Images emerged on social media Wednesday of St. Petersburg’s opulent space and its contents seized from the head of the Wagner Military Company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, as he made his mutinous march on Moscow. They appear to be part of an ongoing effort to degrade the symbol of the mercenary warlord in Russia, from which he is now exiled. This effort included a measure to ensure that Prigozhin’s call no longer appeared in the Russian media. It was last heard from two days ago.
Among the pieces noticed in Prigozhin’s mansion are gold bars, a closet full of wigs (probably costumes for the bald kingpin), a trophy hammer, and a cache of weapons that’s a bit conservative for a guy running a global mercenary operation.
Also pictured is a whirlpool bathroom, an ornate pool table in his office and an equipped hospital room.
His Robinson R44 helicopter is also at the scene.
Unlike the maximum houses of the infamous, Prigozhin’s platform also had a framed photo of severed heads.
But apparently, after the raid, much was forgiven, as the FSB returned a lot of its loot.
On July 4, Wagner’s boss in a BMW accompanied by his security forces in a Land Rover showed up at the FSB in St. Petersburg to retrieve the weapons that had been seized from him, Russian media outlet Fontanka reported.
A few days earlier, Fontanka reported that 10 billion rubles ($110 million) seized from Prigozhin had already been returned to him.
“The cash discovered in a gazelle in the courtyard of the Trezzini Palace hotel and in a van in the underground parking lot of the River House hotel (both hotels on Vasilyevsky Island),” the publication reported.
According to Fontanka, two Saiga carbines, an Austrian Stey carbine, an Arka semi-automatic rifle and several other rifles and pistols were among the pieces returned to Prighozin.
However, the most respected of all those weapons, a Glock Prigozhin pistol awarded through Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to Fontanka. Shoigu, in particular, bore the brunt of Prigozhin’s anger. “genocide” against their own “for the murder of tens of thousands of Russian citizens and the transfer of Russian territories to the enemy. “
Before we get into the latest news from Ukraine, readers of The War Zone can catch up on our past here.
While Ukraine continues its counteroffensive on various issues in the east and south, the fiercest fighting is taking place, as it has been for about a year, in and around Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defense minister.
“Our defense forces are hitting the enemy in the east so hard that in some spaces their military sets have started to abandon their positions,” Hanna Maliar said Wednesday on her Telegram channel.
As a result, the Russians have begun to “blockade units” and “with weapons pointed at their backs, seek to ensure the stability of the troops,” he said.
Russian troops hold their positions in Bakhmut, where there has been fighting on the northern flank around the city “without significant advances,” he said.
“The enemy is trapped in the city thanks to our fighters. He can’t move completely, he can’t leave the city. There is a very important call in society to receive constant news from the front, but the main news is that the Russians with such strength, but cannot advance.
While the U. S. As the U. S. celebrated Independence Day with fireworks, Ukrainian forces put on their own explosive display. They reportedly hit several Russian logistics nodes and Russian artillery batteries with bursts from the M270 multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS), according to Ukrainian newspaper Euromaidan Press.
The first targets a warehouse at the Sarmat factory, located just a hundred meters from the rail connection, Euromaidan Press reported.
The goal of the moment in the dual city of Donetsk-Makiivka, according to the publication.
“Geolocated photographs imply that a strong explosion occurred on the territory of the metallurgical plant. The factory itself is incredibly large, which is why the Russians used it to collect tons of ammunition,” according to Euromaidan Press. “The explosion was so strong that smoke covered several cities. Sources affiliated with the Ukrainian military showed that the Ukrainians controlled to attack a Russian ammunition depot that had just gotten massive supplies.
A video emerged from such in this area.
There was also a video showing the obvious consequences of the attack, which allegedly took place in an unfinished residential domain of Makiivka, also spelled Makeevka.
These moves “were aimed at reducing ready-to-use Russian resources on the Eastern Front to undermine Russian defensive capabilities, i. e. around Bakhmut,” the publication reported. better window of opportunity to move forward because, as you will recall, the Ukrainians have only one fortification left to triumph over before they can expand south of Bakhmut. “
Euromaidan Press also reported that Ukraine also carried out several HIMARS attacks around this time against Russian artillery positions. The publication claimed that nine Russian artillery systems of various types had been destroyed, although we cannot independently verify this.
