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“We are lacking 70% of the needed ammunition!” Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin says in a video posted on Telegram. Shining a small flashlight on the corpses laying outdoors near what appears to be the front lines of the war, Prigozhin claims they are the casualties of just one day of fighting. “Shoigu, Gerasimov, where … is the ammunition?” says Prigozhin, calling out Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the Russian armed forces Gen. Valery Gerasimov. In February, he accused the two men of “treason” for their alleged failures to support and supply the Wagner group in Ukraine. Shortly after that posting, he made another saying a shipment of ammunition was on its way to the Wagner troops.

☆ Head of Wagner mercenary group threatens to withdraw from Bakhmut
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Josh Pennington | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —The head of the Russian private military company Wagner has threatened to withdraw his mercenaries from the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut if they don’t receive more munitions to continue the fight. The pointed warnings for Russian defense officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, come as Bakhmut remains heavily contested. “I am appealing to Sergei Shoigu with a request to issue ammunition immediately. The mercenary leader has a track record of misleading statements and did not provide evidence for his statements. Prigozhin, whose forces have played a key role in Russian assaults on Ukrainian territory including Bakhmut, has often clashed with Putin’s generals and other defense officials in Moscow.

☆ Putin's political enemies and Kremlin critics face an 'extremely dangerous' situation in Russia right now
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Holly Ellyatt | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

"All of the opposition political leaders are either in jail or under restrictive measures or outside of the country. The oppression of political opposition figures in Russia is nothing new. Some accuse the Russian state of trying to poison them, while others have died in suspicious circumstances. Evgenia Novozhenina | ReutersThe persecution of political opposition figures attracted global attention in 2020 when the high-profile Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya agreed that "it's extremely dangerous" to be a critic of the Kremlin now, no matter what your background is.

☆ Be 'a real man,' Russia tells men as it looks recruit more fighters for war in Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Holly Ellyatt | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Another ad showed men in everyday jobs and situations and alternatively as soldiers, concluding with the phrase: "You're a real man. One ad, Reuters noted, invited men to sign a contract with the Russian defense ministry for a salary starting at 204,000 Russian rubles ($2,495) a month. Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty ImagesThe U.K.'s defense ministry noted Sunday that Russia had launched "a pervasive campaign" aimed at attracting new recruits. "The new adverts appeal to potential recruits' masculine pride, appealing for 'real men', as well as highlighting the financial benefits of joining up," it said via Twitter. " Nonetheless, the ministry said it was highly unlikely that the campaign will attract the Russian defense ministry's reported target of 400,000 volunteers.

☆ Ukrainian forces reportedly cross a key river, raising hopes
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Ukrainian military forces have successfully established positions on the eastern side of the Dnieper River, according to a new analysis, giving rise to speculation Sunday that the advances could be an early sign of Kyiv's long-awaited spring counteroffensive. In the south, the Dnieper has for months marked the contact line in the Kherson region, where its namesake capital is regularly pummeled by shelling from Russian forces stationed across the river. The think tank cited comments from financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group — a private Russian military company whose fighters have spearheaded the offensive on Bakhmut. Russian forces on Saturday and overnight also dropped five guided aerial bombs over the Kherson region, Ukraine's Operational Command South said in a Facebook post Sunday. In the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, Russian shelling wounded a 56-year-old man in Stepnohirsk, a town on the banks of the Dnieper river, local Gov.

☆ Seeing Opportunities, World Powers Take Sides in Sudan War
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Declan Walsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

NAIROBI, Kenya — As war consumes Sudan, nations from around the world have mobilized swiftly. A Libyan warlord offered weapons to his favored side, American officials said. Even the leader of Russia’s most notorious private military company, Wagner, has gotten involved. Publicly, he has offered to help mediate between the rival generals fighting for power, but American officials say he has offered weapons, too. “The U.N. and many others want the blood of the Sudanese,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner founder, said in a statement.

