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https://nordictimes.com/world/the-wagner-groups-rebellion-is-over/

World

The Wagner group’s rebellion is over

The war in Ukraine

Published 25 June 2023
– By Editorial Staff
Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group seized military bases in Rostov.
5 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

There was no protracted civil war and the Wagner group never entered Moscow. After mediation, they will return to their military bases and their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin will leave Russia for Belarus. It is also clear that the participants in the armed revolt will not be prosecuted for their actions.

The Russian-Jewish leader of the private paramilitary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has recently launched a fierce attack on the Russian military leadership, accusing it of corruption, mismanagement of the war, lying about Russian successes and losses, and failing to supply enough ammunition or equipment to his soldiers – allegedly leading to many unnecessary deaths in Ukraine.

 

On Friday, he sharpened his tone further, accusing Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu of ordering an attack on the Wagner group, saying that the Russian military leadership is “evil” and that this is why they decided to march towards the city of Rostov – a march for justice, according to Prigozhin.

The Russian Defense Ministry quickly denied all allegations that it had attacked the Wagner group’s positions, and the FSB security service also declared that it was launching an investigation into Prigozhin for staging an armed rebellion on Russian territory – and called on Wagner soldiers to arrest the leader.

President Putin called the Wagner group’s actions “a stab in the back of our country and our people”, adding that the mutiny comes at a time when Russia is “fighting for the life and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence” – and called for an immediate end to all internal conflicts that could be exploited by the enemy. Troops from Chechnya and elsewhere were also mobilized to be deployed against the Wagner Group if necessary.

The Wagner group, reportedly consisting of around 25,000 soldiers, also captured several key military installations in Rostov without apparently encountering any major resistance, although there were reports of some clashes between the Wagner group and the Russian military.

Marched on Moscow

Prigozhin soon announced that he and his troops are continuing the march – towards the capital Moscow, to ensure that the Russian military leadership is held accountable and their actions investigated. In Moscow, the alarm was raised, police and military were deployed on the streets and Putin declares that the Wagner group was engaging in “treason” and that the consequences will be very severe. Prigozhin countered by criticizing Putin on Telegram and claiming that Russia will soon have another president.

According to some reports, the Wagner group also captured the city of Lipetsk – 40 miles south of Moscow and several other smaller towns along the way.

On Saturday evening, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that the Wagner Group will stop all troop movements towards Moscow – in order to “avoid bloodshed” and that his soldiers will return to their military bases. Shortly thereafter, control of the military bases was also returned to the Russian military.

– They wanted to disband PMC Wagner. On June 23, we went on a March of Justice in a day. We advanced on Moscow just 200km short, and during this time we did not shed a single drop of the blood of our fighters, he claimed, although several video clips appear to show fighting between the paramilitary group and the Russian military.

Belarusian mediation

The march to Moscow was stopped shortly after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s staff announced that they had successfully mediated the conflict between Prigozhin and the Russian leadership.

”Yevgeny Prigozhin accepted the proposal of President Alexander Lukashenko to stop the movement of the armed men of Wagner in Russia and to take further steps to de-escalate tension,” a Belarusian presidency statement declared. It also stated that the groups leader had been offered “an advantageous and acceptable option for resolving the situation, with security guarantees for the Wagner PMC fighters”.

According to the Kremlin, an agreement has been reached to dismiss the investigation into Prigozhin’s treason and incitement to armed rebellion, and for him to leave Russia for Belarus. The Wagner Group soldiers will also not face prosecution as they are considered to have served well in the war in Ukraine and President Putin is said to have great respect for their sacrifices. Those Wagner Group soldiers who did not take part in the coup will also be allowed to sign contracts with the Russian armed forces, but exactly what happens next to the group, its leadership and its tens of thousands of remaining soldiers remains unclear.

Speculation on motives

In the West, observers have different theories and thoughts about the background of the failed coup and Prigozhin’s motives for it. Some suggest that Prigozhin is seeking more power and influence and saw a chance to challenge Putin and the highest Russian leadership – but that he did not receive the military support he hoped for in his ‘march on Moscow’ and was therefore forced to back down – and is now in exile in Belarus.

Others suggest that it was a power struggle between Prigozhin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, with the former provoking a reaction from the Wagner group by limiting their access to weapons and ammunition – something the Wagner group says has led to unnecessary losses.

