The Russian Navy is increasing the number of trained dolphins it uses to protect its main military base in the Black Sea, according to intelligence reports.
The animals are guarding the entry to the port of Sevastopol, in Russian-occupied Crimea, and are likely intended to “counter enemy divers,” British military intelligence said Friday.
In recent weeks, “imagery shows a near doubling of floating mammal pens in the harbor which highly likely contain bottle-nosed dolphins,” the report says.
Trained animals have been used for decades by the military or intelligence agencies to carry out specific missions. A Beluga whale which has made several appearances off the Scandinavian coast in recent years is for instance believed to be a spy trained by the Russian army.
Russia’s Black Sea fleet has been targeted by several drone attacks since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In April, Russian ships stationed in Sevastopol were hit by an attack carried out with “three unmanned high-speed boats,” and a fuel depot in the same city was hit by a drone strike a few days later — prompting Moscow to announce a tightening of security measures at the Sevastopol naval base last month.
Ukraine has been accused by Russia of being responsible for these attacks, but has avoided taking responsibility for them.
Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to carry on with the war in Ukraine, speaking in a pre-recorded interview that was broadcast on state television on Sunday.
The interview was taped on June 21 but broadcast after the Kremlin resolved the first attempted coup against Moscow in three decades.
“I’m focused primarily on the special military operation,” Putin said in the interview with Rossiya-1 TV, using his regime’s term for the invasion of Ukraine. “My day begins and ends with this.”
“Lately, I stay up quite late” monitoring the situation, he added. “Of course, I always have to be communicating.”
Putin’s message of being in control was broadcast after the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary force on which Moscow has depended for the war against Ukraine, attempted a lightning march on Moscow from the Russian-Ukrainian border, taking the Russian elite establishment and the world at large by surprise.
On Saturday, Putin had to rely on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to personally intervene and broker a deal with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to avoid bloodshed. Prigozhin agreed to move to Belarus, and Wagner troops appeared to be standing down on Sunday.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak described the Wagner coup attempt as “humiliating” for Putin.
“You almost nullified Putin,” Podolyak said in a tweet. “Prigozhin humiliated Putin [and] the state and showed that there is no longer a monopoly on violence.”
This article has been updated to show that the interview was conducted on June 21.
Vladimir Putin’s strongman mask is slipping — and Ukraine sees opportunity in the chaos.
Warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny over the weekend exposed Putin’s tenuous grip on the levers of power, the disunity within his ranks and the weakness in Russia’s own border defenses. The ease with which Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries were able to take control of Russian territory and march to within 200 kilometers of Moscow — and the videos of Russians cheering for them — showed Putin’s regime is far from invincible.
“Today the world saw that Russia’s bosses do not control anything,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening address late Saturday. “In one day, they lost several of their million-plus cities and showed all Russian bandits, mercenaries, oligarchs and anyone else how easy it is to capture Russian cities and, probably, weapons arsenals.”
Switching from Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy continued in what was clearly a message to Putin’s apparatchiks: “The man from the Kremlin is obviously very afraid and is probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself. I’m sure he is no longer in Moscow … He knows what he’s afraid of because he himself created this threat. All the evil, all the losses, all the hatred — he foments it himself. The longer he can run between his bunkers, the more you will all lose, all of those who are connected with Russia.”
Putin, a fan of historic parallels, on Saturday morning invoked the specter of the Russian civil war, which broke out in 1917 as the country was fighting the First World War — an indication of how seriously he appeared to view the Prigozhin threat.
But perhaps Putin ought to look to the failed 1991 August Coup against then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Back then, Communist Party hardliners furious at Gorbachev’s attempts to ram through reforms detained the leader at his dacha in Crimea and rolled their tanks into Moscow. Like Prigozhin’s failed mutiny, the August Coup of 1991 was short-lived — it only lasted three days. But the fallout was catastrophic for the Soviet Union — it led to a loss of confidence in the Communist regime, and by December of 1991, the USSR was no more.
Wagner’s role in Putin’s war
Wagner mercenaries have played an important role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As an unofficial arm of the Kremlin’s armed forces, recruited from Russia’s prisons and alleyways, they have been among Putin’s most expendable men.
A force with a capacity for horrific savagery — including executions of deserters with sledgehammers — Prigozhin’s men were thrown into the most brutal battles — offcuts in Russia’s famous military meat-grinder.
Last winter, when Russian forces were depleted and demoralized in the wake of a surging Ukrainian counteroffensive that took back Kharkiv and Kherson, Moscow used Prigozhin’s mercenaries to plug gaps in the battlefront and give his regular troops breathing space.
As Wagner mercenaries held the line over the winter, Russia was able to replenish its dwindling arms supplies, and call up and train a fresh wave of conscripts to throw into the trenches.
Prigozhin’s forces were also instrumental in the battle for Bakhmut, the strategic town in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the heaviest fighting and highest Russian casualties of the war.
What happens to Prigozhin’s forces now?
On Sunday, Prigozhin’s mercenaries started pulling out of Russia’s southern Voronezh region, which is situated along a highway that the Wagner Group wanted to use to march on Moscow, and from Rostov-on-Don, the Russian city close to the Ukrainian border seized by Wagner on Saturday.
The question is, where will they go now?
With Prigozhin out of the way, the Wagner mercenaries will either go back to where they came from or sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense | Stringer/AFP via Getty Images
With Prigozhin out of the way (and likely avoiding all windows, doorknobs, teacups and umbrellas during his supposed exile in Belarus), the Wagner mercenaries — 25,000 of them, if Prigozhin is to be believed — will either go back to where they came from, or sign contracts with the Russian defense ministry.
Indeed, Russian military bloggers have speculated that Prigozhin launched his offensive on the country’s military leadership in response to the Kremlin seeking to defang him by integrating his mercenaries into the army. (Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier this month ordered all “volunteer detachments” at the front in the Ukraine war to sign contracts with the ministry by July 1 — which Prigozhin vowed to oppose.)
But the Wagner mercenaries who do sign contracts may not make much of a difference on the battlefield now.
“Wagner bought the Russian army time over winter,” said Mick Ryan, a military strategist and retired Australian Army major general. “But with or without Wagner, it’s going to be difficult for Russia to win this war,” he added.
“As we’re seeing now, there’s a big difference in will on the two sides,” Ryan said. “The Ukrainians are absolutely dedicated to saving their country, they’re fighting for their freedom. The Russians are kind of interested in fighting Ukraine — and kind of interested in fighting each other.”
And to what extent can Putin ever trust his new recruits, who were ready to storm Moscow under Prigozhin’s command?
“Russia has just lost 25,000 soldiers,” Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, a former general of the U.S. forces in Europe, told Times Radio on Sunday, referring to the Wagner mercenaries. “Every one of them is going to be looked at with suspicion and seen as unreliable.”
Putin’s humiliation a boost for Kyiv
With the full-scale war in its 16th month and Putin’s forces deeply entrenched in Ukraine’s south and east, Kyiv has struggled to make significant gains in its counteroffensive.
But the extraordinary events on Saturday gave Ukraine’s forces a much-needed morale boost.
“For our soldiers, it was also very motivating,” Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik, from the liberal Holos party, said in an interview with Times Radio. “It is a great proof that you can fight Russia and you can win [against] Russia and it’s very good that the world has seen that.”
Kyiv’s forces have been hitting Russian positions in the south and the east of Ukraine, looking for a way to push through the Kremlin’s line, like they did last year.
Prigozhin’s antics have forced the Kremlin to shore up control of Russian territory rather than direct the entire might of its armed forces at Ukraine. That provides an opening for Kyiv — if it can get the gear it says it needs to push through Russia’s positions.
A person holds a Wagner Group flag in Rostov-on-Don | Roman Romokhov/AFP via Getty Images
Zelenskyy, in his Saturday address, renewed his call for the West to supply Ukraine with more weapons, to enable the country to take advantage of Putin’s moment of weakness. “Now is the time to provide all the weapons necessary,” Zelenskyy said, name-checking U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets and tactical missile systems.
“If the Ukrainians are able to exploit this, particularly in the east, near Bakhmut, at the end of the day they just need one breakthrough,” said Ryan, the military strategist. “If they punch through Russian defenses and keep that penetration open, the Russians are going to be in real trouble — they are very brittle. The Ukrainians just need to do this once. And the Russians are going to be chasing their tails thereafter.”
Ominous signal for Putin
Prigozhin’s macho-man missives railing at Russia’s military leadership tapped into a general sense among his countrymen that the “special military operation” isn’t going as well as it ought to, given what they view as Ukraine’s military inferiority.
While the warlord stopped just short of directly blaming Putin for Russia’s lackluster battlefield performance, he insinuated in his barrage of posts on Telegram late Friday and early Saturday that the Russian president had at the very least been manipulated by those in his circle.
Prigozhin’s implication: That Putin is out of touch, weak, easily bamboozled — the polar opposite of the image the strong-man leader has carefully cultivated over his decades at Russia’s helm.
And Prigozhin’s attacks seem to have found a receptive audience.
The scenes in Rostov, where crowds of Russians welcomed the Wagner mercenaries with chanting and cheering, revealed the extent to which support is waning for members of Putin’s inner sanctum — particularly his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his overall commander of the war on Ukraine, General Valery Gerasimov.
Perhaps even more telling was Wagner’s superstar exit as its tanks and heavily armed forces pulled out of Rostov. The crowds applauded, whistled, waved Wagner flags, and yelled “Great job! Great job!” and “Wagner! Wagner!” — just hours after Putin labeled Prigozhin and his followers traitors.
“I think what the world has seen is that Putin is not almighty,” said Rudik, the Ukrainian MP. Referring to the deal negotiated by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko under which Prigozhin would depart for Belarus in return for being spared prosecution by Russia, she said: “I think the situation was very, very much like the Wizard of Oz, where Prigozhin looked for the great and terrible Putin and it turned out that it was just a man who was really scared and had to have a leader of another country, so-called President Lukashenko, to talk to him to get him in his senses.”
“What happened [Saturday] was not the end,” Rudik added. “It was the beginning, to show that Putin does not control the country and that he’s not invincible, and that if you have enough strength you can try and fight him. And I think for many nationalistic movements in Russia, they were waiting for the opportunity.”
As the United States and its European allies work to make sense of last weekend’s chaos in the Kremlin, they’re urging Kyiv to seize a “window” of opportunity that could help its counteroffensive push through Russian positions.
The forming response: Transatlantic allies are hoping, largely by keeping silent, to de-escalate the immediate political crisis while quietly pushing Ukraine to strike a devastating blow against Russia on the battlefield. It’s best to hit an enemy while it’s down, and Kyiv would be hard-pressed to find a more wounded Russia, militarily and politically, than it is right now.
