In Russia, the damage is being assessed after Prigozhin’s rebellion, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are entrenched on the left bank of the Dnieper. What’s Happening on the Front Line

by THE INSIDER
11 months ago

In today's summary:

The rebellion of PMC Wagner has officially ended, but how exactly is still unclear;
Kadyrovites return to the information agenda with ridiculously pretentious videos;
"Military correspondents" report about the landing of Ukrainians on the left bank of the Dnieper near the Antonovsky bridge;
Minister of Defense of Ukraine Reznikov: the main reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have not yet been thrown into battle;
Destroyed or damaged 15% of all Bradleys intended for the Ukrainian army;
Prigozhin explained the downing of the Russian plane by "the stupidity of the PVE";
The Russians are counting the damage caused by Prigozhin's mercenaries;
Australia and the US will provide Ukraine with new military aid packages.

The consequences of the Wagner PMC mutiny

The crisis caused by the actions of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the “March of Justice” by PMC Wagner ended as quickly as it began, although it is not completely clear how exactly (the chronology of the main events can be found here ).

So far, we can say with confidence that the Wagner columns are returning to their places of permanent deployment, and agreements have been reached between the Kremlin and Prigozhin to resolve the situation.

According to the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, the Wagner PMC mercenaries who participated in the attempted rebellion will not be prosecuted, and Prigozhin himself " will go to Belarus ". Peskov does not know who the head of Wagner PMC will “work” there. Negotiations with Prigozhin, after which he announced the withdrawal of his forces, according to the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, were conducted by Alexander Lukashenko on behalf of Putin.

It should be noted that President Putin himself, after a sharp video message released on the morning of June 24, did not comment on the situation any more. In addition, it is not clear on what basis the criminal case on the rebellion will be terminated and what the wording “go to Belarus ” means.

Recall that in 2020 in Belarus , “Wagnerites” were detained and accused of trying to “destabilize the situation during the election campaign”, among them was the security guard Alexander Shubin, who died in May 2023 as a result of the assassination attempt on Zakhar Prilepin, with the call sign Evil. Then, in a sanatorium near Minsk, Belarusian security agencies detained 33 Wagnerites.

After all the events that took place in the Telegram channel of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the evening of June 24, they posted either a mocking or loyal poster with the slogan "Cohesion and Unity."

The fate of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov is still unknown. On the morning of June 26, the Ministry of Defense posted a message and a video (without sound) about Shoigu checking the forward control post of one of the formations of the Zapad group of troops. It is not possible to determine when the footage was taken.

The authors of the Rybar Telegram channel associated with the Russian Defense Ministry write that, according to their information, in the morning of June 24, Shoigu was in the building of the National Defense Control Center on Frunzenskaya Embankment in Moscow . According to the channel's sources, the Minister of Defense made a visit to the group of troops "West" even before the start of the Prigozhin rebellion. The purpose of the trip could be "preparation for a new phase of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

From the evening of June 24 until the afternoon of June 26, there were no new messages from Yevgeny Prigozhin. The last known video with him showed Prigozhin leaving Rostov-on-Don in an SUV and saying, in response to a question about the results of the “march”, that “the result is normal, everyone was cheered up.”

The day after the mutiny, Prigozhin’s press office, in response to a request for comment, replied : “He sends his regards to everyone and will answer questions when he is on normal communication.”

Toward evening, however, the main public representative of PMC Wagner finally issued a statement. It boiled down to the same thing that he said earlier: the forces of the Ministry of Defense wanted to liquidate the company before July 1, attacked the mercenaries, this became the reason for the march on Moscow, the “Wagnerites” turned back because they did not want to shed “Russian blood”.

The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been closed because, according to Kommersant's sources, "too little time has passed to make a different decision." The same was confirmed by the interlocutors of RIA Novosti.

At the same time, Wagner PMC recruiting centers continue to work in some regions. As they say in one of the Voronezh points, on June 24 it was closed, but the very next day its employees were “allowed to work”. However, far from all recruitment centers operate in a regular mode – in Moscow and St. Petersburg, calls to them remain unanswered.