Prigozhin has also harshly criticized the Russian military leadership’s strategy in Ukraine, publicly claiming that Russian troops are poorly led and equipped and have difficulty resisting the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

”In my view the actions by Prigozhin are an act of desperation because he has lost the power struggle against Shoigu and is likely facing serious retaliation. Western media claims this is an attempted coup against Putin. That’s nonsense. The popularity of Putin within Russia and in the non-western world has never been higher. However this war between Prigozhin and Shoigu is an unwelcome distraction for the Kremlin and the most likely outcome will be the arrest or termination of Prigozhin”, writes political commentator Kim Dotcom on Twitter.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

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https://nordictimes.com/world/von-der-leyen-eu-could-send-tens-of-thousands-of-soldiers-to-ukraine/

World

Von der Leyen: EU could send tens of thousands of soldiers to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

Published 1 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, it is obvious that the EU will continue financing Ukraine's military.
3 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

European leaders are working on what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calls “quite precise plans” for troop deployments in Ukraine following a potential peace agreement.

However, how this would be financed and what powers the troops would have remains unclear.

In an interview with Financial Times, von der Leyen claims the plans have full American support and that President Trump has promised American presence as backup.

— Security guarantees are paramount and absolutely crucial. We have a clear road map and we had an agreement in the White House and this work is going forward very well, states the European Commission President.

According to the EU leader, the troop deployment could involve tens of thousands of European soldiers, supported by American command and control systems. However, exactly how many countries would participate or what their mandate would be is not clear at present.

The plans are said to have been discussed at last month’s meeting in Washington between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders. The same group is expected to meet again in Paris on September 4th, this time at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Sudden confidence in Trump

After European leaders spent months worrying about Trump’s statements about quickly ending the war and reducing American support to Ukraine, von der Leyen now presents him as a reliable partner.

— Putin has not changed, he is a predator. Trump wants peace and Putin is not coming to the negotiation table. He has a negative experience with Putin, more and more Putin does not do what he says, she claims.

Defense ministers from the so-called coalition are said to have met last week according to von der Leyen and “worked out pretty precise plans”. At the same time, she acknowledges that troop deployments are among the most sensitive decisions a nation can make.

— Deploying troops is one of the most important sovereign decisions of a nation, but the sense of urgency is very high. It’s moving forward. It’s really taking shape, says von der Leyen.

Who will pay the bill?

The EU leader signals that EU taxpayers will have to bear a significant part of the financing of Ukraine’s defense even after a peace agreement. The European Commission will examine new funding sources for what she calls “sustainable financing of the Ukrainian armed forces as a security guarantee”.

— After any peace deal, Kyiv would need quite a sizeable number of soldiers and they need good salaries and of course, modern equipment it’s for sure the EU that will have to chip in, she continues.

In addition to existing support, according to von der Leyen “an extra payment” will be provided for the Ukrainian armed forces. Member countries are also urged to use a loan fund of €150 billion for continued weapons purchases for Ukraine.

Despite the ambitious plans, there are still no answers to fundamental questions about how long a potential deployment would last, under what legal framework it would take place, and what happens if not all EU countries want to participate.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

https://nordictimes.com/world/shocking-reports-about-the-ukrainian-army-1-7-million-dead-wounded-and-missing/

World

Shocking reports about the Ukrainian army: 1.7 million dead, wounded, and missing

The war in Ukraine

  • Russian hackers claim to have accessed and leaked what they allege is information from the Ukrainian General Staff's databases.
  • According to this information, Ukraine has lost over 1.7 million soldiers in the fighting since 2022 in the form of dead, missing and wounded.
Published 29 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to the hackers' claims, the figure represents a total of 621,000 Ukrainian losses so far in 2025.
4 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

The hacker groups Killnet, Palach Pro, User Sec and Beregini claim to have gained access to several terabytes of sensitive information by infiltrating computers and local networks of the Ukrainian General Staff. The database allegedly contains full names of dead soldiers, descriptions of circumstances and locations of their deaths or disappearances, personal data, relatives and photos.

According to these figures, Ukraine is said to have lost 118,500 soldiers in 2022, 405,400 in 2023, 595,000 in 2024 and a record-high 621,000 during the first eight months of 2025. In total, this would amount to approximately 1.7 million lost soldiers.