Azamat Uldarov, a former convict, made his retraction in a video call with Russian news agency RIA-FAN. I had to say it because I had no choice.”“I said whatever I was told to say,” Uldarov then said. Osechkin also claimed that both interviewees, Uldarov and Savichev, had been threatened with murder if they didn’t retract their statements to him. Savichev told Gulagu that his unit was ordered to kill any men 15 years old or older. Wagner has been seeking Savichev for the past 24 hours, according to Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Many other hospitals were also reported to have come under attack on Monday, the third day of fighting in Sudan. Russia has also been trying to make inroads in Sudan, and members of the Kremlin-affiliated Wagner private military company are posted there. Leaders from around the world called for a cease-fire, but it was not clear who, if anyone, was in control of Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country, by area. “Everyone is afraid,” said Ahmed Abuhurira, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer who went out to try to charge his cellphone. “The humanitarian situation in Sudan was already precarious and is now catastrophic,” he said.

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - Senior officials from the United States, Europe and Britain met on Thursday with financial institutions to brief them on efforts by Russia to evade Western sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine, a senior U.S. Treasury official told reporters. The firms - from the United States, Britain and Europe - assured the officials that they were working hard to avert Russian efforts to evade sanctions and export controls, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Washington on Wednesday imposed sanctions on over 120 targets, including entities linked to Russian state-held energy company Rosatom and firms based in partner nations like Turkey in a sign of stepped-up enforcement. Treasury's top sanctions official, Undersecretary Brian Nelson, will visit Switzerland next week to discuss further moves to crack down on sanctions evasion, with additional stops in Italy, Austria and Germany, Reuters reported last week. Elizabeth Rosenberg, Treasury's assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crime, will travel separately to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Wagner private military company founder and financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has called for the entire Russian society to be mobilized, saying people are ready to contribute to Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine. "It is not only the mobilized who should be mobilized, those who go to the front, but all the society should be mobilized,” Prigozhin said in an audio posted on his Telegram channel, in reaction to Russia’s new electronic conscription bill. Unlike Prigozhin, the Russian government continues to deny it is waging a war in Ukraine, referring to the conflict as a "special military operation." The Wagner leader criticized Russian officials who fled the country with their wealth and said the whole "system" needs to be shaken. "The system requires global sanitation and a reduction in the number of participants in this bureaucratic community."

☆ Russia's e-conscription overhaul underlines scramble for military manpower
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

It is going to be much more difficult to dodge," said Artyom, who asked for his surname to be withheld. The new law appeared part of a renewed push to generate more manpower for Russia’s military in Ukraine, where analysts say a much-anticipated winter offensive appears to have fizzled out without meaningful gains for Moscow. On March 30, British Defence Intelligence said that Russia planned to recruit an additional 400,000 professional soldiers, echoing Russian media reports. Mike Kofman, an expert in the Russian military at the U.S.-based CNA think-tank, has said that only a small proportion of Russia's troops in Ukraine are capable of offensive operations. Meanwhile, a physical recruitment drive is being rolled out across Russia.

The sanctions, imposed by the Treasury and State departments in concert with Britain, hit entities and individuals across over 20 countries and jurisdictions, including facilitators of sanctions evasion, the State Department said in a statement. Separately, the Treasury said it imposed sanctions on Russian financial facilitators and sanctions evaders around the world, including Turkey, United Arab Emirates and China-based people and companies. The Treasury also targeted King-Pai Technology HK Co, Ltd, which it said is a China-based supplier for multiple entities in Russia's military-industrial complex. Washington has not yet imposed sanctions on Rosatom itself. "It will always be a race between sanctions enforcement and sanctions evaders.