In public, American and European leaders stressed that they are preparing for any outcome, as it still remained unclear where the mercenary rebellion would ultimately lead. Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the revolt, resurfaced on Monday, claiming he had merely wanted to protest, not topple the Russian government — while simultaneously insisting his paramilitary force would remain operational.
“It’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going,” U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday afternoon. “The overall outcome of this remains to be seen.”
For the moment, European officials see no greater threat to the Continent even as they watch for signs that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two-decade hold on power might be slipping.
Western allies attribute the relative calm to how they managed Prigozhin’s 24-hour tantrum.
During the fighting, senior Biden administration figures and their European counterparts agreed on calls that they should remain “silent” and “neutral” about the mutiny, said three U.S. and European officials, who like others were granted anonymity to discuss fast-moving and sensitive deliberations.
In Monday’s meeting of top EU diplomats in Luxembourg, officials from multiple countries acted with a little-to-see-here attitude. No one wanted to give the Kremlin an opening to claim Washington and its friends were behind the Wagner Group’s targeting of senior Russian military officials.
“We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Biden said from the White House Monday, relaying the transatlantic message. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signaled on Monday that his regime would still look into the potential involvement of Western spies in the rebellion.
The broader question is how, or even if, the unprecedented moment could reverse Ukraine’s fortunes as its counteroffensive stalls.
The U.S. and some European nations have urged Ukraine for weeks to move faster and harder on the front lines. The criticism is that Kyiv has acted too cautiously, waiting for perfect weather conditions and other factors to align before striking Russia’s dug-in fortifications.
Now, with Moscow’s political and military weaknesses laid bare, there’s a “window” for Ukraine to push through the first defensive positions, a U.S. official said. Others in the U.S. and Europe assess that Russian troops might lay down their arms if Ukraine gets the upper hand while command and control problems from the Kremlin persist.
British Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“Russia does not appear to have the uncommitted ground forces needed to counter the multiple threats it is now facing from Ukraine, which extend over 200 kilometers [124 miles] from Bakhmut to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River,” U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in the House of Commons Monday.
Ukrainian officials say there’s no purposeful delay on their part. Russia’s air power, minefields and bad weather have impeded Kyiv’s advances, they insist, conceding that they do wish they could move faster.
“We’re still moving forward in different parts of the front line,” Yuri Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, said in an interview.
“Earlier it was not possible to assess the solidity of the Russian defenses,” Sak added. “Only now that we are doing active probing operations, we get a better picture. The obtained information will be factored into the next stages of our offensive operations.”
Analysts have long warned that, despite the training Ukrainian forces have received from Western militaries, it was unlikely that they would fight just like a NATO force. Kyiv is still operating with a strategy of attrition despite recent drills on combined-arms operations, maneuver warfare and longer-range precision fires.
During Monday’s gathering of top EU diplomats, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said now was the time to pump more artillery systems and missiles into Kyiv’s arsenal, place more sanctions on Russia and speed up the training of Ukrainian pilots on advanced fighter jets.
“Together, all these steps will allow the liberation of all Ukrainian territories,” he asserted.
In the meantime, European officials will keep an eye on Russia as they consider NATO’s own security.
“I think that nobody has yet understood what is going on in Russia — frankly I have a feeling also that the leadership in Moscow has no clue what is going on in their own country,” quipped Latvia’s Foreign Minister and President-elect Edgars Rinkēvičs in a phone interview on Monday afternoon.
“We are prepared, as we always would be, for a range of scenarios,” U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters Monday.
NATO allies will continue to watch for whether Russia starts to crumble or if the autocrat atop the Kremlin can hold his nation together with spit and tape.
“The question is how Putin will now react to his public humiliation. His reaction — to save his face and reestablish his authority — may well be a further crackdown on any domestic dissent and an intensified war effort in Ukraine,” said a Central European defense official. The official added that there’s no belief Putin will reach for a nuclear option during the greatest threat to his rule in two decades.
In the meantime, an Eastern European senior diplomat said, “we will increase monitoring, possibly our national vigilance and intelligence efforts. Additional border protection measures might be feasible. We need more allied forces in place.”
Alexander Ward reported from Washington. Lili Bayer reported from Brussels. Suzanne Lynch reported from Luxembourg. Cristina Gallardo reported from London.
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Alexander Ward, Lili Bayer, Suzanne Lynch and Cristina Gallardo
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.
Mercenaries from the Wagner Group of embittered warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin — some of them speeding along a highway to Moscow — on Saturday looked set for imminent clashes with troops loyal to President Vladimir Putin, who warned the rebellion risked pushing Russia into a civil war.
Furious over the Kremlin’s bungled invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin seized key strategic footholds in southern Russian on Saturday — most significantly the major city of Rostov-on-Don — while an unclear number of his forces were making a dash up the main highway to the capital. Russian government forces also appeared to shell the southern city of Voronezh on Saturday in an attempt to combat the Wagner insurrection, which is snowballing into one of the gravest threats to Putin’s 25-year rule.
It is far from clear how close Wagner’s troops are to Moscow but the governor of Lipetsk, some 400 kilometers south of the capital, has reported the mercenary convoy passing through, and authorities there said they were carving ditches in the road with diggers to slow Prigozhin’s men. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin warned “a counter-terrorist operation has been declared in Moscow. The situation is complicated,” and added that Monday would not be a regular working day, telling people to avoid traveling round the city.
Footage posted online of the roadblocks supposed to slow Wagner looked hastily improvized, with a light military presence, mainly composed of civilian vehicles. Jay Truesdale, a former American diplomat who served in both Russia and Ukraine, said Moscow was ill-equipped to cope with a major insurgency. “I’m not surprised Russia hasn’t been able to deal with the growing threat because the best members of its armed forces are deployed, or have been killed,” he told POLITICO.
In a sign that fears of full-blown internal conflict are not far-fetched, Chechen strongman and Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov vowed to throw his fighters behind the president and take on Prigozhin’s renegade troops in Rostov. “The rebellion must be crushed, and if this requires harsh measures, then we are ready!” he said.
Images of shelling in Voronezh, some 500 kilometers south of Moscow, could not immediately be verified, but the governor, Alexander Gusev, confirmed fighting there. “The Russian armed forces are carrying out required operational and combat measures on the territory of the Voronezh Region as part of a counter-terror operation,” he said.
Early on Saturday, Prigozhin claimed to have taken control of Rostov — a crucial command center for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, with a population of more than 1 million — without a fight. In response, Putin lashed out at Prigozhin’s “treason” and vowed to “neutralize” the threat posed by his renegade mercenary army.
In a five-and-a-half-minute address to the nation, the president denounced this mutiny as “a stab in the back of our nation and our people.” Without naming Prigozhin, he said: “We are dealing with treason.”
The Russian president said the insurrection was “exactly the kind of blow that was dealt to Russia in 1917, when the country fought the First World War, but victory was stolen from her. Intrigues, squabbles, politicking behind the backs of the army and the people turned into the greatest shock: the destruction of the army and the collapse of the state, the loss of vast territories. In the end — the tragedy of the civil war.”
The insurrection dramatically escalates the stakes in Moscow’s 16-month-old war on Ukraine, and creates a significant headache for Putin, just as Ukrainian forces are looking for opportunities to push through Russian defensive lines in a long-awaited counteroffensive.
Most significant challenge
Britain’s ministry of defense also cast Prigozhin’s mutiny “as the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times.”
In a new audio message released by Prigozhin on Saturday, he insisted his men had Russia’s best interests at heart. “When it comes to accusations of betrayal, the president is deeply mistaken. We are patriots … None of us will turn ourselves in because we don’t want to live a life of corruption, deceit and bureaucracy,” he said. “We are patriots and those who oppose us today are on the side of the scum.”
In a statement on Saturday morning, the U.K. government indicated Prigozhin’s forces were moving through territory around Voronezh, roughly 500 kilometers south of Moscow and around 500 kilometers north of Rostov “almost certainly aiming to get to Moscow.” Russian authorities said they had closed the main highway running from Moscow to the south in a bid to block any advances by Prigozhin’s mutineers.
In both Voronezh and Rostov, the authorities have called on people to stay at home, while Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, called on Russians to pray for Putin.
“With very limited evidence of fighting between Wagner and Russian security forces, some have likely remained passive, acquiescing to Wagner,” the statement by the U.K. defense ministry said. “Over the coming hours, the loyalty of Russia’s security forces, and especially the Russian National Guard, will be key to how the crisis plays out.”
Admitting the situation remains “difficult” in Rostov, a palpably angry Putin called on Wagner’s forces to desert their commander. “I call on those who are being dragged into this crime not to make the fatal and tragic, inimitable mistake, to make the only right choice — to stop participating in criminal actions,” he said.
Putin’s chef
Nicknamed “Putin’s chef” — because he came to prominence by running catering services for the Russian government — Prigozhin has become one of the most prominent faces of Russia’s war against Ukraine, but has become an increasingly virulent critic of Moscow’s military command, which he repeatedly accuses of incompetence and of providing insufficient resources to his frontline troops. A notoriously brutal and unpredictable figure, Prigozhin has drawn many of his forces from jails.
Overnight, Prigozhin said in a series of short voice messages posted to social media that he was leading a “march of justice” and not a military coup, and suggested that 25,000 of his men were en route to Moscow to oust Russia’s military leadership — and were ready to die for the cause.
“We are at the staff headquarters, it’s 7:30 in the morning,” Prigozhin said in a video statement posted in his Telegram channel. “Military objects in Rostov are under control, including the aerodrome.”
According to reports and social media, Wagner forces met little resistance as they traveled the short distance from the Ukrainian border to the city, the operational center for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The thrust transformed Prigozhin’s increasingly furious tirades of the past 24 hours against the Kremlin into stark action that exposed the vulnerability of the Russian rear.
“The chief of staff ran away as soon as he found out that we were approaching the building,” said Prigozhin, referring to Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, who was reported to have been in the area recently.
Prigozhin said the staff headquarters in Rostov was working normally. “Everything we did and took control over was so that offensive aviation does not strike us, but strikes the Ukrainians,” he said. The 1:43-minute video statement was shot in the corner of a rain-soaked courtyard as armed troops milled around in the background.
The big question now is how much support Prigozhin could possibly command. Wagner’s recruitment posters were already being taken down in several cities. Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, tweeted Prigozhin was unlikely to win support among Russia’s key power players.
“The indifference of the man of the masses on which Putin’s regime rests will not turn against him. But an indifferent person will not defend him either. Much depends on the loyalty of the siloviki and the elites in general. But they don’t like Prigozhin, he’s dangerous to them.”
Prigozhin takes control
Meanwhile, an unverified video purported to show Prigozhin taking control of military installations in Rostov, where he held tense talks with Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. The Wagner chief appeared to threaten to blockade the city and march on Moscow if his demands were not met.