Three wounded for every killed soldier

Grigory Kryukov, vice chairman of the Russian Union of Afghan and Special Operations Veterans and one of the developers of a mathematical model for calculating losses, emphasizes that the figures should be understood as total losses that include not only dead, but also wounded, prisoners of war and deserters.

According to his calculations, the number of irreversible losses – those who will never return to service – amounts to approximately 400,000. The remainder includes over one million wounded and a smaller proportion of deserters.

Kryukov explained that military assessments typically use a ratio of one to three, meaning that for every soldier killed, three others become unable to continue serving through injuries, capture or desertion.

Ukraine is estimated to be able to mobilize between 1.2 and 1.5 million people. Irreversible losses in the region of 400,000 could thus constitute a very serious problem and risk triggering a systemic crisis in the armed forces and even threaten Kiev’s survival.

Ukraine: “Absurd fake”

In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CBS News that only 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since 2022, with an additional 380,000 wounded. The figures from the hackers thus present a completely different picture than the losses previously reported from Kiev.

Analyses of losses in the Ukraine war otherwise vary very significantly, with the Russian military consistently reporting higher losses among Ukrainian soldiers than Western assessments. From Moscow’s side, they claim that losses increased particularly after Kiev’s failed counteroffensive in 2023 and that in February they calculated that more than 1.08 million Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded.

Suspicions that Ukraine has concealed its losses have recently also appeared in conventional mass media in the West. For example, French newspaper Le Monde reported last month that “the real death toll is likely much higher” and cited Ukraine’s increasing efforts to build military cemeteries.

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) under the National Security and Defense Council completely rejects the hackers’ claims, dismissing them as lies.

“Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlets are spreading claims that Russian hackers allegedly breached the General Staff’s database and obtained information about ‘1.7 million dead and missing Ukrainian soldiers’ since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In reality, this is an utterly absurd fake, as Ukraine has never had a standing army of 1.7 million personnel throughout its independence”, writes the CCD in a statement.

“The goal of this fake is to demoralize Ukrainians, convince the world of the ‘exhaustion and ineffectiveness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,’ and weaken international support for Ukraine”, they further declare.

“Lost several generations”

Ukrainian parliamentarian Artem Dmytruk has also commented on the reported losses and his picture differs drastically from Kiev’s official position.

“The lists of the missing today contain more than a million people, and of course these people are most likely dead, while their families remain in complete ignorance. The situation is tragic, the situation is frightening”, said Dmytruk in an interview with Russian RT.

He warned that villages have been emptied of men, including elderly and disabled people, and that Ukraine faces “huge losses” and a “demographic crisis”.

“We have lost several generations”, he said, calling for peace on the grounds that both Ukrainians and Russians are dying unnecessarily.

It can meanwhile be noted that Dmytruk today has a very strained relationship with Zelensky’s government. He fled Ukraine in August 2024 and is currently wanted. The charges concern alleged assault of a soldier and a police officer as well as attempting to steal a weapon. From exile, he has taken an increasingly critical stance toward the Ukrainian government and their handling of the war and has often appeared as an expert commentator regarding Ukraine in Russian media.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

https://nordictimes.com/culture/woody-allen-added-to-ukrainian-kill-list/

Culture

Woody Allen added to Ukrainian “kill list”

The war in Ukraine

Published 29 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Woody Allen, 89.
2 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

American director and actor Woody Allen has been added to Ukraine’s controversial Mirotvorets list. The reason is said to be his video appearance at a film festival in Moscow.

Woody Allen, 89, has been placed on Ukraine’s disputed Mirotvorets database – also known as the “kill list”. The list describes Allen as an “enemy of Ukraine” and accuses him of participating in “a Russian propaganda event”.

The background is that Allen recently participated via video link in Moscow International Film Week. There he spoke primarily about his long career and his personal experiences as a filmmaker.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry condemned his participation and described it as “a disgrace and an insult to the victims among Ukrainian actors and filmmakers”.

Allen: “Putin is wrong”

As a consequence, the Lviv National Academic Theatre in western Ukraine has canceled planned productions of Allen’s musical Bullets Over Broadway.

The Oscar-winning director has defended his participation and emphasizes that his appearance was not political.

