has been called off, however, “by mutual agreement” to avoid exposing the Kremlin chief to the risk of arrest under an indictment for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Without the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered a year ago by the United Nations and Turkey that enabled Ukraine to export 33 million metric tons of grains and oilseeds, many African governments now have nowhere else to turn to but Russia.
“It’s going to be based on political alignments,” said Samuel Ramani, an Oxford-based academic and author of a book on Russia’s resurgent influence in Africa.
Comparing Russia’s tactics to blackmail, Ramani added: “They’re going to be offering free grain to some, they’re going to be selling to others. It’s full-fledged grain diplomacy.”
No deal
Russia said on Monday it would no longer guarantee the safety of ships passing through a transit corridor as it announced its official withdrawal from the deal, declaring the northwestern Black Sea to be once again “temporarily dangerous.” It followed up by threatening to fire on all ships going across the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports, sparking a tit-for-tat warning from Kyiv that it would do the same to all vessels sailing to Russian-controlled Black Sea ports.
Over the 12 months it functioned, the grain deal helped bring down global food prices by as much as 20 percent from the peak set in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. It also provided aid agencies with vital supplies.
Russia repeatedly claimed it has not seen the benefits of the three-times extended agreement, however.
Although Western sanctions carve out exemptions for food and fertilizer the Kremlin argues that sanctions targeting Russian individuals and its state agriculture bank are hindering its own exports, thus contravening a second deal agreed last July under which the U.N. committed to facilitating these exports for a three-year period.
The Kremlin said Wednesday that it would resume talks on the Black Sea grain deal only if the U.N. implements this part of the deal within the next three months.
Propaganda war
Another of Moscow’s criticisms is that cargoes of Ukrainian grain have headed mostly to rich countries; not to those in Africa and Asia bearing the brunt of the global food crisis.
Over the last year, a quarter of all the grain and oilseeds shipped under the initiative have headed to China, the largest recipient, while some 18 percent went to Spain and 10 percent to Turkey, according to U.N. data.
This is not the whole story, however. Trade data from the World Bank shows that much of the wheat exported to Turkey is processed and re-exported, as flour, pasta and other products, to Africa and the Middle East.
Most importantly, all grain that flows onto global markets reduces prices, wherever it ends up, counter the U.N. and others.
Russia has canceled the Black Sea deal and unleashed attacks on the Ukrainian ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
“It is not a question of where the Black Sea food actually goes; it is a question of it [bringing] international prices down, so whether you are a rich country or poor country, you can benefit,” said Arif Husain, the U.N. World Food Programme’s chief economist, speaking at an event on the Black Sea Grain Initiative in Rome recently.
These arguments have been at the center of a months-long propaganda battle between Moscow and Kyiv over who can rightly claim to be feeding the world and who is responsible for soaring food prices.
In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the Kremlin’s narrative — that western sanctions are to blame — was quick to take hold in many parts of Africa.
Ukraine sought to counter this with a humanitarian food program, Grain from Ukraine, launched in November 2022, but shiploads of fertilizer donated to countries, including Malawi and Kenya, served to sweeten the Kremlin’s message.
“A true friend knows no weather. A true friend comes to the rescue when you need them the most. And you just demonstrated that to us,” Malawi’s Agriculture Minister Sam Dalitso Kawale said upon receiving a fertilizer gift from Russian firm Uralchem in March.
Feeling the pinch
Now, countries like Malawi need friends in Moscow more than ever. Not only does the end of the grain deal cut them off from flows of Ukrainian grain, leaving them dependent on Russian supplies, but it also pushes up prices.
Moscow’s withdrawal from the agreement is unlikely to have the same impact on prices as its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Over the last year, Ukraine has opened up alternative export routes and a slowdown in shipments moving under the initiative also meant commodity markets had been expecting Moscow to quit the deal.
While Ukraine can continue to export grain through alternative routes, these come with extra logistical and transport costs, squeezing prices for Ukrainian farmers, at one end, and pushing up costs for buyers, at the other.
For food-insecure countries in the Horn of Africa even a small increase in prices could spell disaster, said Shashwat Saraf, emergency director in East Africa for the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
Domestic production has dropped amid conflict and severe drought, leaving the region increasingly reliant on food imports and food aid. As such, higher food prices will hit hard, he said, adding that traders already report “feeling the pinch.”
With the cost of food rising, the IRC and other humanitarian organizations will be forced to either reduce the number of people they provide cash transfers or reduce the value of these themselves — and this at a time when the number of food insecure people is rising, said Saraf. “When we should be expanding our coverage, we will be actually reducing [it].”
Slap in the face
African leaders attending Putin’s summit next week will be silent on such issues, predicted Christopher Fomunyoh, African regional director at the U.S. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and one of the Grain from Ukraine ambassadors appointed by Kyiv.
But they must not return empty-handed again, he said. Russia’s discontinuation of the grain deal, following the South African-led visit to St Petersburg, is a “slap in the face,” Fomunyoh told POLITICO. “Their own credibility is now at stake. And my hope is that they will have to speak out in order to not further lose credibility with their own populations.”
In 2022, Russia’s narrative was dominant in Africa, but that has slowly changed through the course of this year, he explained, adding that Africans were starting to see through Moscow’s propaganda.
“There is always a time delay,” said Fomunyoh. “But my sense is that in the days and weeks to come, people are going to see very clearly [that] the destruction of infrastructure in Odessa, the destruction of stock, wheat, and grain in Chornomorsk is contributing to scarcity and the inflation in prices.”
The Kremlin said on Monday that a U.N.-brokered deal to allow the safe passage of Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea is terminated, claiming that Russia’s conditions had not been met.
“The Black Sea agreements ceased to be valid today,” Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, was quoted by state news agency TASS as saying.
“As the president of the Russian Federation said earlier, the deadline is July 17. Unfortunately, the part relating to Russia in this Black Sea agreement has not been implemented so far. Therefore, its effect is terminated,” Peskov said.
“As soon as the Russian conditions are met, the Russian Federation will return to the implementation of the deal,” he said.
Russia notified the other parties of its withdrawal from the initiative in a letter sent to the Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Center, set up to monitor the deal’s implementation, a U.N. official confirmed to POLITICO.
The Black Sea grain initiative, which was first brokered by the United Nations and Turkey a year ago in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was last renewed on May 17 for two months. Some 33 million metric tons of grain and oilseeds have so far been exported under the deal, which has been extended three times, offering a lifeline to Ukraine’s farmers and to food-insecure countries in the Global South.
Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra blasted Moscow’s move, saying it threatens food prices and market stability. “It is utterly immoral that Russia continues to weaponise food,” Hoekstra said in a tweet.
‘Enough is enough’
Moscow has repeatedly said it would not agree to a further extension, claiming that it is not seeing the benefit of the pact. “Hidden” Western sanctions, the Kremlin says, are hindering Russia’s own food and fertilizer exports and thus contravening a second deal agreed last July under which the U.N. committed to facilitate these exports for a three-year period.