According to military bloggers and to Prigozhin himself, Wagner troops had overnight shot down one Russian Mi-35 helicopter. Videos posted on social media overnight had shown choppers hovering over Rostov.
Prominent Russian pro-war blogger Igor Girkin also posted clips showing long columns of military vehicles, which he said belonged to Wagner forces, snaking through the Voronezh region.
Appealing directly to the Russian army and people, Prigozhin said the Kremlin had lied to them over the toll of the war. A huge amount of territory has been lost, he said. Three to four times as many men were being killed than was reported to the top; and losses — killed, missing, wounded and unable to fight due to a lack of ammunition or leadership — reached 1,000 on some days, he said.
Russia’s FSB spy service has opened a criminal investigation for organizing an armed insurrection, and according to state media, counterterrorism operations have been launched in Moscow, the surrounding region and Voronezh oblast, which lies around halfway along the 1,100-kilometer road from Rostov to the Russian capital.
This story is developing.
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Douglas Busvine , Gabriel Gavin and Zoya Sheftalovich
Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces has been “slower than desired”, but Ukrainian forces will not be pressured into speeding up, the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, while Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had observed a “lull” in Kyiv’s campaign.
Ukrainian forces are being slowed in their advance by vast minefields laid by Russian forces, Zelenskyy told to the United Kingdom’s BBC in an interview on Wednesday. With some 200,000 square kilometres (more than 77,000 square miles) of Ukrainian frontier territory littered with Russian land mines, the Ukrainian leader said that “at stake is people’s lives”.
“Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It’s not,” Zelenskyy told the BBC.
“Whatever some might want, including attempts to pressure us, with all due respect, we will advance on the battlefield the way we deem best,” he said.
Confirming that Ukrainian forces had retaken eight villages in the south and east of the country, Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine would never negotiate while Russian forces remain on Ukraine’s territory and that the conflict would not be allowed to stagnate.
“No matter how far we advance in our counteroffensive, we will not agree to a frozen conflict” which would be “a prospectless development for Ukraine”, he said.
Zelenskyy’s interview with the BBC coincided with a conference in London where allies pledged billions of dollars in economic and reconstruction aid, and on a day when Russia’s leader again said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was faltering.
Contradicting the Russian president’s view of the conflict, the chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused Russian defence officials on Wednesday of not telling the truth about the progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Moscow was losing territory to Ukrainian forces, Prigozhin said, and Russian defence officials were hiding the truth.
“They are misleading the Russian people,” Prigozhin said in an audio message released by his spokespeople.
A number of villages have been lost and Russian troops are suffering from a lack of arms and ammunition, he said.
“Huge chunks have been handed over to the enemy,” Prigozhin said, warning that Ukrainian troops had already sought to cross the Dnipro river, a natural border on the front line.
“All of this is being totally hidden from everyone,” the Wagner chief said. “One day Russia will wake up to discover that Crimea too has been handed over to Ukraine,” he added.
The Washington, DC-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Thursday that Russian sources had noted a “relatively slower pace of Ukrainian offensive operations” in the west of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions in recent days. However, the ISW said that Ukraine had long indicated that its counteroffensive would be a “series of gradual and sequential offensive actions”.
Military analysts believe that Kyiv’s major counteroffensive operations have not yet started.
5/ Russian sources noted a relatively slower pace of Ukrainian offensive operations in both western #Donetsk and western #Zaporizhia oblasts compared to the previous days. https://t.co/hiIa26CVZt
“The success of Ukrainian counteroffensives should not be judged solely on day-to-day changes in control of terrain,” the ISW said.
“The wider operational intentions of Ukrainian attacks along the entire front line may be premised on gradually degrading, exhausting, and expending Russian capabilities in preparation for additional offensive pushes,” it said.
In his daily, late-night address on Wednesday, Zelenskky said that Ukrainian forces were “destroying the enemy” in the south of the country and making advances. In the east, “our defences are firming”, he said.
“And I am especially grateful, guys, for every shot down Russian helicopter … Each [shot] is important,” he said.
A visit of America’s top diplomat to China this week ended with both Washington and Beijing expressing hope that this was a key first step to getting their broken relationship back on track.
But beneath those positive signals, the two-day visit to Beijing from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken highlighted another reality: a wide and dangerous gulf between the two powers.
On fundamental and pressing issues, such as whether the two countries are competing with one another, if there is mutual respect in the relationship, and how to mitigate a chance of conflict between them, the US and China still remain miles apart.
Finding common ground between the two sides – one, an authoritarian country keen to expand its global sway, and the other, a democratic superpower with sweeping international influence – was never going to be easy.
The fact that Blinken’s visit went ahead after a months-long delay due to a dispute over a Chinese surveillance balloon and then culminated in a meeting Monday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, was widely seen as a positive step to stabilizing ties.
The timing of the visit, which followed two close encounters between Chinese and American armed forces in Asia in recent weeks, underscored the urgency of talking.
But the roughly 11 hours that the American envoy spent with senior Chinese officials also revealed some of the key fault lines that make navigating the relationship increasingly difficult – even with the dialogue that both sides pledged to support.
Xi highlighted one of the starkest areas where the US and China cannot – at least in their official positions – see eye-to-eye.
Positioned at the head of a table where the rest of the two delegations, including Blinken, sat facing each other on either side, Xi laid out his view that “major-country competition does not represent the trend of the times.”
“China respects US interests and does not seek to challenge or displace the United States. In the same vein, the United States needs to respect China and must not hurt China’s legitimate rights and interests,” he said.
That stance, that the US and China are not in competition with each other, sharply diverges from the American view, and indeed, implications for China’s own foreign policy.
Washington has been clear that it has entered into a phase of competition with China – with Blinken laying out the Biden’s administration’s view that Beijing is “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order” in a sweeping policy address last year.
As such, the US is taking steps to counter what it sees as the Chinese government’s efforts to expand its influence and dismantle a world order with universal values of human rights and democracy.
In recent months, US has slapped sanctions on Chinese companies, pushed allies to restrict semiconductor exports to China, rallied other advanced economies to counter Beijing’s “economic coercion” and “de-risk” supply chains, and signed a new trade deal with Taiwan, a self-ruling democracy China’s Communist Party claims but has never controlled.
Beijing, for its part, has called for a world where there’s not one major power but many, who agree not interfere in each other’s internal affairs, be they human rights violations, political repression or economic development. It sees the US as suppressing China’s growth and interfering its in affairs out of self-interest.
“Acknowledgment that the relationship is strategically competitive could require a reevaluation of Chinese domestic priorities and resources,” according to Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Indo-Pacific Program.
And that has significant implications.
“The Chinese are not supportive of the US proposal to put in place guardrails to prevent competition veering into conflict,” she said, adding that, for example, Beijing doesn’t “want to make it safer for the US to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance close to China … deliberately increasing risk in the air and sea.”
The two sides have seen multiple dangerous military interactions in recent months, including a near collision of warships in the Taiwan Strait and a close Chinese interception of an American reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea.
China cut off talks with US military commanders following then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit last year to Taiwan, and the break in high-level communication has ratcheted fears a mishap could spiral into conflict.
Blinken was unable to win China’s agreement to restore high level military communication this week – another deep-rooted stumbling block.
Washington was fully aware why, Yang Tao, director-general of the ministry’s North American and Oceanian affairs department told reporters Monday evening, pointing to “unilateral sanctions” from America.
“The US needs to remove the obstacle first,” Yang said.
Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu has been under US sanction since 2018 over China’s purchase of Russian weapons.
For China, this comes down to respect, according to Shen Dingli, an expert on China’s foreign policy in Shanghai.
“China cannot accept the US talking to us in a condescending way while the Chinese Minister of Defense is under US sanctions. We don’t want to look up to the United States, at the very least we should look at each other at eye level,” he said.
In the lead-up to and during Blinken’s visit, China made clear who it thinks is responsible for the problems in the relationship.
The “root cause is US misperceptions toward China,” Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi told the visiting American during a meeting Monday morning.
Progress does not appear to have been made over issues at the core of this contention – from US relations with Taiwan to the implications of an American view of a competitive relationship.
Both sides did signal that they would work together on global challenges like climate change and drug trade, and agreed to “continue open lines of communication,” according to Washington.
Areas for cooperation cited by Beijing after the meetings this week appear scaled back as compared with those following an amicable and wide-ranging conversation between US President Joe Biden and Xi on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali last November.
“It was clear coming in that the relationship was at a point of instability,” Blinken said at a news conference in the Chinese capital Monday. “And both sides recognized the need to work to stabilize it.”
This – and a potential visit from Xi to the United States in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit – may be enough to ease tensions in the short-term in the coming months.
But how far this will advance to stabilize the ties over time remains to be seen.
“Talking is the first step and key to avoid ugly mishaps flaring into outright conflict,” Dexter Tiff Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow with the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council.
“Senior discussions between the two sides, of course, doesn’t equal resolving the many deep disagreements … nor does it erase the deep suspicion each country’s leadership feels towards the other,” he said.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Kyiv’s forces and Moscow’s troops are engaged in a ‘tough duel’ and Russia is throwing everything into the battle.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said the “biggest blow” in Kyiv’s counteroffensive campaign against Russian forces has yet to come but admitted the operation is difficult as Moscow is throwing all it can into the battle to prevent Ukraine from pressing forward.
Ukraine began the first stage of its long-rumoured counteroffensive two weeks ago to reclaim land occupied by Russian forces. But amid reports of slow progress by Ukraine’s forces and stiff resistance by Russia, officials in Moscow have claimed the Ukrainian offensive has failed.
The Ukrainian military, which has maintained a strict silence about the campaign in general, announced on Monday that small victories had been achieved and eight villages liberated so far, along with some 113 square km (70 sq miles) of territory.
“The biggest blow is yet to come,” Maliar said on Monday.
“The ongoing operation has several objectives, and the military is fulfilling these tasks,” she wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“The enemy will not easily give up their positions, and we must prepare ourselves for a tough duel,” she said. “In fact, that is what is happening right now.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said late last week the Ukrainian counteroffensive did not have any meaningful success. But some Russian military bloggers say Kyiv has made small gains at the expense of huge troop and equipment losses.
While it is impossible to independently verify the military operation along the most contentious points of the front line, the Reuters news agency was able to confirm that Ukrainian forces have advanced in the early phase of the counteroffensive.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington DC-based think tank, cited sources on Sunday as saying that Ukrainian forces may be temporarily pausing counteroffensive operations to “reevalute their tactics for future operations”.
ISW also reiterated that the main counteroffensive campaign had yet to start.
“ISW has previously noted that Ukraine has not yet committed the majority of its available forces to counteroffensive operations and has not yet launched its main effort,” the ISW said in its daily situational analysis.