☆ A former Russian military intelligence officer has defected to Ukraine and is setting up his own battalion of dissidents
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A former Russian intelligence officer has defected and says he's setting up a pro-Ukrainian unit. Ethnic minorities in Russia are treated like second-class citizens, he said, according to Ukrainian outlet Focus. Ammosov served in the GRU — the military intelligence wing of Russia's army — for 15 years before moving to Europe, Radio Free Europe reported. None have had a formal explanation, which has led to speculation that they were targeted by Ukrainian commandos or Russian dissidents. According to Focus, Ammosov's unit is the fourth such dissident unit to be formed.

☆ How Russia’s Offensive Ran Aground
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Josh Holder | Marco Hernandez | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +15 min

But within months of the invasion, Russia’s rapid advances ran out of steam, even as it narrowed its ambitions and focused on eastern Ukraine. No Russian gains No Russian gains No Russian gainsIn September 2022 Grid of cities taken by Russia in the Donbas in September 2022. No Russian gains No Russian gains No Russian gainsIn October 2022 Grid of cities taken by Russia in the Donbas in October 2022. Russia captured the small salt-mining town. Kurdiumivka Soledar Kurdiumivka Soledar Russia captured the small salt-mining town.

☆ Russia wants to ditch the Wagner Group and replace it with another private army that's easier to control, UK intel says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tensions between Wagner and Russia's Defense Ministry have been simmering for months. Russia might replace the Wagner group with another private military company that it can exert "more control" over, the British Ministry of Defense tweeted on Tuesday. It comes as a very public feud between Russian military leaders and the Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have spiraled out of control. This led to the Kremlin cutting all ties with the group, Prigozhin said last month. A spokesperson for Russia's Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

☆ Ukraine war live updates: Wagner mercenaries claim Bakhmut 'legally' captured; Russia investigates killing of pro-war blogger
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Holly Ellyatt | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

The head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine said Monday that his units had technically captured the town that has been the epicenter of fighting in Donetsk for months. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, posted a video on his Telegram channel saying the flag had a tribute on it to the Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who died in an explosion at a St. Petersburg cafe on Sunday evening.

☆ Russia's arrest of Evan Gershkovich is the first time the country has accused an American journalist of spying since the Cold War. The Wall Street Journal calls the targeting of their reporter 'a vici
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

An American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on Thursday. He is the first American reporter detained by Russia for spying since the Cold War. Gershkovich, a New York-born journalist based in Moscow, was detained in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural mountains. The Wall Street Journal has not been in contact with Gershkovich since his arrest, but the outlet vehemently denies that he was doing anything other than reporting while in Russia. Emma Tucker, editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Friday that US State Department officials are working with the outlet to find a way to get Gershkovich released from Russian custody.

The Treasury said that Mkrtychev's negotiations with North Korean and Russian officials "detailed mutually beneficial cooperation," adding that Mkrtychev confirmed Russia's readiness to receive military equipment from North Korea with senior Russian officials. Russia's embassy in Washington and North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In December, the White House said private Russian military company, the Wagner Group, took delivery of an arms shipment from North Korea to help bolster Russian forces in Ukraine. In November, after the White House said Pyongyang was covertly supplying Russia with a "significant" number of artillery shells, North Korea said it had never had arms dealings with Russia and has no plans to do so. Reporting By Arshad Mohammed, Daphne Psaledakis and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Josie KaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Russia's Wagner chief says battle for Bakhmut has damaged his forces
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] A general view shows a building damaged by a Russian military strike, amid their attack on Ukraine, in the frontline city of Bakhmut, in Donetsk region, Ukraine February 27, 2023. REUTERS/Alex Babenko/File PhotoMarch 29 (Reuters) - The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group acknowledged on Wednesday that fighting for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut had inflicted severe damage on his own forces as well as the Ukrainian side. "The battle for Bakhmut today has already practically destroyed the Ukrainian army, and unfortunately, it has also badly damaged the Wagner Private Military Company," Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio message. Russian officials say their forces are still capturing ground in street-by-street fighting inside Bakhmut, but have so far failed to encircle it and force the Ukrainians to withdraw, as had seemed likely weeks ago. British military intelligence said on Wednesday the Ukrainians had successfully pushed the Russians back from one of the city's main supply routes.