Last Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres sent a letter to Putin putting forward a compromise proposal to meet a Kremlin demand that Russia’s state agricultural bank be readmitted to the SWIFT payments system.
Two days later, however, Putin reiterated that conditions required for Russia to extend the pact had not been met. “We voluntarily extended this so-called deal many times. Many times. But listen, in the end, enough is enough,” the Russian president said in a TV interview on Thursday night.
“Russia is exporting record amounts of grain,” Ambassador Jim O’Brien, head of the State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination, told POLITICO ahead in an interview ahead of Monday’s announcement in Moscow.
“There’s no evidence that Russia is impeded in its exports,” he said, adding that the EU, the U.S., the U.K and U.N. have worked very closely with specific companies said to be facing difficulties to address their concerns.
Last ship
The last ship to travel under the pact left Ukraine’s Odesa port on Sunday morning, according to Reuters. In the run-up to the July 17 deadline, the number of shipments had fallen — dropping to 1.3 million metric tons in May from 4.2 million last October — while no new vessels have been registered under the initiative since the end of June.
Kyiv, which accuses Moscow of sabotaging the deal, is readying alternative routes to export its grain and oilseed crops.
Aid agencies, meanwhile, are bracing for the impact of the deal’s end on global food prices, which they say will hit the world’s most vulnerable in food-insecure countries the hardest.
Wheat prices rose 3 percent on Monday, bringing cumulative gains since the middle of last week to 12 percent, said Carlos Mera, head of agricultural commodities markets at Rabobank. Without the deal, Ukraine will have to export most of its grain and oilseeds via the Danube river, driving up transport and logistics cost and pushing down prices for farmers, who may subsequently plant less, he said.
“This situation means poor countries in Africa and the Middle East will be more dependent on Russian wheat,” said Mera.
Russia’s withdrawal from the initiative “would make it solely responsible for a devastating blow to global grain security,” said O’Brien. “President Putin is well aware that if he chooses to impede or end this arrangement, that he’ll be causing a great deal of trouble for the Global South.”
Troops from Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, who are relocating to Belarus following last month’s aborted mutiny, will not go back to fight in Ukraine and will stay in Belarus to train local troops, their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said Wednesday.
“We did a lot for Russia. What is happening at the front now is a disgrace. We want no part of it,” Prigozhin said in his first appearance since his troops marched on Moscow in a failed uprising last month.
In a shaky mobile phone video shot at dusk, Prigozhin can be seen in silhouette wearing a baseball cap. He speaks to a crowd of men who appear to be Wagner fighters and break repeatedly into applause and cheers.
“Therefore we have taken the decision to be in Belarus for a while. In this time, we will turn the Belarusian army into the second most powerful in the world and, if needed, we will take its place,” Prigozhin pursued, in a jab at Russia, which currently has the second largest army in the world.
He then hinted his troops could later go to Africa, where Wagner has been active in Mali and the Central African Republic.
Prigozhin’s deputy, Dmitry Utkin, whose nom de guerre gave the mercenary army its name, speaks: “This is not the end. This is the beginning. The biggest task in the world will begin very soon,” he said before switching to English: “Welcome to hell.”
After months of tension with Russia’s military leadership, Prigozhin turned his troops against the Russian authorities last month. He led his men deep into Russian territory, taking the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don and only stopping a few dozen kilometers from Moscow.
The mutinous warlord then went off the grid after he struck a deal with the Kremlin and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko under which Wagner fighters would be spared prosecution in Russia, while he and his men would go in exile in Belarus.
He resurfaced a few days later, posting a voice message on social media to thank the supporters of the aborted uprising while signalling that Minsk had offered options for his troops to continue operating from Belarus.
Since then, there have been contradicting reports about Prigozhin’s whereabouts. Lukashenko initially confirmed Prigozhin had popped up in Belarus three days after the rebellion, on June 27, before later saying that he wasn’t actually there — and could even be in Russia.
Last week, the Kremlin said the Wagner boss was in Moscow on June 29, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin together with other Wagner commanders.
Ben Cohen wasn’t talking about ice cream. He was talking about American militarism.
At 72, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is bald and bespectacled. He looks fit, cherubic even, but when he got going on what it was like to grow up during the Cold War, his tone became less playful and more assertive — almost defiant.
“I had this image of these two countries facing each other, and each one had this huge pile of shiny, state-of-the-art weapons in front of them,” he said, his arms waving above his head. “And behind them are the people in their countries that are suffering from lack of health care, not enough to eat, not enough housing.”
“It’s just crazy,” he added. “Approaching relationships with other countries based on threats of annihilating them, it’s just a pretty stupid way to go.”
It wasn’t a new subject for the famously socially conscious ice cream mogul; Cohen has been leading a crusade against what he sees as Washington’s bellicosity for decades. It’s just that with the war in Ukraine, his position has taken on a new — morally questionable — relevance.
Cohen, who no longer sits on the board of Ben & Jerry’s, isn’t just one of the most successful marketers of the last century. He’s a leading figure in a small but vocal part of the American left that has stood steadfast in opposition to the United States’ involvement in the war in Ukraine.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tanks rolling on Kyiv, Cohen didn’t focus his ire on the Kremlin; a group he funds published a full-page ad in the New York Times blaming the act of aggression on “deliberate provocations” by the U.S. and NATO.
Following months of Russian missile strikes on residential apartment blocks, and after evidence of street executions by Russian troops in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, he funded a 2022 journalism prize that praised its winner for reporting on “Washington’s true objectives in the Ukraine war, such as urging regime change in Russia.”
In May, Cohen tweeted approvingly of an op-ed by the academic Jeffrey Sachs that argued “the war in Ukraine was provoked” and called for “negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality and NATO non-enlargement.”
Ben Cohen outside the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington this month, before getting arrested | Win McNamee/Getty Images
I set up a video call with Cohen not because I can’t sympathize with his mistrust of U.S. adventurism, nor because I couldn’t follow the argument that U.S. foreign policy spurred Russia to attack. I called to try to understand how he has maintained his stance even as the Kremlin abducts children, tortures and kills Ukrainians and sends thousands of Russian troops to their deaths in human wave attacks.
It’s one thing to warn of NATO expansion in peacetime, or to call for a negotiated settlement that leaves Ukrainian citizens safe from further aggression. It’s another to ignore one party’s atrocities and agitate for an outcome that would almost certainly leave millions of people at the mercy of a regime that has demonstrated callousness and cruelty.
Given the scale of Russia’s brutality in Ukraine, I wanted to understand: How does one justify focusing one’s energies on stopping the efforts to bring it to a halt?
Masters of war
Cohen’s political awakening took place against the background of the Cold War and the political upheaval caused by Washington’s involvement in Vietnam.
He was 11 during the Cuban missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Part of the reason he enrolled in college was to avoid being drafted and sent to the jungle to fight the Viet Cong.