“Operational pauses are a common feature of major offensive undertakings, and this pause does not signify the end of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” it said.
Operational pauses are a common feature of major offensive undertakings, and ISW has previously noted that #Ukraine has not yet committed the majority of its available forces to counteroffensive operations and has not yet launched its main effort.https://t.co/ivyddxYgzdhttps://t.co/ZxJEpF6YaT
In his nightly video address, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the military offensive as a “situation of pressure”, but one in which Ukrainian forces had not let the pressure slip from being focused on Russian forces.
“In some areas, our warriors are moving forward, in some areas they are defending their positions and resisting the occupiers’ assaults and intensified attacks,” Zelenskyy said.
“We have no lost positions. Only liberated ones. They have only losses,” he said.
Officials from two NATO member states said Moscow was redeploying some of its forces as it seeks to predict where Ukraine will strike.
United Kingdom and Estonian intelligence officials said that Russia had been moving some forces east along the front line from areas south of the Dnipro River flooded by the destruction of the huge Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on June 6.
Overall the Ukrainian military said its counteroffensive is going according to plan, but at the same time admitted to a “difficult situation” on the front.
In the south of the country, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi wrote on Telegram on Monday that the Ukrainian advance was hampered by fortifications, dense minefields and a “large number of reserves” but that the operation will remain on schedule.
In a video, he also showed himself with Chief of General Staff Serhiy Shaptala at a command centre near the front. With this, Zaluzhnyi was likely also countering rumours in Russian state media, which has repeatedly claimed that he had been seriously injured in a missile attack in May.
Decades after Lee Vernon Newby Jr. was one of the first Black recruits to break the color barrier in the Marine Corps, he and his family are still fighting for recognition.
The 100-year-old and his four children want him to be honored with a Purple Heart for his service but so far, he’s been denied one despite his extensive injuries.
“I was over there serving the government, serving this country. They put me in harm’s way, but still they didn’t give me the acknowledgment,” Newby told CNN.
Newby, who now lives at a senior living facility outside of Detroit, was just a teenager when he fought in World War II. He says he felt fortunate to serve his country despite being one of the few Black people in the Marine Corps.
After being drafted, Newby was assigned to Montford Point, a segregated training facility in North Carolina.
Newby headed to the Solomon Islands for the Battle of Guadalcanal, as fighting took place between 1942 and 1943. During that time, Newby’s family says he suffered fourth-degree burns after gasoline exploded in a hole. The burns covered more than 60% of his body, his family said.
“All of a sudden, something hit me right in my chest. Just all of a sudden, it just burnt the clothes off of me,” he said. “When I hit the deck and got up, all the skin was just laying out.”
Ellena Dione Newby-Bennette, one of Newby’s daughters, said her father received medical treatment for several months and later was sent back into action. “He wasn’t 100% healed,” she said.
Newby received an honorable discharge in 1946 and returned home, where he struggled with racism and Jim Crow laws, his family said. He found work as a janitor and chauffeur, and eventually started a family.
“America is one of the greatest countries in the world, but I didn’t get a fair deal,” he said. Newby is still hoping it will change.
Newby received a letter from President Joe Biden on his 100th birthday earlier this year, and he has been recognized by state and local officials. But last month, he received a letter from the Navy, telling him he is not eligible for a Purple Heart.
The rejection, Newby says, reinforced feelings that Black people have been “getting a short deal.”
The Purple Heart has specific criteria for when is awarded to US service members, and is limited to those who are wounded or killed in combat. It is described as one of the most respected military awards.
In the letter, shared with CNN, Navy officials said Newby is considered ineligible because he was not wounded “at the hands of the enemy.”
The letter states at the time, Newby was working with another service member who was attempting to kill rats by pouring gasoline from a cup down a hole next to a stump.
The unnamed service member threw the cup when it ignited and set Newby’s clothing on fire, the letter said.
Newby and his family said they are planning to appeal the decision. Newby’s daughters said their father doesn’t recall that rats were involved and “doesn’t understand where that story came from.”
The Pentagon further clarified the rules, noting there are two key conditions which both must be met for the Purple Heart to be awarded.
“First, the wound must have resulted from enemy action. Second, the wound must have been of such severity that it necessitated treatment, not merely examination, by a medical officer. If the wound does not meet both standards, the Purple Heart may not be awarded,” spokesperson Yvonne Carlock told CNN.
Newby’s children said he experienced PTSD symptoms and they grew up listening to stories of enemy planes flying overhead bombs being dropped, and friends dying due to their injuries.
“How much more of his heart did he have to give? More than half of his body was burned,” said Newby-Bennette.
Newby’s children hope their father and other Black Marines who did not live long enough to receive notoriety are honored for their service.
“He deserves to have his due,” Newby’s daughter Jannise Newby said.
King Charles III will revive a royal tradition when he rides on horseback in the first Trooping the Colour of his reign, which marks the British sovereign’s official birthday.
The traditional military spectacle returns on Saturday and is a staple in the royal diary drawing huge crowds to central London. Charles’ actual birthday is in November and is typically celebrated privately.
He will join 1,500 soldiers, 300 horses and hundreds of musicians as they file from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade in St James’s Park for the ceremony watched by members of the royal family.
It’s the first time a reigning monarch has ridden in the procession since Queen Elizabeth II in 1986.
He’ll be joined on horseback by the royal colonels including Prince William, who is Colonel of the Welsh Guards and Princess Anne, Gold Stick in Waiting and Colonel of the Blues and Royals. The event is described by the palace as “a great display of military precision, horsemanship and fanfare.”
Well-wishers dressed in fascinators and draped in Union flags gathered early to claim prime positions along the Mall outside the royal residence in the hours ahead of the parade.
The monarch is head of Britain’s armed forces and would traditionally lead an army into war. During the ceremony at Horse Guards, the monarch will take the salute as Colonel in Chief of the Household Division’s seven regiments before he is given a chance to review and approve his army.
Queen Camilla will join her husband as they watch the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards troop their color, or regimental flag, in front of hundreds of Guardsmen and officers. The regiment will carry out intricate battlefield drill maneuvers to music, with Kensington Palace describing this year’s musical program as having “a distinctly Welsh theme,” with new compositions from the band specially for the occasion.
After the parade, the royal party will return to Buckingham Palace and watch an extended military flypast. A similar display had to be scaled back after the King’s coronation last month because of poor weather.
Around 70 aircraft from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force will take to the skies from 15 locations around the UK before converging to fly across the British capital, according to the Ministry of Defence. The impressive aerial presentation will include aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial flight, the C-130 Hercules on its final ceremonial flight, Typhoon fighter jets and culminate with a display from the famous RAF Red Arrows.
“We are very proud to be able to showcase our capabilities to our Commander-in-Chief, on this historic occasion for His Majesty the King,” Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton said ahead of the event.
“We have planned a fitting and appropriate tribute for our monarch, that should be a true spectacle for the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.”
There will also be a 41-gun salute in nearby Green Park from The King’s Troop, with a second salute of 62 guns fired at the Tower of London by the Honourable Artillery Company, the City of London’s Army Reserves.
As the war enters its 479th day, these are the main developments.
This is the situation as it stands on Saturday, June 17, 2023.
Fighting
The Commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said the situation in the east of the country remains “tense” and plans for the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces need to be adjusted. “Despite the advance of our troops in the south and the loss of territory and settlements in this direction, the enemy continues to move some of the most combat-capable units to the Bakhmut direction, combining these actions with powerful artillery fire and strikes by assault and army aircraft on the positions of our troops,” he said.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces repelled numerous attempts by Ukrainian forces in their ongoing counterattacks over the last 24 hours and inflicted significant losses in the south Donetsk and Donetsk directions. More than 500 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and five tanks were destroyed, the ministry said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin again rejected reports of Ukrainian counteroffensive successes on the front lines in Ukraine, saying that at “no point have they achieved their goals”. He also said Ukraine will soon run out of its own military equipment and will be totally reliant on the West.
Ukraine will send several dozen combat pilots to train on US-made F-16 fighter jets, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said. NATO members the Netherlands and Denmark are leading efforts in an international coalition to train pilots and support staff, maintain aircraft and ultimately supply the F-16s.
Putin proclaimed the end of “neo-colonialism” in international politics and praised Russia’s economic strategy following its ruptured ties with the West. “The ugly neo-colonial system of international relations has ceased to exist, while the multi-polar global order is strengthening,” he said at an annual economic forum in Saint Petersburg.
Putin confirmed that Russia has sent nuclear arms to its ally Belarus. He also said that Russia could “theoretically” use nuclear weapons if there was a threat to its territorial integrity or existence.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it “ironic” that Putin had placed Russian nuclear arms in Belarus when Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine as an action to prevent Kyiv from obtaining nuclear weapons.
The White House denounced the comments from Putin on the possible use of nuclear weapons, adding that the US had made no adjustments to its own nuclear posture in response to the rhetoric.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is ready for further talks on nuclear arms control, the Interfax news agency reported.
A delegation of African leaders visited Kyiv on a peace mission where they called on Russia and Ukraine to de-escalate and negotiate. Shortly after their arrival, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine as Russian missiles were detected. “The launching of the missiles today does not deter us and has not stopped us from continuing to call for de-escalation,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ruled out peace talks with Russia until a full withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from Ukraine.
United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told Putin that his nation wished to strengthen ties with Russia. The Gulf state has not joined the West in placing sanctions on Moscow and has maintained what it says is a neutral position on the Ukraine war.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said NATO allies may be ready to remove hurdles from Ukraine’s path to joining the NATO military alliance amid reports that the US is open to allowing Kyiv to forgo a formal candidacy process.
Turkey and Hungary must ratify Sweden’s NATO membership before the alliance meets at a summit in July, France said, adding that any further delays were not understandable and risked the security of the 31-member alliance.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also urged Turkey’s new defence minister to approve Sweden’s NATO membership.
Putin said there was a “serious danger” that NATO could be pulled further into the Ukraine conflict.
Canada said it would bolster its force in Latvia as part of NATO with the deployment of 15 Leopard 2A4M tanks.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it summoned the Australian ambassador after authorities in Australia cancelled the lease of a land plot where a new Russian embassy complex was being built in Canberra.
Humanitarian aid
The United Nations estimates an “extraordinary” 700,000 people require drinking water in eastern Ukraine following the collapse of the Kakhovka dam.
The US will provide an additional $205m in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Secretary of State Blinken said.
It is unlikely that Russia will quit the Black Sea grain deal before it comes up for renewal on July 17, Russian media reported. But Russian officials said they see no grounds to extend the agreement beyond that date. “How can you extend something that doesn’t work?” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
On one side: 16 kids from ranches, reservations and tourist boomtowns across Montana – a group of wannabe climate avengers ranging in age from 5 to 22 and assembled to fight for a livable planet.
