Latest in Ukraine: Death Toll in Kyiv Rises From Russian Airstrikes
Latest Developments:
Wagner’s mutiny against Russian military leadership and the subsequent negotiations between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin for the de-escalation of the revolt, has exposed fresh "cracks" in the strength of the Kremlin’s leadership that may take weeks or months to play out, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday. "I don't think we've seen the final act," Blinken said on ABC News, in one of a series of interviews after the aborted mutiny by forces led by Prigozhin.
Prigozhin will move to Belarus under a deal negotiated by Lukashenko, ending Wagner’s armed mutiny against Russia's military leadership, the Kremlin said Saturday.
China supports Russia in maintaining Russia’s national stability, said the Chinese foreign ministry in a statement Sunday, after Wagner’s aborted rebellion.
The death toll from an attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early Saturday has risen to five, according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko. Rescuers discovered two more bodies under the rubble of a 24-story apartment block in the city’s Solomyanski district, Klitschko said in a Telegram post Sunday.
It was Russia’s eighth attack on the Ukrainian capital in June, said Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He added that falling debris from a Russian missile attack in Kyiv resulted in a fire on several floors of a 24-story building. He also said that air defenses had shot down more than 20 Russian missiles in the airspace around Kyiv.
Officials in Ukraine said Russia launched missile attacks on several Ukrainian cities Saturday, causing damage to buildings and casualties.
Meanwhile, 11 people, including three children, were injured in a missile attack on the city of Dnipro that destroyed four homes, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Seven of them are hospitalized, officials said.
In Kharkiv, a city of more than 1 million people just south of the Russian border, a fire was started when a gas line was hit, Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram. Terekhov said three missiles were fired at the city.
Explosions were also reported in Kremenchuk, RFE/RL reported.
Fighting rages
Meanwhile battles rage on the eastern and southern fronts. The British defense ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence report about Ukraine, that in “recent days,” Ukraine has again undertaken “major offensive operations” on three main axes in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
In the report posted on Twitter, the update said Ukrainian forces have learned from their experiences in the first two weeks of the counteroffensive and refined their tactics to assault “the deep, well prepared Russian defenses.”
Ukrainian troops have advanced in several directions around the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk oblast, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Saturday. “There is progress in all directions,” she wrote on Telegram.
Maliar said that the advances had taken place near the villages of Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Bohdanivka, Yahidne, Klishchiivka, and Kurdyumivka, adding that fighting continues in the south. “The enemy is suffering significant losses in personnel, weapons and equipment,” she wrote.
On the southern front, commander Oleksandr Tarnavskiy said Ukrainian forces liberated an area west of Donetsk that had been controlled by separatist forces since 2014, when Russia first invaded.
In Luhansk oblast, Russian forces have made a significant effort to launch an attack in the Serebryanka Forest near Kremina, Sunday’s U.K. intelligence update said, assessing, “This probably reflects continued Russian senior leadership orders to go on the offensive whenever possible.”
Russia's defense ministry said Sunday it had repelled attempted attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, Russian news agencies reported. The ministry also said it had repelled 10 attacks in the Bakhmut area, according to Russian news agencies.
The Reuters news agency could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.
US, Ukrainian reaction
The unprecedented challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin by Wagner fighters has exposed fresh "cracks" in the strength of Putin’s leadership that may take weeks or months to play out, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday in a TV interview on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”
Blinken characterized Wagner’s mutiny and its subsequent crisis as Russia’s “internal matter,” adding, “This is a challenge coming from within to Putin, and that’s where his focus has been. Our focus is resolutely and relentlessly on Ukraine making sure that it has what it needs to defend itself and to take back territory that Russia has seized.” He said that although it is too soon to tell what Russia’s internal turmoil meant, Putin’s distraction is to the advantage to Ukraine. He also said that at the end of the day, the reason Ukraine will prevail is that “this is about their land, this is about their future, this is about their freedom, not Russia’s.”
In a tweet Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the Wagner mutiny in Russia.
“Today the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability. And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons,” he said, adding, “If someone in the world is under the illusion that the Kremlin is capable of regaining control... this only postpones the problem until the next breakthrough of chaos – even more dangerous.”
Zelenskyy addressed Putin in Russian, saying, "The longer your troops remain on Ukrainian land, the greater the devastation they will bring to Russia."
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Source: Voice of America - VOA News