When I asked how he first became interested in politics, he cited Bob Dylan’s 1963 protest song “Masters of War,” which takes aim at the political leaders and weapons makers who benefit from conflicts and culminates with the singer standing over their graves until he’s sure they’re dead.
“That was kind of a revelation to me,” Cohen said. Behind him, the sun filtered past a cardboard Ben & Jerry’s sign propped against a window. “I hadn’t understood that, you know, there were these masters of war — essentially I guess what we would now call the military-industrial-congressional complex — that profit from war.”
Cohen saw people from his high school get drafted and never come back from a war that “wasn’t justified.” As he graduated in the summer of 1969, around half a million U.S. troops were stationed in ‘Nam. Later that year, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched on Washington, D.C. to demand peace.
It was only much later, while doing “a lot of research” into the “tradeoffs between military spending and spending for human needs,” that Cohen came across a 1953 speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower, which foreshadowed the U.S. president’s 1961 farewell address in which he coined the phrase “military-industrial complex.”
A Republican president who had served as the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, Eisenhower warned against tumbling into an arms race. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he said.
“That is a foundational thing for me, very inspiring for me, and captures the essence of what I believe,” Cohen said.
“If we weren’t wasting all of our money on preparing to kill people, we would actually be able to save and help a lot of people,” he added with a chuckle. “That goes for how we approach the world internationally as well,” he added — including the war in Ukraine.
Pierre Ferrari, a former Ben & Jerry’s board member who was with the company from 1997 to 2020, said Cohen’s view of the world was shaped by the events of his youth.
“We were brought up at a time when the military, the government was just completely out of control,” he said. “We’re both children of the sixties, the Vietnam War and the new futility of war and the way war is used by the military-industrial complex and politics,” Ferrari added, pointing to the peace symbol he wore around his neck.
Jeff Furman, who has known Cohen for nearly 50 years and once served as Ben & Jerry’s in-house legal counsel, acknowledged that his generation’s views on Ukraine were informed by America’s misadventures in Vietnam.
“There’s a history of why this war is happening that’s a little bit more complex than who Putin is,” he said. “When you’ve been misled so many times in the past, you have to take this into consideration when you think about it, and really, really try to know what’s happening.”
Ice-cold activism
Politics has been a part of the Ben & Jerry’s brand since Cohen and his partner Jerry Greenfield started selling ice cream out of an abandoned gas station in 1978.
The company’s look and ethos were pure 1960s; they named one of their early flavors, Cherry Garcia, after the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, whose psychedelic riffs formed the soundtrack of the hippy counterculture.
Social justice was one of the duo’s secret ingredients. For the first-year anniversary of the gas station shop’s opening, they gave away free ice cream for a day. On the flyers printed to promote the event was a quote from Cohen: “Business has a responsibility to give back to the community from which it draws its support.”
In 1985, after the company went public, they used some of the shares to endow a foundation working for progressive social change and committed Ben & Jerry’s to spend 7.5 percent of its pretax profits on philanthropy.
In the early years, the company instituted a five-to-one cap on the ratio between the salary of the highest-earning executive and its lowest-paid worker, dropping it only when Cohen was about to step down as CEO in the mid-1990sand they were struggling to find a successor willing to work for what they were offering.
Most companies try to separate politics and business. Cohen and Greenfield cheerfully mixed them up and served them in a tub of creamy deliciousness (the company’s rich, fatty flavors were in part driven by Cohen’s sinus problems, which dulls his taste).
In 1988, Cohen founded 1% for Peace, a nonprofit organization seeking to “redirect one percent of the national defense budget to fund peace-promoting activities and projects.” The project was funded in part through sales of a vanilla and dark-chocolate popsicle they called the Peace Pop.
It was around this time that Cohen opened Ben & Jerry’s in Russia, as “an effort to build a bridge between Communism and capitalism with locally produced Cherry Garcia,” according to a write-up in the New York Times. After years of planning, the outlet opened in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk in 1992. (The company shut the shop down five years later to prioritize growth in the U.S., and also because of the involvement of local mobsters, said Furman, who was involved in the project.)
Cohen, with co-founder Jerry Greenfield, actress Jane Fonda and other climate activists, in front of the Capitol in 2019 | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Even after Ben & Jerry’s was bought by Unilever in 2000, there were few progressive causes the company wasn’t eager to wade into with a campaign or a fancy new flavor.
The ice cream maker has marketed “Rainforest Crunch” in defense of the Amazon forest, sold “Empower Mint” to combat voter suppression, promoted “Pecan Resist” in opposition to then-U.S. President Donald Trump and launched “Change the Whirled” in partnership with Colin Kaepernick, the American football quarterback whose sports career ended after he started taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality.
More recently, however, the relationship between Cohen, Greenfield and Unilever has been rockier. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop doing business in the Palestinian territories. Cohen and Greenfield, who are Jewish, defended the company’s decision in an op-ed in the New York Times.
After the move sparked political backlash, Unilever transferred its license to a local producer, only to be sued by Ben & Jerry’s. In December 2022, Unilever announced in a one-sentence statement that its litigation with its subsidiary “has been resolved.”Ben & Jerry’s ice cream continues to be sold throughout Israel and the West Bank, according to a Unilever spokesperson.
Cohen himself is no stranger to activism: Earlier this month, he was arrested and detained for a few hours for taking part in a sit-in in front of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was protesting the prosecution of the activist and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
Unilever declined to comment on Cohen’s views. “Ben Cohen no longer has an operational role in Ben & Jerry’s, and his comments are made in a personal capacity,” a spokesperson said.
Ben & Jerry’s did not respond to a request for comment.
The world according to Ben
For Cohen, the war in Ukraine wasn’t just a tragedy. It was, in a sense, a vindication. In 1998, a group he created called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities published a full-page ad in the New York Times titled “Hey, let’s scare the Russians.”
The target of the ad was a proposal to expand NATO “toward Russia’s very borders,” with the inclusion of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Doing so, the ad asserted, would provide Russians with “the same feeling of peace and security Americans would have if Russia were in a military alliance with Canada and Mexico, armed to the teeth.”
Cohen is by no means alone in this view of recent history. The American scholar John Mearsheimer, a prominent expert in international relations, has argued that the “trouble over Ukraine” started after the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest when the alliance opened the door to membership for Ukraine and Georgia.
In the U.S., this point has been echoed by progressive outlets and thinkers, such as Jeffrey Sachs, the linguist Noam Chomsky, or most recently by the American philosopher, activist and longest-of-long-shots, third-party presidential candidate Cornel West.
“We told them after they disbanded the Warsaw Pact that we could not expand NATO, not one inch. And we did that, we lied,” said Dennis Fritz, a retired U.S. Air Force official and the head of the Eisenhower Media Network — which describes itself as a group of “National Security Veteran experts, who’ve been there, done that and have an independent, alternative story to tell.”