Russia has already suffered massive losses, even before the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
That’s for Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, head of the British armed forces, for the Financial Times.
The Russian military has lost some of its combat effectiveness in Ukraine, adding up to 2500 tanks, Radakin said, according to the publication.
Rejecting suggestions that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is proceeding slowly, Radakin claimed that it is “never a singular act” and that the Kiev army’s strategy of “starving, stretching and hitting” gradually breaks Russian defensive lines, the Financial Times reported.
“How to take a front line more than a thousand kilometers long and make it more of a challenge for Russia than for Ukraine?” Radakin told a parliamentary hearing. “That’s why you see various axes and feints in Ukraine. ” Echoing earlier statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Radakin claimed that the “higher than expected” density of Russian minefields, the lack of a Ukrainian air canopy, and “not all of the [military] apparatus that [Kiev] wanted” had confused the campaign.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) chased Radakin away.
“British Admiral Radakhin’s estimates of Russian armor losses published through the FT, combined with the alleged loss of ‘half of its combat capability’ of the Russian armed forces, are discouraging by the extent of the lie,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. on a Wednesday on his Telegram channel.
Although no “visible indications of mines or explosives” were discovered in a recent inspection of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), greater access is needed, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on Wednesday.
Grossi’s comes after either side claimed the other was about to attack the facility, the largest in Europe. Although there have been claims that the attack would take place on July 5, that date came and went without incident.
Ukrainian President Volodymry Zelensky said Tuesday that Russia has placed explosive-like items on the roofs of several of ZNPP’s plants.
Zelensky’s comments came here after Major General Kyrulo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR), told us that “Russia, on a technical level, has everything ready to orchestrate a technological crisis at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. “”
“The component of the station, which, if the resolution is taken, has the maximum probability of exploding, is the synthetic pond on the territory of the station that supplies cooling,” Budanov told us. “So what they’re about to do is damage a link in the system, which will lead to this technological crisis scenario that no one can prevent or mitigate. Because search and rescue operations in a combat zone are impossible. “You can read about this and much more in our recent interview with him here.
Meanwhile, Russian said Ukraine plans to attack the facility with long-range missiles and drones, Russia’s official TASS news firm reported.
Concern about what will happen to the ZNPP led Ukrainian officials to tell the public what to do if something were to happen.
Ukrainians are also reacting with their dark humor to the situation.
IAEA experts “have inspected parts of the facility in recent days and weeks, adding sections of the perimeter of the giant cooling pond, and have also made normal visits, so far without observing any visual indication of mines or explosives,” Grossi said today.
The most recent satellite photographs from Planet Labs show them appearing on the roof of one of the reactor buildings, but it is not yet known what it is.
The tug-of-war over the ZNPP is taking an opposite position against the backdrop of comments made through Russia about the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has waved the nuclear saber several times and recently announced that he has moved tactical nuclear weapons to the state of his ship from Belarus.
“These threats worried Western countries so much that the United States, the United Kingdom and France, NATO’s three nuclear powers, were sending a joint message to Russia promising to retaliate with traditional weapons if Putin used nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to the former US official. United States and Russia,” the Financial Times noted at the time.
On Wednesday, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council and Putin’s political right-hand man, Dmitry Medvedev, again raised the specter of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. He warned that there are two paths to peace. The first is that the U. S. its allies cut off materials to Ukraine, thus destroying Kiev’s ability to protect itself. The other, Medvedev said, is Russia dropping a nuclear weapon on Ukraine in a scathing reference to the two atomic bombs the U. S. dropped on Japan to end World War II. .
Medvedev’s nuclear strike comes despite Chinese Premier Xi Jinping’s non-public warning to Putin that he opposes the use of such weapons.
