Ukraine live briefing: Putin claims Russia would have crushed rebellion but Wagner fighters will be allowed to go to Belarus

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the short-lived Wagner mutiny in a five-minute speech Monday, saying that he took steps to “avoid much bloodshed” as the convoy of Wagner mercenary fighters marched toward Moscow over the weekend in what’s been seen as an extraordinary challenge to his authority.

Without directly naming Wagner Group leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin in his speech, Putin said “the organizers of the rebellion” betrayed their country, their people and “those whom they lured into this crime. They lied to them, pushed them towards death, under fire, to shoot at their own people.”

Prigozhin resurfaces

• In his Monday address, Putin said the armed rebellion would have been suppressed — “the organizers of the rebellion, despite their loss of adequacy, could not but understand this,” he said, not naming Prigozhin directly in his brief speech. He said they understood “that they dared to commit criminal acts, to split and weaken the country, which is now confronting a colossal external threat, unprecedented pressure from outside.”
• Putin said he worked to avoid bloodshed to give “those who made a mistake a chance to think again” and make them understand “what tragic, destructive consequences for Russia, for our state, the adventure in which they were dragged leads.”
• Prigozhin said in his video message that the rebellion, which he called a “march of justice,” came after orders that would have resulted in the absorption of Wagner mercenary forces in Ukraine into the conventional military, beginning July 1. He claimed that most Wagner members had refused to sign contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry, fearing that they would be used as cannon fodder by incompetent commanders, and he reiterated accusations that his fighters came under attack from Russian forces.
• The success of Wagner’s rapid advance toward Moscow suggests that the group should have been responsible for the drive to take Kyiv in the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Prigozhin said. If that attack “was carried out by a unit of a similar level of training and moral composure such as Wagner then perhaps the ‘special operation’ would have lasted a day,” he said.
• Prigozhin did not reveal his location. He did not discuss his reported acceptance of exile in Belarus. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday afternoon that he does not have any assessment of Prigozhin’s location.

Wagner rebellion and aftermath

• Russia is set to continue to support the Central African Republic’s government, where thousands of Wagner fighters are stationed, and to investigate accusations of Western intelligence agencies’ involvement in the weekend’s aborted armed insurrection, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian state-run television outlet RT on Monday. Lavrov noted that the U.S. ambassador to Russia opened dialogue with Moscow, calling the rebellion an “internal affair” in which the United States was not involved. President Biden addressed the weekend’s events, saying that U.S. officials kept in contact with key allies throughout the uprising and “made clear that we were not involved.”
• Russia’s Defense Ministry published a video Monday claiming to show Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu inspecting a command post in Ukraine. It was not immediately clear when or where the footage was recorded. Prigozhin has long accused Shoigu of fumbling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for his ouster.
• The brief rebellion in Russia “raises profound questions” about the country’s stability, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” Blinken and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attributed the revolt, at least in part, to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “The longer Russian aggression lasts, the more degradation it causes in Russia itself,” Zelensky said Sunday.
• Western officials are questioning whether the truce will last and are concerned that instability in Russia, a major nuclear power, could pose a risk to the United States and its allies.
• Miller, the State Department spokesperson, called Wagner’s actions over the weekend “a significant step” but said their ultimate implications remain unclear. “It is certainly a new thing to see President Putin’s leadership directly challenged. It is a new thing to see Yevgeniy Prigozhin directly questioning the rationale for this war and calling out that the war has been conducted essentially based on a lie,” Miller said at a briefing Monday.
• Zelensky visited troops in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, telling them, “Everyone in the country who is not at the front is well aware that you are doing the most difficult job today. And everyone knows that the eastern direction is very difficult and hot.”
• Ukrainian forces took back the southeastern village of Rivnopil from Russian forces, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Monday on Telegram.

Global updates

• The Wagner mutiny has brought unease to large parts of Africa where leaders who have turned to the Wagner mercenary group maintain power now face the prospect that the private paramilitary organization could be weakened, experts say. In the Central African Republic and Mali — where Wagner has its biggest presence on the continent — residents said group chats and conversations were dominated by speculation about the fallout of a Kremlin crackdown on Wagner. And here is why Russia’s Wagner Group has been in Ukraine, Africa and other countries.
• Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has called for reinforcing the border with Belarus after a weekend of political instability in Russia that resulted in Prigozhin’s reported acceptance of exile to Belarus. “We need to tighten security of our eastern borders even more,” Nauseda said Monday at a Lithuanian State Defense Council meeting, the Interfax news agency reported.
• Germany wants to permanently station about 4,000 soldiers in Lithuania to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced Monday. “It is about “defending our common freedom,” he said, according to German media.
• China has downplayed Russia’s political instability, branding the recent rebellion as “internal affairs” in Moscow. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning made the comment when asked if recent events could weaken Putin. She said Beijing supports Moscow in “maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity.”
• Australia announced a new assistance package to Ukraine that includes 70 military vehicles and ammunition. The package, worth 110 million Australian dollars, or about $75 million, “demonstrates that Ukraine can count on Australia,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement. It also includes money for a U.N. humanitarian fund for civilians in Ukraine.

From our correspondents