On the other side: Montana’s governor, attorney general and the Republican supermajorities of both houses, who may have lost a three-year fight to kill the nation’s first constitutional climate case before it hit court, but are still determined to let oil, gas and coal keep flowing for generations.
The setting is a small courtroom in Helena and the whole plot pivots around the Montana constitution, widely considered the greenest in the nation.
“The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations,” reads Article 9, and those pivotal words “clean and healthful environment” are also guaranteed separately in the state’s bill of rights.
“This case is about the equal rights of children,” attorney Roger Sullivan began in his opening argument in Held vs. Montana this week, “and their need now for extraordinary protection from the extraordinary dangers of fossil fuel pollution and climate crisis that their state government is exposing them to.”
In the half-century since the environmental promises were added to the constitution, the Treasure State has never rejected a fossil fuel project for potential harm to air or water. And this spring, after a county judge cited the constitution in pulling the permit of a new gas-fired power plant, state leaders quickly crafted House Bill 971 to make it illegal for any state agency to analyze climate impacts when assessing large projects, like power plants, that need environmental review.
In a region full of ranchers and farmers who depend on stable weather and the kind of National Park beauty that draws millions of outdoor enthusiasts a year, the bill created the most buzz by far in the May legislative session, drawing more than 1,000 comments.
But while 95% of the comments were opposed, according to a legislature count, the bill passed.
“Skinny cows and dead cattle,” Rikki Held said, when asked how drought changed her family’s Broadus ranch.
Since she was the only plaintiff of legal age when the suit was filed, the historic case bears her name. Now finally on the stand, she described with emotion what it was like to work through smoke and ash on 110°F days. “We have the technology and knowledge,” said Held, now an environmental science major at Colorado College. “We just need empathy and willingness to do the right thing.”
One after another, her fellow plaintiffs have testified how the effects of a warming planet are already causing them physical, emotional and financial pain. “You know, it’s really scary seeing what you care for disappear right in front of your eyes,” said Sariel, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, after describing how the loss of consistent snow affects everything from native plants to tribal traditions.
“Do you believe the state of Montana has a responsibility to protect this land for you?” a lawyer asked Sariel, who, like the other children who were under 18 when the case was filed, is being referred to only by her first name. “Yes, I do,” she replied in a soft voice. “It’s not only written in our constitution, an inherent right to a healthy land and environment, but it’s also just about being a decent person.”
“During the course of this trial, the court will hear lots of emotions,” Montana Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell said in his opening argument. “Lots of assumptions, accusations, speculation, prognostication … including sweeping, dramatic assertions of doom that awaits us all.” But this case is “far more boring,” Russell argued, and is little more than a show trial over statutes “devoid of any regulatory authority.”
Montana’s population of 1.1 million is “simply too minuscule to make any difference in climate change,” Russell told the court, “which is a global issue that effectively relegates Montana’s role to that of a spectator.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs have tried to poke holes in this argument, pointing out Montana’s outsized energy footprint.
On Thursday, Peter Erickson, a greenhouse gas emissions expert and witness for the plaintiffs, pointed out Montana has the sixth largest per-capita energy-related CO2 emissions in the nation – behind other big energy-producing states like Wyoming, West Virginia and Louisiana.
“It’s significant. It’s disproportionately large, given Montana’s population,” Erickson said.
While attorneys for the state objected when Rikki Held tried to connect her mental health to the climate crisis, they have largely saved cross-examination for the experts as the plaintiffs lay out their case.
“If the judge ordered that we stop using fossil fuels in Montana would it get us to the point where these plaintiffs are no longer being harmed in your opinion?” Mark Stermitz, an attorney for the state, asked Steven Running, professor emeritus of ecosystem and conservation sciences at the University of Montana.
“We can’t tell in advance,” said Running, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 as one of the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Because what has been shown in history over and over and over again is when a significant social movement is needed, it often is started by one or two or three people.”
The trial is set to conclude on June 23 and is being heard before Judge Kathy Seeley, with no jury. While Seeley has no power to shut down fossil fuel use or order the end of new extraction permits, a ruling against Montana could help kill the new law outlawing climate impact analysis and set a powerful precedent for similar cases winding their ways through the courts.
“I think we’re really at a tipping point right now,” Our Children’s Trust attorney Nate Bellinger told CNN. The Oregon-based legal nonprofit has filed similar actions in all 50 states and will go to trial in September with a group of young Hawaiians suing their state’s transportation department, claiming it is allowing rampant tailpipe pollution. The group also supports the 21 young plaintiffs in Juliana vs. United States, who will get their day in federal court after amending their complaint that actions by the federal government have caused climate change and violated their constitutional rights.
When the Ninth Circuit put the Juliana case back on track, 18 Republican-led states – including Montana – tried to intervene as defendants and take on the so-called Climate Kids but were rejected.
It is likely the case will reach the US Supreme Court.
Back in the Wild West days of 1889, Montana’s original constitution was written under the guidance of a copper baron named William Clark, who claimed that arsenic pollution from mining gave the women of Butte “a beautiful complexion.”
But less than a century later, mining and logging had done obvious harm to the rivers, skies and mountainsides of “the last best place,” just as the movements for social change and environmental protection were sweeping the nation.
This was the backdrop when in 1972, 100 Montanans from all walks of life gathered in the town of Last Chance Gulch to hammer out a new constitution with not a single active politician among them. Mae Nan Ellingson was the youngest delegate back then, and as the plaintiffs set out to establish the intent behind “a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations,” she became the first witness in Held vs. Montana.
“It was important, I think, for this constitution to make it clear that citizens could enforce their right to a clean environment and not wait until the pollution or the damage had been done,” she testified.
The Montana Supreme Court agreed with her in a 1999 ruling and the majority wrote, “Our constitution does not require that dead fish float on the surface of our state’s rivers and streams before its farsighted environmental protections can be invoked.”
Regardless of the verdict, it is likely that Held vs. Montana will end up in Montana’s Supreme Court, but for plaintiffs like Claire Vlases who are too young to vote, that will be just fine.
“I just recently graduated high school, but I think that’s something everyone knows is that we have three branches of government for a reason,” she said, sitting by the river that runs through her Bozeman yard. “The judicial branch is there to keep a check on the other two branches. And that’s what we’re doing here.”
Senior US military officials said Ukraine faces a tough fight in the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces and the campaign to take back territory will likely come “at a high cost”.
“Ukraine has begun their attack, and they are making steady progress. This is a very difficult fight. It’s a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time at a high cost,” US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
Milley, speaking after a meeting of the US-led Contact Group of some 50 countries that give military aid to Ukraine, said it was far too early “to put any estimates” on how long the Ukrainian counteroffensive could last.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the meeting that Kyiv needed both short-term and long-term support as the war was a “marathon, not a sprint”, and Ukraine needed even more weapons.
Austin also said that Ukraine still had plenty of firepower left to conduct its counteroffensive, despite initial losses inflicted by Russia.
Moscow has played up video footage showing German Leopard tanks and US-donated Bradley fighting vehicles it claims were captured at the start of Ukraine’s push to take back territory from Russia.
“I think the Russians have shown us [those] same five vehicles about 1,000 times from 10 different angles,” Austin said of the video clips. “But quite frankly, the Ukrainians still have a lot of combat capability, combat power,” he said.
“This is a war, so we know that there will be battle damage on both sides” and more important was Kyiv’s ability to repair damaged equipment, Austin said.
“This will continue to be a tough fight as we anticipate it, and I believe that the element that does the best in terms of sustainment will probably have the advantage at the end of the day,” he added.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive is in its early stages, and military experts say the decisive battles still lie ahead.
Ukraine has captured at least seven settlements and taken back 100 square kilometres (38 square miles) of territory in two major pushes in the south so far, Ukraine’s Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov said on Thursday.
“We are ready to continue fighting to liberate our territory even with our bare hands,” he said. Ukraine’s army on the southern front had advanced by up to 7km (4.4 miles) in the area along the Mokry Yali, as well as by up to 3km (1.8 miles) on another axis further west near the village of Mala Tokmachka, Ukrainian military officials said.
“Our units and troops are moving forward in the face of fierce fighting [and] aviation and artillery superiority of the enemy,” Valeriy Shershen, a spokesperson for the Tavria military sector of southern Ukraine, told Ukrainian television. Advances in the east around the ruined city of Bakhmut, which Moscow seized last month, were also reported.
But the big test of Ukraine’s offensive still lies ahead as Ukrainian troops have yet to reach the heaviest Russian defensive fortifications, which are set back from the front line. Kyiv is believed to have prepared an attack force of approximately 12 brigades of thousands of soldiers each, most using newly arrived Western armoured vehicles.
Washington, DC-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said on Friday that current operations by Ukrainian forces are “setting the conditions for wider Ukrainian counteroffensive objectives that are not immediately clear”.
The current fighting “therefore represents the initial phase of an ongoing counteroffensive”, the ISW said.
3/ The UKR Tavrisk Group of Forces Press Center notably reported on June 15 that UKR forces have advanced up to one kilometer in the #Vulhedar area, and Tavrisk Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi stated that Ukrainian troops continue moving forward in this area.
Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted this week that Russian forces were inflicting 10 times more casualties on Ukrainians than they were enduring and that Kyiv’s offensive had been a failure.
Chechnya ruler Ramzan Kadyrov also said on Thursday that fighters from the “Zapad-Akhmat” battalion had been deployed in Russia’s Belgorod region near the site of a cross-border attack in May by Russian-speaking pro-Ukrainian fighters.
“Residents of the territories adjacent to the border with Ukraine can rest easy … Whoever encroaches on our borders will receive a lightning response,” Kadyrov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
For the second time this year, concerns of Chinese spying on the United States have cast a shadow over a planned visit to China by the US’ top diplomat as the two superpowers try to improve fractured ties while keeping a watchful eye on each other.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to land in Beijing over the weekend following the postponement of his earlier trip planned for February after a Chinese surveillance balloon meandered across the continental US, hovering over sensitive military sites before being shot down by an American fighter plane.
But with Blinken poised to make a trip seen as a key step to mend fractured US-China communications, another espionage controversy has flared in recent days following media reports that China had reached a deal to build a spy perch on the island of Cuba.
Beijing has said it wasn’t “aware” of the situation, while the White House said the reports were not accurate – with Blinken earlier this week saying China upgraded its spying facilities there in 2019.
The situation is just the latest in a string of allegations of spying between the two in recent months. They underscore how intelligence gathering – an activity meant to go on without detection, out of the public eye – is becoming an increasingly prominent flashpoint in the US-China relationship.
CIA Director Bill Burns secretly traveled to China in May to meet counterparts and emphasize the importance of maintaining open lines of communication in intelligence channels, CNN reported earlier this month.