It was Fritz’s organization that argued in a May 2023 ad in the New York Times that although the “immediate cause” of the “disastrous” war in Ukraine was Russia’s invasion, “the plans and actions to expand NATO to Russia’s borders served to provoke Russian fears.”
The ad noted that American foreign policy heavyweights, including Robert Gates and Henry Kissinger, had warned of the dangers of NATO expansion. “Why did the U.S. persist in expanding NATO despite such warnings?” it asked. “Profit from weapons sales was a major factor.”
Cohen andGreenfield announce a new flavor, Justice Remix’d, in 2019 | Win McNamee/Getty Images
When I spoke to Cohen, the group’s primary donor, according to Fritz, he echoed the ad’s key points, saying U.S. arms manufacturers saw NATO’s expansion as a “financial bonanza.”
“In the end, money won,” he said with a resigned tone. “And today, not only are they providing weapons to all the new NATO countries, but they’re providing weapons to Ukraine.”
I told Cohen I could understand his opposition to the war and follow his critique of U.S. foreign policy, but I couldn’t grasp how he could take a position that put him in the same corner as a government that is bombing civilians. He refused to be drawn in.
“I’m not supporting Russia, I’m not supporting Ukraine,” he said. “I’m supporting negotiations to end the war instead of providing more weapons to continue the war.”
The Grayzone
I tried to get a better answer when I spoke to Aaron Maté, the Canadian-born journalist who won the award for “defense reporting and analysis” that Cohen was instrumental in funding.
Named after the late Pierre Sprey, a defense analyst who campaigned against the development of F-35 fighter jets as overly complex and expensive, the award recognized Maté’s “continued work dissecting establishment propaganda on issues such as Russian interference in U.S. politics, or the war in Syria.”
Maté, who was photographed with Cohen’s arm around his shoulders at the awards ceremony in March, writes for the Grayzone, a far-left website that has acquired a reputation for publishing stories backing the narratives of authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia or Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. His reports deny the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, and he has briefed the U.N. Security Council at Moscow’s invitation.
When I spoke to Maté, he was friendly but guarded. (The Pierre Sprey award noted that “his empiricist reporting give the lie to the charge of ‘disinformation’ routinely leveled by those whose nostrums he challenges.”)
He was happy however to walk me through his claims that, based on statements by U.S. officials since the start of the war, Washington is using Kyiv to wage a “proxy war” against Moscow. Much of his information, he said, came from Western journalism. “I point out examples where, buried at the bottom of articles, sometimes the truth is admitted,” he explained.
He declined to be described as pro-Putin. “That kind of ‘guilt-by-association’ reasoning is not serious thinking,” he said. “It’s not how adults think about things.” When I asked if he believed that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine, he answered: “I’m sure they have. I’ve never heard of a war where war crimes are not committed.”
Still, he said, the U.S. was responsible for “prolonging” the war and “sabotaging the diplomacy that could have ended it.”
‘Come to Ukraine’
The best answer I got to my question came not from Cohen or others in his circle but from a fellow traveler who hasn’t chosen to follow critics of NATO on their latest journey.
A self-described “radical anti-imperialist,” Gilbert Achcar is a professor of development studies and international relations at SOAS University of London. He has described the expansion of NATO in the 1990s as a decision that “laid the ground for a new cold war” pitting the West against Russia and China.
But while he sees the war in Ukraine as the latest chapter in this showdown, he has warned against calls for a rush to the negotiating table. Instead, he has advocated for the complete withdrawal of Russia from Ukraine and “the delivery of defensive weapons to the victims of aggression with no strings attached.”
“To give those who are fighting a just war the means to fight against a much more powerful aggressor is an elementary internationalist duty,” he wrote three days after Russia launched its attack on Kyiv, comparing the invasion to the U.S.’s intervention in Vietnam.
Achcar said he understood the conclusions being drawn by people like Cohen about Washington’s interventions in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But, he said, “it leads a lot of people on the left into … [a] knee-jerk opposition to anything the United States does.”
What they fail to account for, however, is the Ukrainian people.
“In a way, part of the Western left is ethnocentric,” said Achcar, who was born in Senegal and grew up in Lebanon. “They look at the whole world just by their opposition to their own government and therefore forget about other people’s rights.”
Cohen, with late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon in 2011 | Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Ben & Jerry’s
His point was echoed in the last conversation I had when researching this article, with Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former economy minister.
“It doesn’t really matter who promised what to whom in the 1990s,” Mylovanov said. “What matters is that there was Mariupol and Bucha, where tens of thousands of people were killed.”
Mylovanov taught economics at the University of Pittsburgh until he returned to Ukraine four days before Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Things like war are difficult to understand unless you experience them,” he said. “This is very easy to get confused when you are sitting, you know, somewhere far from the facts and you have surrounded yourself by an echo chamber of people and sources that you agree with.”
“In that sense,” he added. “I invite these people to come to Ukraine and judge for themselves what the truth is.”
The front page of TheWall Street Journal on Friday commemorated a grim milestone: the 100th day of Evan Gershkovich’s wrongful detention. The Journal reporter was detained in Russia in March while on a reporting trip and has been accused of espionage by Russian authorities—charges that he and the US government have forcefully rejected. “His unjust arrest is a brazen violation of press freedom that has far-reaching consequences for journalism and the media, as well as for governments and democracies,” Editor in Chief Emma Tucker wrote in a letter to readers Friday, encouraging them to keep sharing Gershkovich’s work and updates on his situation. “A free press is pivotal to maintaining a free society and we all have a stake in this,” said Tucker. “Journalism is not a crime, and we will not rest until Evan is released.” Journalistsat the Journalandelsewhere also continued to call attention to Gershkovich’s plight on Twitter:
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In a joint statement with Dow Jones CEO and Journal Publisher Almar Latour, Tucker also vowed to “continue to work closely with the highest levels of the U.S. government and expect they will vigorously pursue all efforts to free Evan.” Gershkovich’s family also released a statement on Friday, expressing gratitude for the “overwhelming” support from around the world. “Every day that Evan isn’t home is another day too many,” they wrote.
On Friday, the Journalreported that Dow Jones attorneys asked a United Nations humans-right advocate to urge Russia to release Gershkovich. “Russia’s arrest of him was a blunt and chilling warning to all those in Russia who would dare to exercise their rights in ways disfavored by the Russian government,” the lawyers wrote. “Gershkovich’s detention calls for a clear and robust international response.” The 100-day mark comes days after a Kremlin spokesperson confirmed that Russia is in contact with the US over a potential prisoner swap, likely for Gershkovich. A day earlier, US ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy visited Gershkovich, at Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison—Gershkovich’s first contact with a US diplomatic official since April, according to the New York Times. In June, a Russian court upheld the extension of Gershkovich’s pretrial detention until at least August 30. If convicted on the baseless espionage charges, Gershkovich—the first US journalist to be detained in Russia on such accusations since the Cold War—could face up to 20 years in a penal colony.
