Russia-Ukraine conflict: Putin drafting Wagner Group mercenaries into nationwide guard, UK says

This wasn’t how Pavel Butorin anticipated to have fun his anniversary this week, along with his spouse of 21 years in a Russian jail and barely any communication available.

Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva — who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe — has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a “foreign agent.”

“Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison,” Butorin advised The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. “We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible,” he stated, visibly shaken.

Rosgvardiya’s nationwide guard is regarded as led by Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Wagner chief who died in a airplane crash in August of this yr quickly after the insurgent group captured Rostov-on-Don.

Other Wagner fighters are more likely to have joined Redut, one other Private Military Company, which have a complete of seven,000 personnel, say the Ministry of Defence.

Wagner group fighters additionally joined Chechen Akhmat particular forces and 170 former Wagner fighters had already joined Akhmat, based on Chechen chief Ramzan Kadyrov.

The UK authorities describes the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation.

Hungary’s prime minister stated Friday he doesn’t help transferring ahead on negotiations on Ukraine‘s future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyiv‘s ambitions to join the bloc.

EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a robust veto.

The EU’s govt department on Wednesday beneficial that Ukraine needs to be permitted to open membership talks as soon as it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orbán stated the embattled nation is nowhere close to gaining membership on this planet’s largest buying and selling bloc.

With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europe’s battlefields of World War I, individuals across the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses simply over a century in the past that was presupposed to be “the war to end all wars.”

Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming hearth from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the event and the notion that humankind may one way or the other circumvent violence to settle its worst variations.

“This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today,” stated Benoit Mottrie, the pinnacle of the Last Post Association in western Belgium’s Ypres, the place a few of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles had been fought.

Ukrainian army intelligence stated two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured autos had been hit by naval drones in a single day.

One of the boats was recognized as an Akula class vessel, whereas the opposite touchdown vessel was a Serna class.

“The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed,” a Ukraine army report stated.

As President Joe Biden likes to remind anybody who will pay attention, “This is not your grandfather’s Republican Party”.

Gustaf Kilander and Ariana Baio report:

A European Union plan to spend as much as 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on army assist for Ukraine is assembly resistance from EU international locations and should not survive in its present kind, diplomats have stated.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s overseas coverage chief, proposed in July that the bloc create a fund with as much as 5 billion euros a yr over 4 years as a part of broader Western safety commitments to bolster Ukraine because it fights Russia’s invasion.

But as EU defence ministers put together to debate the plan in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats say a number of international locations – together with EU heavyweight Germany – have voiced reservations about committing such massive sums years upfront.

The EU and its members have been among the many largest donors of army assist to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, offering arms and tools price some 25 billion euros, based on the bloc’s diplomatic service.

Borrell’s proposal was an effort to place help on a longer-term footing, by making a money pot for Ukraine assist inside a much bigger fund, the European Peace Facility, used to reimburse EU members for army help to different international locations.

“I’m not going to declare it useless at this level but. But after all, enhancements can all the time be made,” a senior EU diplomat stated on Friday, talking on situation of anonymity.

“Germany has had plenty of questions … and rightfully so. We’re speaking about plenty of money.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that his troops can nonetheless ship outcomes on the frontline and says that nation has a battlefield plan for 2024, with out revealing particulars.

“We have a plan. We have very concrete cities, very [concrete] instructions the place we go. I can not share all the main points however we now have some sluggish steps ahead on the south, additionally we now have steps on the east,” he stated. “And some, I believe good steps … close to Kherson area. I’m certain we’ll have success. It’s troublesome.”

Ukrainian forces have been attempting to determine a bridgehead on the japanese, Russian-occupied, financial institution of the huge Dnipro river in Kherson area. A fast counteroffensive liberated the area west of the Dnipro and its capital, Kherson City, almost precisely a yr in the past.

The Polish President warned that Russian imperialism as soon as once more threatens not simply Ukraine however the wider area as Poland celebrated its Independence Day vacation.

Thousands of individuals walked by means of Warsaw on Saturday in a march organized by nationalist teams, 105 years after the nation regained its statehood on the finish of World War I.

Participants carried Poland’s white-and-red flag and a few burned flares as they marched alongside a route main from the town middle to the National Stadium.

President Andrzej Duda delivered a speech on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier the place he warned: “Russian imperialism will go additional: it can need to seize extra nations, taking away their freedom and their states.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy despatched Poland a message on X, previously Twitter, telling Poles: “May your independence be invincible and everlasting.”

While many patriotic occasions take place throughout the nation of 38 million annually, the yearly Independence March has come to dominate information protection as a result of it has typically been marred by xenophobic slogans and violence.

This yr’s occasion was attended by some 40,000 and handed off peacefully, the Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, stated.