“Crisis communications are arguably in their worst state since 1979. This puts a premium on both countries’ ability to gather intelligence to understand each other’s capabilities, actions, and strategic intent around the globe,” said Lyle Morris, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.
That pushes intelligence gathering itself to become “another factor that is complicating US-China relations,” he said.
That’s especially the case, experts say, as China continues to expand its own intelligence gathering capabilities – catching up in an area where the US has traditionally had an edge.
“It’s fair to say that we’ve been spying on each other at various scales for a long time,” said former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) China analyst Christopher Johnson.
“No doubt there’s been an uptick from both sides, but probably more so on the Chinese side, simply because they’ve gotten larger, more influential, richer, and therefore have more resources to devote than they did in the past,” said Johnson, who is now president of the China Strategies Group consultancy.
That’s been accompanied by “a consistent emphasis on enhancing intelligence capabilities, modernizing technology, and improving coordination among different security agencies,” according to Xuezhi Guo, a professor of political science at Guilford College in the US.
China’s main intelligence activities fall under departments within the People’s Liberation Army and its vast civilian agency known as the Ministry of State Security (MSS). Other arms of the Communist Party apparatus also play a role in activities beyond conventional intelligence gathering, experts say.
The MSS, established in 1983, oversees intelligence and counterintelligence both within China and overseas. Its remit has encouraged analogies to a combined CIA and Federal Bureau of Intelligence. But the sprawling Beijing-headquartered MSS is even more secretive – without even a public website describing its activities.
The agency is “expected to play an even more significant role in China’s domestic and international security and stability” in the coming years, amid mounting challenges at home and abroad, Guo said.
In the context of both China’s growing clout and geopolitical frictions, experts say it’s no surprise Beijing is allegedly seeking to establish or expand surveillance facilities in Cuba – or other places around the world – with the US as a key target, but not the only one.
Meanwhile, intelligence gathering in China has become harder.
Xi has consolidated his power and become increasingly focused on security – including building out the state’s ability to monitor its citizens, both online and through China’s extensive surveillance infrastructure.
“The task of collecting intelligence in China is arguably harder than ever and yet more necessary than ever,” said Johnson, the former analyst, pointing to challenges of gaining insight into the government under the centralized leadership of Xi, who maintains a “very small circle of knowledge or trust.”
China’s building of a domestic “surveillance panopticon” has also enabled its counter-intelligence, according to Johnson.
US intelligence has difficulties having operational meetings or “going black” (dodging surveillance) within China, he said, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when movement was tightly controlled and even more digitally monitored than usual.
CIA operations also suffered a staggering setback starting in 2010, according to The New York Times, when the Chinese government killed or imprisoned more than a dozen sources over two years.
In 2021, CNN reported that the agency was overhauling how it trains and manages its network of spies as part of a broad transition to focus more closely on adversaries like China and Russia.
This contrasts with what some US lawmakers and commentators believe has been a too relaxed approach to national security with regards to China, where even private businesses are beholden to the ruling Communist Party, which also seeks to keep tabs on its citizens overseas.
Experts have also warned about the overlap between espionage efforts and operations like those of China’s United Front – a sprawling network of groups that manage the party’s relationship with non-party industries, organizations and individuals around the world.
Heightened concern and awareness about Chinese intelligence gathering – or the potential for it – has exploded in the US in recent years.
That’s played out in debates about the use of Chinese telecoms equipment and social media platforms – think Huawei and TikTok – as well as in government efforts to prosecute economic espionage cases and prevent any influence campaigns from impacting American democracy.
Beijing has said repeatedly that it does not interfere in the “internal affairs” of other countries. Both Huawei and Tiktok have repeatedly denied that their products present a national security risk or would be accessed by the Chinese government.
In the US, there’s also been concern about over-hyping the threat and sparking anti-Chinese sentiment.
The US Justice Department last year ended its 3-year-old China Initiative, a national security program largely focused on thwarting technology theft, including in academia, after a string of cases were dismissed amid concerns of fueling suspicion and bias against Chinese Americans.
US intellectual property had long been a traditional target of Chinese espionage.
A survey of 224 reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the United States since 2000, conducted using open source data by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, found nearly half involved cyber-espionage, while over half were seeking to acquire commercial technologies.
Beijing appears to be increasingly pushing back on what it sees as a double standard – as the US’ international surveillance efforts have also been well-documented.
The 2013 leak produced by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, for example, revealed Washington’s vast global digital surveillance capabilities, against both rivals and allies alike.Meanwhile, the US intelligence community is widely understood to have its own overseas facilities for collecting signals intelligence.
Last month, Beijing released a report from a national cybersecurity agency titled “‘Empire of Hacking’: The US Central Intelligence Agency.” It accused the US of promoting the internet in the 1980s in order to further its intelligence agencies’ efforts to launch “Color Revolutions” and overthrow governments abroad.
“The organizations, enterprises and individuals that use the Internet equipment and software products of the USA have been used as the puppet ‘agents’ by CIA, helping it to be a ‘shining star’ in global cyber espionage wars,” the report also claimed.
China’s own internet is heavily censored with access limited by a “Great Firewall” – part of its extensive efforts to control the flow of information alongside its extensive digital surveillance of its own population.
China’s Foreign Ministry last month again pointed its finger at the US after Washington released a warning alleging that a Chinese state-sponsored hacker had infiltrated networks across US critical infrastructure sectors.
Earlier this month, the ministry also slammed the US for sending what it said were more than 800 flights of large reconnaissance aircraft “to spy on China” last year – though no assertion was made of crossing into Chinese airspace.
The comment came after each country’s military accused the other of misbehavior after a Chinese fighter jet intercepted a US spy plane in international airspace over the South China Sea.
Experts say this rhetorical back-and-forth over each other’s clandestine activities is likely only to continue as US-China competition drives both to ramp up their intelligence gathering – and China continues to expand its own prowess, including through technological advancements such as satellite networks, surveillance balloons and data processing.
“China increasingly has capabilities (that the US has been known for) … this is moving from a one way street historically to a two-way street,” said John Delury, author of “Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China.”
He pointed to how China had long been subject to US offshore surveillance and – prior to the restoration of diplomatic relations in the 1970s – direct aerial surveillance.
“There’s a psychological dimension to this as well,” Delury added, noting that the spy balloon incident earlier this year brought this to the fore – giving Americans the unnerving sense that China “can do this to us now, they have technical capabilities and can look at us.”
Meanwhile, there’s much at stake in how well the two governments can repair official communication – seen as a key element of Blinken’s expected visit on Sunday and Monday.
“When there’s less communication, the two intelligence communities inside the two governments have to do more and more guesswork,” said Delury. “Then there’s a lot more room for faulty assumptions.”
The notorious Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has asked POLITICO for help in equipping his Wagner private army with Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.
In a sarcastic voice message delivered in response to a request for comment,Prigozhin also sought assistance in obtaining U.S.-made sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers.
“I ask you to talk to your contacts so that we can get these supplies,” said Prigozhin, whose mercenaries have fought at the forefront of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
“I have one more request for you,” Prigozhin continued. “So: F-35s. If it’s possible, as we previously discussed, to buy up supplies via New Zealand. They may need to refuel in Hawaii, but I don’t really foresee a problem.”
Prigozhin’s statement appeared intended as a joke: It was delivered in a jovial, ironic tone that was in complete contrast to the furious, profanity-laden tirades he has unleashed at Russia’s top military brass over problems supplying his forces.
POLITICO reached out to Prigozhin as part of an investigation which found evidence that the maker of the Russian Orsis T-5000 rifle used by his men had acquired ammunition from an American company.
In an apparent denial, he answered that Wagner, which recently captured the town of Bakhmut after a bloody, months-long battle, had “a huge amount of NATO-issue ammunition left over from the Ukrainian army.”
‘I’m sure you know Viktor’
In the two-and-a-half minute recording posted on his Kepka Prigozhina Telegram channel, Prigozhin also offered an introduction to Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer freed last December by the U.S. in a prisoner swap for pro basketball player Brittney Greiner.
“I’m sure you know Viktor Bout well,” said Prigozhin. “I’ve already talked to him — he’s ready to handle all deliveries. But we’ll assume you are a party in this dialogue from the side of the United States of America.”
“So, I shake your hand, huge thanks for the questions, and I hope you respond to me. Obviously, about the deliveries of the F-35s, respond in a private message.”
And, in a parting shot, Prigozhin said: “Douglas, buddy, I completely forgot! If the deal goes through, my personal Orsis [rifle] will be my gift to you.
Additional reporting by Zoya Sheftalovich and Emma Krstic.
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Wars don’t run according to political timetables. And in the lead-up to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his top aides strove to explain this reality to both nervous allies, impatient for military progress, and their own people, eager for the big counterattack to kick off and hear good news from the front lines.
In the run-up to the long-awaited counteroffensive, which started to unfold last week — later than most anticipated — Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov was worried that expectations were “definitely overheated.” “Everyone wants another win,” he said, cautioning allies to temper their hopes, so as to avoid subsequent disappointment.
The worry here is that falling short of expectations might lead to a reduction in international military assistance and renewed, often oblique, pressure to engage with Moscow in negotiations. “They want the next victory. It’s normal, these are emotions,” Reznikov added.
But impatience for a decisive blow against Russia stems not just from emotion but from political calculations too.
A long war risks Western fatigue, the depletion of arsenals and an erosion of unity — especially with China, Brazil and South Africa touting dubious “peace” plans. And despite public promises to back Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” earlier this year Washington officials warned counterparts in Kyiv that they needed to make major battlefield gains soon, while weapons and aid from the U.S. and European allies are still surging.
With the U.S. heading into what’s likely to be an exceptionally torrid and combustible presidential election season — to say the very least — the high level of security and economic assistance from Congress might be hard to maintain, they warned. And according to Ukrainian lawmakers, in recent talks with U.S. State Department and National Security Council officials, queries regarding future commitments and asks were batted away, with the response often being, “let’s see how the counteroffensive goes.”
Former Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze told POLITICO these talks left her feeling anxious about the “continuation of the same level of U.S. support to Ukraine after this financial year” — which, for the U.S. federal budget, is September.
Likewise, there are also signs of war-weariness and wariness in Europe, both among politicians and the public, with Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser in Zelenskyy’s office, complaining this week: “I understand that sitting thousands of kilometers away from Ukraine you can talk about ‘geopolitics,’ ‘settlement’ and the undesirability of escalation for months. And allow the rampage of the ‘Russian world.’”
Tellingly, even in Poland — one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies — the attitude toward Ukrainian war refugees is deteriorating. According to a survey by researchers from the University of Warsaw and the Academy of Economics and Humanities, in the past five months, the percentage of those who strongly support helping refugees dropped from 49 percent to 28 percent.