☆ Wagner chief tells Russia's Shoigu of coming Ukrainian attack
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

In the letter published by his press service, Prigozhin said the "large-scale attack" was planned for late March or the start of April. The unusual move appeared to have two possible aims: to wrongfoot Ukraine commanders and to seek to pin blame on Shoigu, not Prigozhin, if the purported Ukrainian manoeuvre proved successful. He said Wagner forces currently controlled 70% of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which they have been trying to capture since last summer in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. He gave no evidence to support his assertion that Ukraine might launch a full-scale attack on a Russian city. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for such incidents but has described them as "karma" for Russia's invasion.

☆ Russia is recruiting female convicts to serve in Ukraine amid growing battlefield losses, reports say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Reports have emerged of Russian efforts to recruit female convicts to fight in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said a carriage full of female prisoners was seen heading towards Donetsk. The report suggested that Russia was seeking to find new sources of fighters against a backdrop of heavy losses. The region borders occupied Ukraine by way of the Kerch bridge that connects Russia to Crimea. Prigozhin later announced that he was ending this policy, amid reports that inmates were put off by the mounting death toll.

☆ Ukraine, Russia locked in brutal battle in Bakhmut, casualties mount
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/3] Men stand near buildings damaged in recent shelling in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 12, 2023. "In less than a week, starting from the 6th March, we managed to kill more than 1,100 enemy soldiers in the Bakhmut sector alone, Russia's irreversible loss, right there, near Bakhmut," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. Russian forces sustained 1,500 "sanitary losses", soldiers wounded badly enough to keep them out of action, Zelenskiy said. Dozens of pieces of enemy equipment were destroyed as were more than 10 Russian ammunition depots, he said. ($1 = 0.9396 euros)Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Himani Sarkar; Editing by Robert BirselOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Russian mercenary chief sets out ambitions for an 'army with an ideology'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MOSCOW, March 12 (Reuters) - The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary force said in an interview published over the weekend that he had ambitions to turn his private military company into an "army with an ideology" that would fight for justice in Russia. "After the capture of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), we will begin to reboot," Prigozhin said in a clip posted on Telegram channels associated with Wagner. "The Wagner private military group must turn from just a private, the best, army in the world which is capable of defending the state, into an army with an ideology. But his public profile, political influence, and fondness for profanely lambasting top army brass and anyone else in his way has angered some in government who want him reined in. Prigozhin has repeatedly denied harbouring any political ambitions.

☆ After losing more than 30,000 soldiers, the brutal Wagner Group is now recruiting in Russian schools
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Katie Balevic | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The Wagner Group, which has lost 30,000 soldiers in Ukraine, is now recruiting in Russian schools. It's opened six recruitment centers to attract "impressionable" youth recruits, an ISW report said. The Wagner Group, considered President Vladimir Putin's private army, has already lost some 30,000 fighters to death and injury since Russia started the war last February, Insider previously reported. In Apatity, Murmansk Oblast, members of the Wagner Group shared "heroic stories" and promoted the "little Wagner" youth camp in Crimea, according to the ISW report. In the past, Putin has also relied on the Wagner Group for Russian influence efforts in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, and Syria.

☆ Wagner Group mercenaries are being butchered in Ukraine, but US intel expects them to keep stirring up trouble elsewhere on Russia's behalf
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The notorious Wagner Group has operated around the world on Russia's behalf for years. For years, the Wagner Group has put boots on the ground in countries across Africa and the Middle East. A pedestrian walks past a mural depicting the logo of the Russian mercenary 'Group Wagner' and a slogan in Russian on January 20, 2023 in Belgrade, Serbia. Graves of Russian Wagner mercenary group fighters are seen in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya in Krasnodar region, Russia, January 22, 2023. Like Russia's regular military, Wagner has endured heavy losses on the battlefield.

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