From national hero to drug-addled, bewigged zero: the Kremlin’s propaganda machine has turned against Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
In a sensational report on state-run Rossiya-1’s “60 Minutes” program on Wednesday evening, the Kremlin’s propaganda attack dogs played footage of what they claimed was a raid of Prigozhin’s mansion and offices, showing cash, guns, drugs, a helicopter, multiple (Russian) passports — and a closet full of terrible wigs.
“The investigation is continuing,” said pundit Eduard Petrov at the top of the program, referring to the probe into the mutiny led by Prigozhin last month, during which the leader of the Wagner Group of mercenaries marched his men to within 200 kilometers of Moscow in a bid to oust the country’s military leadership. “In reality, no one planned to close this case,” he added.
It was an open declaration of war on Prigozhin, and came after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his aides issued improbable assurances that the criminal case into those who had organized the mutiny would be dropped if the warlord and his Wagnerites agreed to either disarm, sign contracts with the Russian defense ministry, or leave for Belarus. On Thursday morning, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who ostensibly negotiated the exile agreement with Prigozhin and Putin, told state media the warlord was not in the country.
“We need to figure out who was on whose side,” Petrov pronounced on “60 Minutes.” “Who was on the mutineers’ side? They should be punished and brought to criminal justice. So the nation understands that if a person acts against their government, they will be punished very, very harshly. Not ‘see you later, I’m going out.’”
“Tomes” of evidence is being combed over by Russian authorities, a gloating Petrov told the audience of the evening show. “Very soon, very very soon, we will hear what stage the criminal case is at.”
Cue: Footage — obtained from unnamed siloviki (a term used to describe members of the military or security services) — of Russia’s special forces raiding what Petrov described as Prigozhin’s “nest” — aka the offices of his now-shuttered Patriot Media company, and his palatial home.
“I believe the image of Yevgeny Prigozhin as a champion of the people was entirely created by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s well-fed media empire,” Petrov said contemptuously and seemingly unironically — never mind that Rossiya-1 itself portrayed Prigozhin as a hero mere weeks ago.
Remaking a murder
Until recently, the Kremlin’s propagandists painted Prigozhin, a 62-year-old one-time caterer and convicted felon, as a macho hero, a Russian Rambo decapitating traitors with sledgehammers on the front line.
Things got complicated when Prigozhin began publicly railing against Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, ranting and raging to his growing cadre of devoted fans on social media.
Still, Prigozhin never criticized Putin, and Putin allowed Prigozhin to continue building his brand, so long as his men kept holding down the fort in the most brutal battles in the war on Ukraine. Then Prigozhin crossed the line by marching his men on Moscow.
Putin’s retribution was always going to be brutal — first, though, he’s destroying Prigozhin’s image and undermining his reputation.
Back to Wednesday night’s “60 Minutes.”
“Why did we forget about Prigozhin’s past?” an impassioned Petrov asked. “Everyone knew about it. Everyone talked about it. Spoke about the fact that he has been on trial twice. His criminal past.”
Showing footage of what he said was Prigozhin’s 600 million ruble (€6 million) mansion, Petrov crowed: “Let’s see how this champion of the truth lived — a twice-convicted champion — a champion who spoke about how everyone around him is stealing.
“Inside Yevgeny Prigozhin’s little house there’s currency lying around like this, in a box, held together by rubber bands,” Petrov continued. “Now let’s see the palace of the fighter of corruption and criminality, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Here’s his palace. Here’s his house. His daughter sometimes posts videos from here, by the way — and she’s not always in good condition.”
Then, the pièce de résistance of the video: a closet full of bad wigs.
“Oh!” exclaimed Petrov as the footage rolled. “This is a closet full of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s secrets — wigs! Why does he need wigs at his house?”
It wasn’t long until Telegram, the social media platform popular among Russians, was flooded with photos of Prigozhin in a variety of wigs and disguises. (Though intriguingly, the photos appeared to come from a Prigozhin-friendly account called “Release the Kraken,” which said it had sourced them from the Patriot Media archive.)
The program also aired footage of what Petrov speculated were drugs found in Prigozhin’s mansion. A Prigozhin-friendly Telegram account which has previously featured voice messages from the warlord himself denied the house in the video belonged to Prigozhin, and claimed the “drugs” were actually laundry detergent.
Divide and conquer
Wednesday night’s program was also designed to reassure Russians that not all Wagner fighters were traitors and mutineers — with his war effort stuttering, Putin can’t afford to lose tens of thousands of men from the front.
“There were worthy people in Wagner,” Petrov insisted — moments after a diatribe about Prigozhin recruiting some of Russia’s worst criminals into the mercenary army’s ranks.
“The majority!” cut in “60 Minutes” host Yevgeny Popov. “The majority of people acted heroically, took cities, served in good faith … and bought their freedom with blood.”
“What’s absolutely clear: Prigozhin is a traitor,” Popov continued. “But Wagnerites — the majority of them are heroic people who with guns in hand defended our motherland. And many of them were lied to.”
Referring to Prigozhin’s Concord catering company and other businesses that Putin admitted were fully funded by the Russian state, Popov said the warlord had received “billions in contracts.”
And seeking to cleave Prigozhin’s men from their exiled boss, Petrov said: “The question is whether this money reached the fighters and heroes of Wagner!”
A Kremlin spokesman confirmed Tuesday that Russia is in contact with the United States over possible plans to conduct a prisoner swap, likely for detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracey met with Gershkovich, 32, at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, a facility known for harsh conditions, where the reporter awaits trial. Gershkovich has been jailed since March, when he was detained on a reporting trip by the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) and accused of espionage. (Gershkovich denies the allegations, and the U.S. State Department has deemed his situation a wrongful detainment.)
The meeting with Tracey, who reported through a spokesperson that Gershkovich was in “good health” and “strong, despite his circumstances,” was the first time in nearly three months that the American reporter was able to have contact with a U.S. diplomatic official.
Hours later, the Russian Embassy in Washington said some of its staff had met with Vladimir Dunaev, who is currently in pre-trial detention in Ohio. Dunaev was extradited from South Korea to the United States in 2021 on cybercrime charges. The meeting was the first time Russian officials were given consular access to him since that year, according to the head of the Russian Embassy’s consular section.
In a daily briefing on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked whether the two meetings heralded a potential prisoner swap. “We have said that there have been certain contacts on the subject, but we don’t want them to be discussed in public,” Peskov said. “They must be carried out and continue in complete silence.”
There have been hints over the past few months that Russia is considering a prisoner swap, though officials have insisted that a swap could only happen after a verdict is reached in Gershkovich’s trial. A trial date has not yet been announced, and in May, a Moscow court extended the reporter’s pre-trial detention period to August 30.
Following the meeting on Monday, a State Department spokesperson reiterated calls to release Gershkovich as well as Paul Whelan, a businessman and former Marine who has been held in Russia since 2018, also on espionage charges. “Both men deserve to go home to their families now,” the spokesperson said.