So, the political clock is ticking — and not necessarily matching the tempo of war.
Zelenskyy has had to pull off a difficult balancing act in recent weeks, holding out the prospect of delivering a decisive blow against Russia to shore up Western confidence and optimism and keep equipment and weapons flowing, while also underscoring that the counteroffensive most likely won’t be able to achieve the stunning quick success of last autumn’s push in Kharkiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
| Alexey Furman/Getty Images
Triggering a cascading collapse of Russia’s defenses and a pell-mell rout, the success in Kharkiv helped keep Western allies on side, but it also unhelpfully colored expectations, adding to the hype surrounding the current counteroffensive, which Kyiv has been keen to calm. However, Ukrainian officials are acutely aware of Western fears about a long-drawn out war of attrition.
But Ukraine also doesn’t want to be pushed into any hasty moves that could result in serious and costly mishaps, which might then undermine military morale or knock Western hopes and have major geopolitical repercussions, a senior Ukrainian military official told POLITICO on condition of anonymity. “This is not like Kharkiv,” he said. “We must be cautious. The Russians have been learning and preparing, and their defensive lines are formidable — we don’t have men to waste, nor equipment. Progress will have to be incremental.”
And incrementalism is the new watchword.
In his nightly address, Zelenskyy noted on Monday that “the battles are fierce, but we are moving forward, and this is very important. The enemy’s losses are exactly what we need.”
Similarly, according to Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. army in Europe, this “offensive is incredibly important for Ukraine’s future.” “Kyiv’s top military leadership has, to date, followed the conservative strategy of eroding Russian formations over time, gaining ground incrementally, avoiding major risks and limiting Ukrainian casualties as much as possible,” he wrote for the Center for European Policy Analysis.
“The offensive has clearly started, but not I think the main attack. When we see large, armored formations join the assault, then I think we’ll know the main attack has really begun,” he added.
Even though the main action is still to come, however, as Zelenskyy highlighted, the going is clearly tough.
And his Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar made this even clearer, saying on Telegram: “The enemy is doing everything to keep the positions captured by him. Actively uses assault and army aviation, conducts intense artillery fire. During the offensive, our troops encounter continuous minefields, which are combined with anti-tank ditches. All this is combined with constant counterattacks by enemy units on armored vehicles and the massive use of anti-tank guided missile and kamikaze drones.”
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Ukrainians believe they can, and will, deliver a powerful blow with the brigades trained by NATO militaries and supplied by Western allies. And officials in Kyiv believe they can do better than the “moderate territorial gains” forecast by the Pentagon, according to leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents.
At NATO summit after NATO summit, European leaders get a clear public message from Washington — increase spending on defense.
In private, there’s another message that’s just as clear — make sure a lot of that extra spending goes on U.S. weapons.
European leaders are resisting.
“We must develop a genuinely European defense technological and industrial base in all interested countries, and deploy fully sovereign equipment at European level,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava last month.
The decades of cajoling from Washington are paying off. Although most EU countries aren’t yet meeting NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, the alliance has seen eight years of steady spending increases. In 2022, spending by European countries was up by 13 percent to $345 billion — almost a third higher than a decade ago — much of it a reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now the question is how that money will be spent.
The U.S. wants to ensure that European countries — which already spend about half of their defense purchasing on American kit — don’t make a radical switch to spending more of that money at home.
Some European leaders are hoping that’s exactly what happens, but it’s an open question whether the Continent’s defense industry can make that happen.
“Traditionally, there was a suspicion about a change in Europe’s defense capabilities which dates back more than 25 years,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, Eurasia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What direction would the EU go, would it mean the EU would decouple from NATO, what would the impact be on U.S. defense industrial policy?”
Buying at home
The current tensions in Brussels are over whether new EU-wide defense policy should be limited to EU companies — a position driven by Macron and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, a Frenchman. That confirms suspicions stateside about European protectionism when it comes to allowing U.S. companies to compete for EU contracts.
“Our plan is to directly support, with EU money, the effort to ramp up our defense industry, and this for Ukraine and for our own security,” Breton said last month.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton wants new EU-wide defense policy to be limited to EU companies | Olivier Hoslet/AFP via Getty Images
But there’s an uncomfortable fact for the backers of European strategic autonomy: When it comes to arms, Europe still depends on the U.S.
While European companies have deep expertise in defense — building everything from France’s Rafale fighter to Germany’s Leopard tank and Poland’s man-portable Piorun air-defense system — the scale of the U.S. arms industry, as well as its technological innovation, makes it attractive for European weapons buyers.
The most common big-ticket item is Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, at a cost of $80 million a pop. There is also an immediate surge in demand for off-the-shelf items like shoulder-fired missiles and artillery shells.
“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, faster,” said a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Buying abroad
The war in Ukraine has underscored the dominance of the U.S. defense industry.
A host of European countries are buying Javelin anti-tank missiles produced by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin; Poland this year signed a $1.4 billion deal to buy 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks, as well as another $10 billion agreement to buy High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems produced by Lockheed Martin; Slovakia is buying F-16 fighters, while Romania is in talks to buy F-35s.
Those deals are raising fears in Europe over whether they can wean themselves off of U.S. defense suppliers. In one example, France and Germany worry about Spain’s intentions as it kicks the tires on F-35s while also being a partner in developing the European Future Combat Air System jet fighter.
But the need to restock weapons depots and continue shipping materiel to Ukraine is urgent, and after decades of contraction, the Continent’s defense industry is having a difficult time adjusting.
“Our European allies and partners, they’ve never experienced anything like this,” said a senior U.S. Defense Department official, referring to the spasm of spending brought on by Russia’s invasion. The official was granted anonymity to discuss the situation. “They don’t yet have the defense production authorities they need [to move quickly] and they’ve really been looking to us to try to get a handle on how they can increase production, and I think they’re learning a lot from us.”
To help Europe get there, the United States has expanded the number of bilateral security supply arrangements it has with foreign partners since the Russian invasion, signing new agreements with Latvia, Denmark, Japan and Israel since October. These allow countries to more quickly and easily sell and trade defense-related goods and services.
The Biden administration also signed an administrative arrangement with the European Union in late April to establish working groups on supply-chain issues, while giving both sides a seat at the table in internal meetings at the European Defence Agency and the Pentagon.
But there are limits to how far and how fast both sides are able and willing to go.
In the near term, capacity issues and political will means the rhetorical sea change in EU military spending is unlikely to make a huge dent in U.S. military industrial policy.
While the past 18 months have seen a huge spike in defense budgets — Germany announced a special debt-financed fund worth €100 billion after the Russian invasion of Ukraine; Poland’s defense expenditure is set to reach 4 percent of GDP this year — EU-wide projects are facing significant headwinds. European companies say they need longer lead times and long-term contracts to make needed investments.
“You need that visibility and certainty to make those investments. We’re in a chicken game between governments and industry — who are the first ones that are putting the money on the table,” said Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, director of the military expenditure and arms production program at SIPRI.
Ultimately, the global defense boom means that there should be plenty of military spending to go around, at least in the short term as countries rush to prove their worth to their NATO and EU allies and the Russian threat remains acute.
Paul McLeary reported from Washington and Suzanne Lynch from Brussels.
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Ukrainian forces recaptured the village of Piatykhatky in the southern Zaporizhzhia region on Sunday, a local occupying Russian official said.
This is one of Ukraine’s first wins on that front since the start earlier this month of the counteroffensive against Russia’s unlawful invasion of the country.
“The enemy’s ‘wave-like’ offensives yielded results, despite enormous losses,” said Russian-installed official Vladimir Rogov on his Telegram channel, Reuters reported.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said on Sunday that “heavy fighting has continued, with the most intense combat focused in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, western Donetsk Oblast, and around Bakhmut,” the devastated town that was captured by Moscow last month. The ministry added that in all these areas, Ukraine “has made small advances,” but that “Russian forces often conduct relatively effective defensive operations.”
“Both sides are suffering high casualties, with Russian losses likely the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March,” the U.K. ministry said.
The Ukrainian military also said on Sunday that it had destroyed a “significant” ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk in the southern region of Kherson.
Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said “our armed forces dealt a good blow in the morning — and a very loud one — in the village of Rykove, Henichesk district, in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region.” He added that “there was a very significant ammunition depot. It was destroyed,” Reuters reported.
POLITICO could not independently verify the information.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian armed forces launched a counteroffensive to try to regain control of occupied territories in the south and east of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin predicted on Friday that Ukraine had “no chance” of success in this endeavor.
Just as Kyiv’s counteroffensive was starting, the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine was blown up, forcing thousands to flee and restraining the pace of potential advancement by the Ukrainian military. Ukraine said on Sunday that the death toll has risen to 16 following the flooding, while Russian officials said 29 people died in territories controlled by Moscow, Reuters reported.
A New York Times investigation published Friday found evidence suggesting that Russian forces could be responsible for the bombing of the dam.
A delegation of African leaders led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with Putin in St. Petersburg on Saturday to try to spur peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Putin replied he was ready to review any peace plan proposal, but he poured cold water on the African initiative by listing numerous reasons why the proposed plan wasn’t meeting Russian demands. These include Russia’s right to recognize the independence of the Russian-occupied Donbas region — a red line for Kyiv.
Putin also reiterated his position that Ukraine and its Western allies had started the conflict long before Russia sent its armed forces over the border in February last year, something they deny.
“The special military operation against Ukraine, against the Kiev regime, was launched to ensure the safety of the people of Donbass … Now it is practically a war between Moscow and the collective West,” said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, state-controlled TASS news agency reported.
As gear reviews go, it was a glowing one: In a 60-second video clip posted on Telegram, a masked sniper sporting the death’s-head insignia of the Wagner mercenary army sings the praises of the Russian-made Orsis T-5000 rifle.
“The equipment comes very well recommended,” the soldier, pictured in the charred interior of a building, tells a war reporter from the Zvezda TV channel run by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Pulling out the clip of the weapon at his side, he continues: “It uses Western .338 caliber ammunition. It works very well. It can penetrate light cover if the enemy is behind it. And, in the open, it can strike the enemy at a range of up to 1,500 meters.”
Filings obtained by POLITICO indicate that Promtekhnologiya and another Russian firm called Tetis have acquired hundreds of thousands of rounds made by Hornady, a U.S. company that trademarks its wares as “Accurate. Deadly. Dependable.” Hornady, founded in 1949, sums up its philosophy with the phrase: “Ten bullets through one hole.”
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that supplies of lethal and nonlethal military equipment are still reaching Russia despite the West’s imposition of unprecedented sanctions in response to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last year. The exigencies of war have exposed Russia’s lack of capacity to manufacture high-end sniper rounds, say defense experts, and that is fueling a flourishing black market for Western ammunition.
