Russia

We may never understand the series of events and decisions that led Yevgeny Prigozhin to stage an armed rebellion against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s administration with his Wagner Group private military company, or PMC. Prigozhin was opposed to the planned forcible incorporation of Wagner into the Russian armed forces. He also came to be a sharp critic of the fabricated rationale for Russia’s war on Ukraine and the sloppy way it was being waged by its generals, who are more focused on politics than on defeating Kyiv.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has tonight halted his march on Moscow, in return for assurances from the Kremlin on his men’s safety. Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian president, brokered the agreement. Prigozhin has just released the following statement on Telegram: We marched out on June 23 on the Justice March. In one day, we got within 200 kilometers of Moscow. During this time we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now comes the moment when blood may be spilled. Therefore, understanding the responsibility that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and retreating in the opposite direction to the field camps.

The leader of Russia’s Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed Friday that Russian forces targeted his private military company, with “many victims.” The attack occurred after Prigozhin produced a video where he lambasted the Russian military brass for peddling falsehoods about the war to the Russian public and to President Putin. “The ministry of defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side,” said Prigozhin according to The Guardian, “and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO block.” “When Zelensky became president,” he added, “he was ready for agreements. All that needed to be done was to get off Mount Olympus and negotiate with him.

Vladimir Kara-Murza dies hard. He has withstood not one but two poisoning attempts by Vladimir Putin's government. He has withstood the targeting of Russia's officials. And he has borne the ramifications of the West's turn away from confrontation with a regime he understands for its villainy. Now, Kara-Murza is facing what could be a final challenge — a trial against him based on the 2022 laws against "misinformation" about the Russian military in the Ukraine war, by an authoritarian regime bent on silencing all its critics and sending them into the dark quiet of a cell where they will end their days. Kara-Murza is forty-one, the father of three, a former advisor to assassinated Putin critic Boris Nemtsov and a longtime advocate against the regime.

After thirteen months of war, Ukraine’s infrastructure is in a dire state. Its armies are preparing for a counteroffensive, and its economy is not likely to fare any better this year than it did in the last. Kyiv will need more money from the West — and the West will have to provide. The need is clear, but the will, in the United States and Europe, less so. Thankfully there is a way around this looming problem, courtesy of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.  Representative Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma has submitted the Make Russia Pay Act, which authorizes the federal government to seize, deem as forfeited, and liquidate Russian assets that are currently frozen in the US.

Relationships between dictators are bound to be a bit strange, but Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s stands out for its theatrical quality. Meetings are carefully choreographed for maximum propaganda effect. Lavish gifts and gilded state rooms are the norm. Fluent in the language of autocratic flattery, the two always have gushing praise for each other. In 2019, before traveling to Russia, Xi said that Putin was his “best and bosom friend,” while just a year earlier Putin praised Xi as being a “remarkable thinker” and “a good friend I can count on.” Leading up to this week’s visit, Putin referred to Xi as his “good old friend,” and recalling Confucius, wrote, “Isn’t it a joy when a friend comes from afar!

A US MQ-9 Reaper drone’s propeller was hit by a Russian Su-27 fighter jet over the Black Sea on Tuesday, causing the drone to lose control and crash. Before the fighter made contact with the drone, it and its wingman released fuel in what was likely an attempt to impair the American aircraft. The drone was in international airspace — which Russia seems to acknowledge — leaving no justification under international law for Moscow’s aggressive actions. Whether or not the physical contact was premeditated remains unknown. The Kremlin claims the drone’s “sharp maneuvers” caused it to crash and that its jet did not hit it.