Russian air defenses on Tuesday foiled a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow that prompted authorities to briefly close one of the city’s international airports, officials said, as a Western analysis said Russia has managed to slow Kyiv’s recently launched counteroffensive.
Ukrainian authorities, which generally avoid comments on attacks inside Russia’s proper territory, didn’t claim responsibility for the raid.
The Russian Defense Ministry said four of five drones were downed by air defenses on Moscow’s outskirts and the fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that there were no casualties or damage.
The drone attack prompted authorities to temporarily restrict flights at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and divert flights to two other Moscow main airports. Vnukovo is about 9 miles southwest of Moscow. The restrictions were lifted after the drone attack was repelled.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram that, “An attempt by the Kyiv regime to attack a zone where civil infrastructure is located, including an airport that receives international flights, is a new terrorist act,” according to Agence France-Presse.
In May, two daring drone attacks jolted the Russian capital in what appeared to be Kyiv’s deepest strikes into Russia.
Tuesday’s raid came as Ukrainian forces continued probing Russian defenses in the south and east of their country in the initial stages of a counteroffensive.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, charged that the military was currently focusing on destroying Russian equipment and personnel and claimed that the last few days of fighting have been particularly “fruitful.”
He provided no evidence for his claim and it wasn;t possible to independently verify it.
The Ukrainians are up against minefields, anti-tank ditches and other obstacles, as well as layered defensive lines reportedly up to 12 miles deep in some places as they attempt to dislodge Russian occupiers.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said Tuesday the Kremlin’s forces have “refined (their) tactics aimed at slowing Ukrainian armored counteroffensive operations in southern Ukraine.”
Moscow has placed emphasis on using anti-tank mines to slow the onslaught, the assessment said, leaving the attackers at the mercy of Russian drones, helicopters and artillery.
“Although Russia has achieved some success with this approach in the early stages of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, its forces continue to suffer from key weaknesses, especially overstretched units and a shortage of artillery munitions,” the assessment said.
Western analysts say the counteroffensive, even if it prospers, won’t end the war that started with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Oleksandr Lysenko, mayor of the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, said three people were killed and 21 others were injured in a Russian drone strike Monday that damaged two apartment buildings.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack also damaged the regional headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine, the country’s main intelligence agency. He argued that the country needs more air defense systems to help fend off Russian raids.
KYIV – Ukrainian officials and intelligence officers warned Russia could be preparing to blow up a nuclear power station, leading to a radioactive environmental disaster.
After the Kakhovka dam destruction last month, Kyiv fears the Kremlin plans to organize an explosion at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — the largest in Europe — located in the Russian-occupied city of Enerhodar.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russian workers have been told to leave the power station by July 5.
“There is a serious threat. Russia is technically ready to provoke a local explosion at the plant, which could lead to the release of dangerous substances into the air,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said to Spanish journalists in Kyiv over the weekend. “We are discussing all this with our partners so that everyone understands why Russia is doing this and put pressure on the Russian Federation politically so that they don’t even think about such a thing.”
Last week as the State Emergency Service of Ukraine conducted radioactive safety drills in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian Military Intelligence reported that a Russian military contingent, as well as Russian-backed nuclear power plant workers, were gradually leaving the plant.
“Among the first to leave the station were three Rosatom employees, who managed the actions of the Russians,” Ukrainian military intelligence said in a statement. They were advised to leave by July 5. “The personnel remaining at the station were instructed to blame Ukraine in case of any emergencies.”
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement the fact that Ukrainian officials conducted radioactive safety drills and set additional radiation measurement devices in several cities means “Kyiv is preparing a false flag” operation. However Zakharova provided no evidence for her claim. The plant is currently Russian controlled.
Earlier last month Ukrainian spy chief Kyrylo Budanov said Russia was ready to orchestrate a technological disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The part most likely to be blown up would be the artificial pond needed for cooling the power station, Budanov said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has not confirmed Ukraine’s information that the cooling pond has been mined, although it also said it has not had full access to all sites at the plant.
According to the IAEA, its experts were able to inspect parts of the plant’s cooling system, including some sections of the perimeter of the large cooling pond, which still has a stable level of water needed to cool down the reactors. The IAEA experts have also been conducting regular walk-downs across reactor units and other areas around the site. The IAEA said it still expected to gain access to other parts of the site including the cooling system.
In an earlier update on June 21, the IAEA said that while they did not see any visible mines around the cooling pond, experts were aware of previous placements of mines outside the plant perimeter and also at particular places inside, which Russian security personnel on site explained were for defensive purposes.
Zelenskyy has not backed down on his claims, saying Russians might blow up the power station at some point in future, even when it comes back under Ukrainian control, using mines that can be activated from a distance. “There can be remote mines — then to say that everything was fine under the control of the occupiers, but blew up as soon as it went back to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.
Vladimir Putin had an iron grip on Russians’ views of the world. Then Yevgeny Prigozhin ripped that facade apart.
In the aftermath of the Wagner Group boss’ aborted uprising, Putin and his propagandists — national broadcasters, high-profile politicians and social media influencers — have struggled to explain how Prigozhin, an archetypal Russian hero, suddenly turned into the country’s most infamous traitor.
Five Western security officials, almost all of whom spoke privately to discuss sensitive matters, told POLITICO Putin was still fundamentally in control even though the mutiny had significantly tested his authority.
But the Russian leader’s inability to dominate public perceptions of what happened over the last week highlighted a potential fragility within his leadership, according to two of these officials. Putin and his propagandists failed to react quickly when Prigozhin launched his dramatic insurrection and in the subsequent days, their messaging veered from deafening silence to claims that it was all a Western plot.
“It’s certainly one of the most challenging, or even the most challenging, situation that Putin has faced,” said Jakub Kalenský, a deputy director at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, a joint NATO-EU organization tracking state-backed influence campaigns. “It will also be a challenge in the information space. Prigozhin himself controlled quite a significant part of his propaganda machine,” he added. “Now, we have different branches of the propaganda machine controlled by different people.”
As Wagner troops sped toward Moscow last weekend, state-owned media outlets — where three-quarters of Russians still get the majority of their news — initially downplayed the mutiny. One even broadcast a documentary on Silvio Berlusconi, the now-deceased Italian leader, as the uprising unfolded.
At the same time, influential users of Telegram, the social media platform favored by Russian speakers, were divided on how to portray the events. A vocal minority — some with hundreds of thousands of followers — sided with Prigozhin’s criticism of Russia’s military leaders, though made it clear they were not attacking Putin.
And once the crisis was over, with the Wagner boss on his way to exile in Belarus, Kremlin-backed broadcasters attempted to shoehorn the rebellion into age-old narratives that any attack on Russia must be tied to Western aggression.
Prigozhin himself was a key figure in Putin’s propaganda machine. His own Telegram followers number almost 1.4 million people. Groups associated with the mercenary leader remain a linchpin in Russia’s global online influence campaigns, while American authorities have connected him to interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Prigozhin’s status as the archetypal strongman made it hard for the Kremlin to accuse him of being a traitor to Russia.