Information on the procurement of such gear is hiding in plain sight: Details of deals — importers, suppliers and product descriptions — can be found online by anyone with access to the Russian internet and a grasp of international customs classification codes.
Anything but bulletproof
In a “declaration of conformity” filed with a Russian government registry and dated August 12, 2022, Promtekhnologiya stated that it planned to sourcea batch of 102,200 Hornady lead bullets for the assembly of “hunting cartridges” used in “civilian weapons with a rifled barrel.” The specifications — .338 Lapua Magnum bullets weighing 285 grains — match those of a product in the Hornady catalog.
A second declaration bearing the same date is for a batch of “uncapped cartridge cases for assembling civilian firearms cartridges” made by Hornady with the same .338 Lapua Magnum specification.
The description is misleading: The .338 Lapua Magnum isn’t a “hunting cartridge;” it’s a high-powered, long-range projectile that was developed by Western militaries in the 1980s and used by their snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Reached by POLITICO, Steve Hornady, CEO of the family company based in Grand Island, Nebraska, denied selling ammunition to Russia in wartime.
“The instant Russia invaded Ukraine, we were done,” Hornady said in a brief telephone call.
Hornady declined at first to elaborate and, when asked to review the evidence, requested that it be sent by fax or courier as he did not use email. He eventually responded after POLITICO sent written requests for comment with supporting documentation by courier.
“We categorically are NOT exporting anything to Russia and have not had an export permit for Russia since 2014,” he replied. “We do not support any sale of our product to any Russian son-of-a-bitch and if we can find out how they acquire, if in fact they do, we will take all steps available to stop it.”
Hornady added that he had contacted the U.S. authorities following POLITICO’s inquiry. He pointed out that current U.S. law required that customers must obtain permission from the Department of Commerce to re-export articles made in the United States. “To the best of our knowledge, none of our customers violate that law,” he said.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, asked which ammunition his troops used, told POLITICO they had “a huge amount of NATO-issue ammunition left over from the Ukrainian army.” In a sarcastic voice message sent to a POLITICO journalist, the Russian warlord also asked for help procuring F-35 combat jets and U.S.-made sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers.
Promtekhnologiya denied filing any customs declarations to import ammunition; said it had no relationship with Hornady; and that it had the capacity to manufacture its own ammunition. The company also said in emailed comments to POLITICO that the Orsis rifle and the ammunition the company makes are intended for “hunting and sporting” purposes and are freely available on the civilian market.
Both Promtekhnologiya and Alexander Zinovyev, listed as the company’s general director in the filings, have been sanctioned by Ukraine, which cites evidence that its Orsis rifles “have been used in Russian military operations in Eastern Ukraine.”
Promtekhnologiya is also in Washington’s sights: “We take any allegation of sanctions violation or evasion seriously and are committed to ensuring that sanctions are fully enforced,” a spokesperson for the National Security Council said in response to a request for comment from POLITICO.
“We have taken steps to hold Russia accountable for its war in Ukraine and have imposed an unprecedented sanctions regime to disrupt Russia’s ability to access funds and weapons that fuel Putin’s war machine. That includes sanctioning companies like Promtekhnologiya.”
Criminal, or wilful, violations of U.S. sanctions can trigger penalties of up to $1 million per violation, as well as up to 20 years’ imprisonment for individuals. Civil penalties can run to the higher of either twice the value of the underlying transaction or around $350,000 per violation.
Describing military-grade ammunition as for hunting or sporting use, as the filings do, amounts to a thinly veiled ruse to evade targeted “smart” sanctions aimed at starving the Russian military of the means to fight the war, said defense analyst Maria Shagina.
“Strictly speaking, smart sanctions are not supposed to target anything civilian to avoid humanitarian collateral damage,” said Shagina, a research fellow at the U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. “But the targets in authoritarian countries will really exploit this.”
Steve Hornady, CEO of the family company based in Grand Island, Nebraska, denied selling ammunition to Russia in wartime | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Russia reloaded
Another Russian buyer of Hornady ammunition is a company called Tetis, which has disclosed two shipments since Russia’s full-scale invasionof Ukraine beganon February 24, 2022. The most recent was in April for more than 300,000 “units” comprising a wide range of products that checked out with the Hornady catalog.
The main owners of Tetis, Alexander Levandovsky and Sergey Senchenko — who each own stakes of 41.1 percent — have links to the Russian military.
Both were previously listed as shareholders in another company called Kampo, which according to company filings holds licenses to make weapons and military equipment and has done business with the Ministry of Defense and the Special Flight Detachment that operates Putin’s presidential plane.
Although Tetis doesn’t offer Hornady ammo on its website, it does advertise itself as an international distributor for RCBS, a U.S. maker of reloading equipment. This is used to assemble cases, primer, propellants and projectiles into cartridges that can then be fired — as seen in this video posted by a Russian gun enthusiast.
A database check revealed that the most recent declaration of conformity filed by Tetis for RCBS, for electronic weighing scales, predated Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24 of last year by just over a month.
Russia’s trade bureaucracy allows local firms to vouch for the goods they are importing by filing declarations of conformity, such as those that mention the Hornady products. This means that the supplier listed on the form may not be aware of specific shipments that could have been handled by an intermediary.
Tetis did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Matt Rice, a spokesman for RCBS owner Vista Outdoor, said Tetis was no longer an international distributor for RCBS. “Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our business made the decision to end all sales of goods with the country,” Rice said in an email, adding that RCBS would remove the listing for Tetis from its website.
Doing the rounds
Hornady ammunition or its components are freely available in Russia, along with other high-end foreign military gear.
Take the “Sniper Shop” on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that is popular in Russia: It features a current offer for a full range of Hornady products, with the seller inviting buyers to visit a showroom in Sokolniki, a Moscow district, and offering delivery throughout Russia by courier or post. Contacted by POLITICO, the poster confirmed the Hornady ammo was in stock but declined to comment further on how it was sourced.
Then there is “Anton,” who advertises products from Hornady and RCBS on his profile. He also touts gear from Nightforce, maker of thermal optical sights; Lapua, which helped design the eponymous .338 ammo; MDT, a maker of chassis systems, magazines and accessories for rifles; and precision gunsmith AREA 419. All are American with the exception of Lapua, which is based in Finland and owned by a Norwegian company called Nammo.
Western high-end foreign military gear seems to be freely available in Russia | Leon Neal/Getty Images
“Anton” posted an offer for Hornady cartridges last October 24. Contacted via Telegram to ask whether he was still stocking Hornady, he replied: “We don’t do ammunition.”
POLITICO has, in the course of its research, also found declarations from several other Russian companies for ammunition made in Germany, Finland and Turkey.
The thriving black market reflects a structural deficit in Russia’s war economy. Its military-industrial complex can produce good small arms, like the Orsis rifle, but lacks the capacity to churn out the amount of ammunition needed by an army fighting a war across a front stretching hundreds of miles.
“Despite the quality of the rifles produced, a successful hit directly depends on the components used in the cartridges, and they, unfortunately, are imported,” a correspondent lamented in a post on a Russian military news site a few months into the war. Gunpowder produced in Russia lacks stability, the correspondent added, saying this is “unacceptable in the framework of high-precision shooting.”
The continuing access to specialized rifle cartridges made in the West, such as the .338 Lapua Magnum, by a sanctioned Russian small arms manufacturer like Orsis maker Promtekhnologiya is “egregious,” said Gary Somerville, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British defense think tank.
“At present, there is only one manufacturer of this cartridge in Russia,” he added. “Preventing the shipment of these types of ammunition from Western countries to Russia is an easy win for those seeking to constrain Russia’s ability to wage war in Ukraine.”
Balkan route
It’s not just ammunition from the U.S. that is reaching the battlefront around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, recently captured by Prigozhin’s mercenaries after a bloody, months-long battle.
There also appear to be cartridges from the European Union, which has imposed no fewer than 10 rounds of sanctions against Russia in a so-far inconclusive attempt to starve Putin’s war machine of the means to fight on.
Promtekhnologiya has filed four declarations since October covering shipments of 460,000 units described as “Orsis hunting cartridges” — most are of the .338 Lapua Magnum type. These identify a Slovenian company called Valerian as the supplier.
The first of the filings, dated October 13, 2022, includes an air waybill number whose first three digits — 262 — indicate that the shipper was Ural Airlines, a Russian carrier. It was not immediately possible to trace the route of the flight, however.
Valerian was founded on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with paid-in capital of €7,500 by Gašper Heybal, who previously worked for U.S. military outfitter Voodoo Tactical. On its home page, Valerian says: “Our goal is to equip you for your mission, whatever it might be, and wherever you are going.”
In online posts over the past decade — including on a Facebook Group called EU Guns with a declared mission of “easier transfer of weapons between European gun owners” — Heybal has done little to dispel the impression that he is an active small arms dealer.
Bakhmut was recently captured by Prigozhin’s mercenaries, the Wagner mercenary group| Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
The telephone number Heybal shared publicly in those posts is the same as the one for Valerian, which is registered at an address in a village around 40 minutes’ drive southeast of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana.
Reached at that number, Heybal denied that Valerian had shipped ammunition to Russia: “We don’t sell any … firearms or ammunition, and also there is an embargo on Russia,” said Heybal.
In a follow-up email on the declarations of conformity, Heybal said: “Firstly, we must stress that we do not know, nor do we understand how the name of our company, Valerian d.o.o., appears on the document.”
“Secondly, Valerian is not listed there as a supplier but as the producer, and this is not possible, as we do not produce ammunition. That being said, it still makes absolutely no sense to us as to how our name could appear on it. We are glad you brought this to our attention so we can figure out what is going on.”
A Slovenian diplomat said that, while Valerian had never applied for authorization to export weapons or ammunition to Russia, it had shipped “individual parts” to Kyrgyzstan.
The Central Asian state is one of the countries that the EU has in mind as it discusses an 11th round of measures targeting third countries that are suspected of helping Russia evade sanctions.
“The competent services in the Republic of Slovenia have already initiated the appropriate procedures to investigate the facts concerning the company,” the diplomat told POLITICO, adding that they would verify the possible diversion of goods to the Russian Federation. “Slovenia is firmly committed to supporting Ukraine, we have been supportive of all sanctions packages and especially this anti-circumvention one.”
An official at the European Commission deflected a request for comment, saying the bloc’s member countries were responsible for implementing sanctions. “As this seems like a very specific case, these allegations need to be investigated further by the competent authorities,” the official said.
Sergey Panov reported from Spain, Sarah Anne Aarup from Brussels and Douglas Busvine from Berlin. Additional reporting by Steven Overly in Washington.
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Sergey Panov, Sarah Anne Aarup and Douglas Busvine