– I believe strongly that Putin is totally in the wrong, Allen said, but stressed that artistic conversations should be able to continue.

Mirotvorets has existed since 2014 and lists people considered to threaten Ukraine’s security or participate in Russian propaganda. The site has long been criticized internationally, as several people added to the list have been subjected to threats, violence and even killed.

Banned from Hollywood

Woody Allen has been the subject of allegations of sexual abuse against his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow, which her mother Mia Farrow claims occurred in 1992.

The alleged abuse was investigated at the time by social services and police, but the case was dropped without charges due to lack of evidence.

In connection with the controversial #MeToo movement, the allegations gained new life and sparked extensive debate, although again without any actual legal proceedings taking place.

Allen has since been effectively banned from Hollywood, but has continued to release films internationally, including Rifkin’s Festival (2020) and Coup de chance (2023).

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

Fact: Mirotvorets "death list"

Mirotvorets, which roughly translates to "peacemaker" or "peacekeeper" in English, is a Ukrainian database that publishes names of individuals considered to threaten Ukraine's security or participate in Russian propaganda. The list was started in 2014 and is highly controversial, criticized for lack of transparency and linked to threats and violence against listed individuals.

Among examples of confirmed and notable names on the list are:

  • Alexander Ovechkin, Russian hockey player, listed for his support of Putin.
  • Roger Waters, musician and activist, after statements supporting Russia's position on Crimea.
  • Gerhard Schröder, former German chancellor, listed for "pro-Russian" statements.
  • Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister, placed on the list in 2022.
  • Zoran Milanović, Croatia's president, added for "pro-Russian" comments.
  • Vasyl Lomachenko and Oleksandr Usyk, Ukrainian boxers, listed after participating in Russian projects.
  • Anatolij Shariy, Ukrainian opposition politician and journalist.

Sources: Wikipedia ("Myrotvorets"), UNIAN, OSCE, Human Rights Watch.

https://nordictimes.com/world/moscow-zelensky-has-no-mandate-to-conclude-peace/

World

Moscow: Zelensky has no mandate to conclude peace

The war in Ukraine

Published 26 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov once again points out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's presidential term actually expired long ago.
2 minute read
Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov opens the door to talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. At the same time, he states that any peace agreements require a legally legitimate signatory – something Zelensky is not since his presidential mandate has formally expired.

In the interview, which was broadcast on NBC on Sunday, Lavrov leaves the door open for direct negotiations between President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky – “provided this meeting is really going to decide something”. At the same time, he points out that the necessary groundwork for such a summit is still lacking.

The Russian foreign minister argues that Zelensky functions as Ukraine’s “de facto leader of the regime,” but simultaneously highlights what Moscow sees as a decisive problem.

— The issue of who is going to sign the deal on the Ukrainian side is a very serious.

— We would need a very clear understanding by everybody that the person who is signing is legitimate, Lavrov explains further.

No new elections during war

The core of Moscow’s criticism lies in the fact that Zelensky’s presidential mandate formally expired over a year ago. The Ukrainian president has not called new elections, citing the current state of emergency due to the war. This has led Moscow to officially declare him “illegitimate”.

Lavrov goes so far as to dismiss Zelensky’s recurring requests for a meeting with Putin as “basically a game” – and an attempt to strengthen his own questioned position.

— A game he is very good at playing because he wants theatrics in everything he is doing. He does not care about substance, says the Russian foreign minister.

“Zelensky said no to everything”

Regarding prospects for meaningful negotiations, Lavrov points to what he describes as Kiev’s unwillingness to compromise. As an example, he mentions how Zelensky previously allegedly defied then-US President Donald Trump.

— Zelensky said no to everything… He clearly stated that nobody can prohibit him from joining NATO… he publicly stated that he is not going to discuss any territories.

Russian demands for a peace solution stand in sharp contrast to Ukraine’s position. Moscow insists that Ukraine must remain neutral, undergo demilitarization and “denazification”, as well as “recognize the current territorial realities on the ground” – meaning giving up claims to areas now under Russian control.

From the Ukrainian side, there have been signals that Zelensky is indeed prepared to discuss the country’s territorial disputes with Russia – but without any intention of formally recognizing any territorial losses.

Editorial Staff
editorial@nordictimes.com

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