On Telegram, where influencers focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have become national celebrities, once active groups became eerily quiet as users struggled to decipher who was going to win, according to Eto Buziashvili, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, who tracks Russian-speaking social media.
Many of these high-profile Telegram channels have been vocally critical of Russian military leaders during the invasion of Ukraine, and routinely backed Prigozhin’s criticism of how the war has been waged.
Prigozhin himself was a key figure in Putin’s propaganda machine | Pool photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/AFP via Getty Images
Yet once the mercenary leader’s march on Moscow fizzled out, many of thesesocial media users did not openly attack Prigozhin, and instead called for peace between Russians — while continuing their criticism of the Kremlin’s military strategy in Ukraine. Russian-language Telegram accounts urged Wagner Group forces and the Russian military not to resort to outright civil war. “Everybody basically said ‘let’s just not do this,” Buziashvili added.
In the days following the failed insurrection, national media has shifted gears to call for unity, while portraying Putin in everyday events — including, on Thursday, at a local textile conference — to show the country had moved on. The state’s international broadcasters, which have deployed a more aggressive disinformation playbook, also quickly tried to link the aborted mutiny to NATO.
For Bret Schafer, head of the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s information manipulation team, the confused response to Prigozhin’s rebellion is reminiscent of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukrainelast year.
In February 2022, the Kremlin’s disinformation industry was also caught off guard — mostly because Putin had categorically disavowed military action, even hours before his troops invaded. Russian influence operations are often developed over months, if not years, and struggle to shift into new narratives when required to do so almost overnight.
“Russia does well in propaganda campaigns because they have so many tentacles,” said Schafer. “But it doesn’t respond particularly well in moments of confusion where there’s a lack of clarity of what’s going on.”
According to U.S. intelligence, a senior Russian general may have had advanced knowledge of Wagner Group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny last week, CBS News has learned. The Kremlin has denied the allegations. Ian Lee reports.
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All eyes are on Moscow — but no one knows what they’re looking at.
Are there more uprisings in the works? Will Vladimir Putin escalate his brutality in Ukraine to compensate? Are his nukes secure? Will everything somehow return to a tense, war-time status quo?
These types of questions have gripped conversations after a failed mutiny saw the Wagner Group’s mercenaries march within hours of Moscow before turning back.
While Putin and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin continue to spin dueling narratives about the rebellion, one thing appears certain: the Russian leader’s veneer of invincibility has shattered.
That does not mean the end of the Putin regime is imminent. But a host of hard-to-imagine and even bizarre scenarios are now being teased out as everyone speculates over what comes next.
There are “more unknowns than knowns,” said a senior Central European diplomat, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
POLITICO lays out a few of those knowns — and unknowns — about what will now unfold in the world’s largest country.
Putin’s next act: Repression? More war? Ousted?
Images of Wagner troops capturing a major military headquarters before marching toward Moscow with few consequences, only to turn around without even facing arrest, have prompted confused musings about what the strongman leader’s potential next move.
Often, it’s a crackdown.
“What I think naturally follows from this now is even more repression in Russia,” said Laurie Bristow, who served as British ambassador to Russia from 2016 until 2020.
That hasn’t yet happened, though. In fact, despite deriding the mutiny’s leaders as having betrayed Russia, Putin claims to be offering those involved a way out.
On Monday, he said Wagner soldiers would be free to join regular forces, go home or head to Belarus — heightening speculation that the Moscow regime’s once-dominant position of power is withering.
Putin said an armed mutiny by Wagner mercenaries was a “stab in the back” and that the group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had betrayed Russia | Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Image
One Eastern European diplomat said their assessment is that Prigozhin was “used by a particular group of the Kremlin/FSB elite dissatisfied with the current leadership” in the defense ministry. And, the diplomat added, Putin could still change the terms of his deal with the Wagner boss at any moment.
That has just created more speculation about what the coming months will entail.
Edgars Rinkēvičs, Latvia’s foreign minister and president-elect, listed a host of options, from “Putin trying to put more repression in place back home” to the Russian leader “trying to maybe launch some offensive in Ukraine, trying to show to his own public that he’s in full control.”
And while most experts believe Putin will hold on to power, for now, there is recognition that the West needs to consider a scenario where he is replaced. Powerful figures within Putin’s orbit and the FSB intelligence service are likely already eyeing the unfolding events — and Putin’s muddled response — to spot any opportunity.
“Chaos always carries risks, but there will come a time when the position of Putin is eroded and he is replaced,” said a Western European diplomat.
Speaking on Tuesday night alongside a group of European leaders, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte insisted NATO allies do not want instability.
“I refute what Putin suggested yesterday, that we in the West want Russia to descend into domestic chaos,” Rutte said. “On the contrary, instability in Russia creates instability in Europe. So we are concerned. These developments are further proof that Putin’s war has achieved nothing but more instability — above all, it has inflicted intolerable suffering on the Ukrainian people.”
John Lough, a Russia specialist at Chatham House, said he believed Putin is unlikely to still be in power a year from now.
How that process unfolds — via coup or planned succession — would, of course, influence who comes next.
Emily Ferris, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a leading London-based security and foreign policy think tank, argued the next Russian leader will likely be “a placeholder that’s very similar to him — somebody that has the ear of the security services, has some sort of security background, is able to control the oligarchs.”
“The person that comes after that,” she added, “would be where the change comes from.”
Wagner’s next boss: Putin? Prigozhin? Belarus?
The mutinous Wagner Group is, remarkably, not dead yet. Who it’s working for, however, is unclear.
On Tuesday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed that Prigozhin had arrived in his country, where the Wagner boss said he will be allowed to keep operating his paramilitary firm.
The pledge befuddled many — why would Putin let a rogue force operate next door under the guise of a charismatic, traitorous leader? What is Belarus getting out of this arrangement?
Sergei Guneyev/Sputnik via AFP/Getty Images
Officials in the region are anxiously eyeing the situation as they try to sort it out.
Minsk has long been a close Moscow ally, and even let Russia launch attacks on Ukraine from within its borders. Earlier this month, Putin also said he had stationed a first batch of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Now, some of the Wagner fighters are apparently heading there.
“We have to monitor very closely all the movements of Wagner Group,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur warned Tuesday when asked whether the arrival of Wagner personnel in Belarus poses a regional risk.
“It seems that there is much more to discover regarding the deal of Prigozhin and Lukashenka,” he said in a text message.
Asked about the presence of Wagner in Belarus, former U.S. Army Europe commanding general Ben Hodges said on Tuesday that this poses “not more risk for Ukraine … but potentially strengthens Lukashenko’s hand vs. his opposition and/or a future push by Russia.”
“I imagine,” Hodges added, “he’ll also look at this Wagner connection as a business opportunity for himself in Africa.”
Speaking in the Hague on Tuesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Wagner’s presence in Belarus is “really serious and very concerning” and that in his view the move requires a “very tough answer of NATO.”