Xi told Putin that “Beijing harbors considerations about Russia’s war even as it provides tacit aid to Moscow,” the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing Western and Chinese officials. to Moscow in March, the others added, one of Xi’s first trips outside China after years of isolation as part of his zero-covid policy. Since then, Chinese officials have privately taken credit for convincing the Russian president to renounce his veiled threats. use nuclear weapons in opposition to Ukraine, the other people said.
In May, we told you that the Ukrainian Air Force claimed that a formula of MIM-104 Patriot missiles intercepted an air-launched Kh-47 Kinzhal “hypersonic” ballistic missile over Kiev. But a Chinese official that month doubted that would happen, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, visited Kiev in mid-May and said he did not know that US-made Patriot air defense missile systems had managed to strike Russia’s Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and refused to see evidence that this had happened. the Financial Times reported.
Another stretch of M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles has arrived in Ukraine. Since sending Ukraine its initial contingent of 109 OSD variants and 4 B-Fist versions, the United States has promised Ukraine two more deliveries totaling forty-five Bradleys. These sets retain their abandoned beige camouflage, for now.
In addition to offering a cell strike, the Brads were touted for the survivability they presented to the crews, which the Ukrainian troops complement in the video below. You can read more about what Bradley brings to the table for Ukraine in our deep dive here.
Given the huge number of waterways and wetlands that Ukrainian troops have to pass through, the OT-64 SKOT amphibious aircraft carriers provided by the Czechs and Poles are certainly useful.
Ukraine is in negotiations with Turkey over its 155mm Firtina self-propelled howitzers. In an interview with Ukrainian state media Ukrinform, deputy head of the Main Operational Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov, said the Firtina was expected.
“. . . the arrival of new systems that have already been used through sets of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, such as Archer, Firtina, is expected,” Gromov said.
Images of Russian laser-guided artillery shells from Krasnopol made the impression on social media. Unlike Excalibur precision artillery shells donated through the United States that use GPS and inertial steering to locate targets, such as the American Copperhead projectile, Krasnopols are guided through a laser designator. The Excalibur, with a diversity of about 32 kilometers, can also hit targets at a greater distance than Krasnopol.
Russia has lost at least its fifteenth T-90M main war tank, according to open-source tracking organization Oryx, which mentions the Ukraine Weapons Tracker organization. The figure is probably higher because Oryx only counts losses for which there is visual evidence.
Ukraine is also wasting tanks, in this case a destroyed Leopard 2A6 tank in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. According to Oryx’s most recent figures, Ukraine has noticed two such variants destroyed, two broken and one broken and abandoned. This tank is included in this table.
Anti-tank guided missiles are a mainstay for both sides in this conflict. You can see a Russian BMP destroyed through one of those weapons in this video below.
Russian Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters continue to chew Ukrainian targets, in this case a Strela-10 air defense system. You can read our report on the resurgence of the Russian rotary-wing air force near the front here.
Other “protective cage” inventions have been detected, this time a major innovation in the most sensitive of an M109L self-propelled howitzer presented in Italy.
Improvisations of Ukrainian weapons continue to appear. In the case of this video below, it is part of a dozen AK-74s combined as an anti-drone weapon. It’s unclear if it works, as the video doesn’t show him shooting, but it looks weird and the mechanics are all over there.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to mount 25mm naval M-3s on MT-LB armored vehicles, as can be seen in this configuration filmed somewhere in Ukraine.
Russia has also brought this monstrous technique, a pickup truck with a rocket launcher fixed on top.
We have shown you videos of the horrors of trench warfare before, however, this Ukrainian married couple, wedding photographers-turned-war reporters Konstiantyn and Vlada Liberohas, shared the pursuit of troops after that fight.
Perhaps jealous of Ukraine’s notorious trench beaver, Russia stores photographs of a raccoon accompanying its frontline troops. But Ukraine is wrong because they say it was stolen from Kherson Zoo through retreating Russian forces.
And finally, Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Budko, who lost both legs protecting his nation, proved that there is life after serious war wounds. Budko recently danced with a Ukrainian ballet group at an exhibition in California.
That’s all for now. We will update this story when there is more news about Ukraine.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone. com