Wagner forces are already in several African countries, including Mali and the Central African Republic, helping prop up anti-Western governments in exchange for access to natural resources. And Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has vowed they will keep working there. But not everyone is convinced that work will always be for Moscow.
“Could Lukashenko be now smarter than Putin?” exclaimed a second Eastern European diplomat. “That would be the ultimate blow to Moscow!”
Moscow’s next chapter in Ukraine: Deflated troops? Fewer mercenaries? Dueling paramilitaries?
Officials are working through how Wagner’s failed mutiny will impact the battlefield in Ukraine — both in terms of how many Wagner members return to fighting in Ukraine and how their mutiny affects the regular Russian military’s thinking.
“One of the things that we should be watching very closely over the next few days is whether morale takes a dive in the Russian army,” said Bristow, the former British ambassador.
But, he added, “We should be very cautious not to think this means that Ukraine does not still face a long, hard fight.”
Rescuers work in a 24-storey building hit by Russian missiles in Kyiv | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
A senior Central European defense official underscored that if Wagner troops are no longer involved in Ukraine, it could change dynamics.
“Wagner Group was for many months the most effective fighting force on the Russian side in Ukraine,” the official said. “If the group is disbanded and will no longer be deployed in Ukraine, it will reduce Russia’s military offensive capacity.”
And it’s not all about Wagner: the weekend mutiny could also impact the calculus of oligarchs, companies and commanders within Russia who control their own armed groups.
Rinkēvičs, Latvia’s foreign minister and president-elect, underscored that there are multiple private military entities in Russia — and that even more could emerge amid Putin’s weakening position.
“It’s not only about regular army in Russia, not about FSB,” Rinkēvičs said in a phone interview, “but also how this situation can develop if more and more oligarchs, or private companies or people in power are going to form their own private, mercenary forces, everyone needs to take this seriously.”
The nukes’ next owner: The Russian state? A future mutineer?
Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal is one element that sets it apart from most other countries undergoing political tumult. Officials are more than happy to see Putin weakened — but they also want to see nuclear weapons in stable hands.
In fact, even at this frosty stage of the relationship with Moscow, Washington still appeared to be checking in with the Kremlin over the weekend about its nukes. Speaking on Monday, Lavrov said the American ambassador in Moscow had passed along a message “that the United States hopes that everything is fine with the nuclear weapons.”
But experts and officials say that they are confident nuclear weapons won’t fall into the wrong hands.
“It’s very hard to imagine a situation where the Russian state loses control of its nuclear arsenal,” said Bristow, the former British ambassador.
Others agree — but say that Russia’s nuclear arsenal could still play a role in a future power struggle.
“We’ve pretty good sight on what they do for security,” said William Alberque, a former director of NATO’s arms control center who now works at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and has in the past visited Russian nuclear sites.
“I have very high confidence that their nuclear weapons remain secure and under the command of the 12th GUMO,” he said, referring to a directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense that manages Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
People near Rostow-on-Don greeted the Wagner group mercenaries with waves and open arms | Roman Romokhov/AFP via Getty Images)
But the 12th GUMO itself, Alberque said, could become a kingmaker in a future Russian game of thrones. Should Putin lose power, his successors may court the powerful directorate’s leadership — and whoever wins their backing would be in pole position to win a succession fight.
“If there were chaos in Moscow,” Alberque said, “if there was one or more pretenders, I think the smartest one would say, ‘I just talked to the commander of 12th GUMO.’”
Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin temporarily seized control of a key military base in the southern part of Russia Saturday. He then headed toward Moscow — only to turn around after the leader of Belarus brokered a truce between the Russian president and the man sometimes referred to as Putin’s chef. CBS News foreign correspondent Ian Lee reports from Ukraine.
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the powerful mercenary leader, was a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, earning the moniker “Putin’s chef.” He rose from criminal convict in the 1980s, to well-connected Kremlin caterer in the 2000s. That all changed this week when he turned his forces against the Kremlin, marching on Moscow before a peace deal was brokered. Ramy Inocencio has more.
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Vladimir Putin is facing a major military crisis after Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on Moscow’s own defense ministry, claiming Kremlin officials had killed thousands of his soldiers.
In a statement issued Friday night, the FSB security agency said it had “legally and reasonably begun criminal proceedings” against the Wagner Group warlord “for the organization of armed insurrection.”
The feud between Prigozhin and Russia’s ministry of defense has been building for months but now appears to have boiled over.
According to Russian state media, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin is aware of the rapidly unfolding situation and that “all necessary measures are being taken.”
“Prigozhin’s statements and actions are actually the calls for the beginning of an armed civil conflict on the territory of Russia and are a ‘stab in the back’ for Russian servicemen,” officials added.
The move comes after Prigozhin accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of having hidden “colossal” failings on the battlefield from Putin, claiming that 2,000 Wagner men were killed as a result of strikes ordered by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
In response to Prigozhin’s allegations, Moscow issued a strong denial and a procession of generals have lined up to urge Wagner fighters to stand down.
In one video appeal, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, first deputy chief of the general staff of the armed forces, said that Prigozhin does not have the authority to give orders. “This is a state coup,” he insisted, “come to your senses!”
Meanwhile, the Deputy Commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin — known as “General Armageddon” — urged Wagner to hold its positions and not to turn on its own allies. “Stop the columns, return them to the points of permanent deployment,” he pleaded.
Rolling the dice
Earlier Friday, the Wagner Group founder questioned Moscow’s rationale for launching its invasion of Ukraine, saying that “the Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with NATO,” and that “the war was needed for a bunch of scumbags to triumph and show how strong of an army they are.”
In a bombastic video statement he called the Russian military leadership “evil” and vowed to march for “justice,” threatening anyone who stood in his way.
Speaking to POLITICO, Colonel Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer and ex-NATO planner, said that it was “too early to tell” if a coup was underway. “Clearly Moscow is worried and has activated a defense plan — Prigozhin is trying to push something focused on Shoigu, but it could be many things.”
According to Ian Garner, a Russia expert and author of a new book on the fallout of the war in Ukraine, the Wagner chief has overplayed his hand. “Prigozhin has rolled the dice, and now the state is going to do away with him for good,” he said.
“I suspect Prigozhin’s chances of launching a successful coup are slim. The state can offer everything he does — money, freedom, prestige — without him. Why would the Wagner fighters side with Prigozhin in a battle to the death?” Garner said.
Friday night’s chaos also amounts to a death knell for the Wagner Group, which has been active not just in Ukraine but also in Africa, according to one analyst.
“Whatever this is, it is definitely the dismantling of Wagner,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst and founder of the R-Politik consultancy firm, on her Telegram channel.
“This is the end of Prigozhin and the end of Wagner. An important moment: many within the elite will hold it against Putin that things have come this far and that the president did not react sooner. That’s why this entire story is also a blow to Putin.”
Meanwhile, the Kremlin published a pre-recorded video of President Putin in honor of Youth Day.