Russian officials continue to make inexplicable and contradictory statements that speak of an extreme degree of uncertainty about Prigozhin's fate.

Andrey Kartapolov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense, called for the development of a law regulating the activities of private military companies and said that there was nothing to ban Wagner PMCs, they just needed to change its leadership, and “the one who rebelled” should be responsible for what happened.

Kartapolov's colleague on the committee, Andrei Gurulev, on the contrary, is sure that "specific individuals" who attacked the equipment of the Russian Defense Ministry should be responsible for the death of Russian servicemen.

Meanwhile, the edition "Layout" writes that a camp for "Wagnerites" is allegedly being built in the Mogilev region of Belarus , located 200 km from the border with Ukraine . Later, the Belarusian Gayun project, which monitors military activity in the country, stated that there was no information that this was really happening.

The rebellion organized by Prigogine made it possible, to some extent, to assess the composition of the forces and means at the disposal of PMC Wagner. According to Baza, in total, more than 1,000 pieces of equipment moved through the Voronezh region towards Moscow, including tanks, multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery pieces, armored vehicles, organized in four columns. The personnel involved in the operation probably reached 8 thousand people or a full-fledged division, according to The Telegraph, citing British intelligence sources.

On the footage of the return of PMC columns, pickups, Urals and Kamaz trucks were noted. From the military equipment in the columns there are 152-mm self-propelled guns "Hyacinth-S", 240-mm mortar "Tulip", a tank and MLRS "Grad". Also moving in columns were towed 122-mm D-30 howitzers and S-60 anti-aircraft guns mounted on dump trucks.

As for the actions of the Russian authorities, it is noteworthy that all attempts to prevent or slow down the movement of columns with the help of construction equipment and trucks put up on the roads failed (here is an example ). Attempts by the Russian Aerospace Forces to bomb roads in the Voronezh region (and, reportedly , civilians were injured) also, apparently, had no result – given that the "Wagnerites" were already noticed in the Lipetsk region , which is located closer to Moscow .

In addition, the Z-authors criticized the “thin” checkpoints set up by the Russian Guard (although later photos of special forces on one of the bridges across the Oka River with anti-tank grenade launchers appeared). The only heavy equipment of the Russian Ministry of Defense seen yesterday is a battery of 122mm D-30 howitzers that reportedly moved out of the Nizhny Novgorod region .

In addition, a certain idea was obtained about the mobility and morale of the Chechen units stationed in the NVO zone. They never managed to get to Rostov-on-Don while the Wagner PMC forces were there, and later a video appeared where they were guarding the bridge in Kolomna under a pretentious sound track, when the Wagner columns had already turned back. In the video, the Kadyrovites declare that they are defending the facility from "traitors, traitors to the Motherland, whoever they may be."

It should be noted that the M-4 highway does not pass through Kolomna , along which the Wagner PMC forces were moving towards Moscow , so the Kadyrovites could not have prevented them with all their desire.

Also, as a kind of informational outcome of the rebellion, it is necessary to note the indicative statements of the parties that have not yet been refuted by anyone:

Vladimir Alekseev, First Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces (better known by the abbreviation GRU), said in a video message that he had been performing “combat missions” together with the Wagnerites since the company was founded, in 2014-2016. In other words, one of the leaders of the GRU acknowledged the participation of Wagner PMCs (and GRU servicemen) in the hostilities in the Donbass in 2014 (more about Lieutenant General Alekseev can be found in The Insider );
Yevgeny Prigozhin said that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered "to hide in the Rostov morgue" 2 thousand bodies, "so as not to show losses." Earlier, the Russian media reported on measures taken by the authorities to reduce the scale of losses in the media field: for example, recommendations not to publish obituaries of fallen servicemen;
Prigozhin put the total losses of the RF Armed Forces at the level of 100,000, which is about twice the Western estimates ; he also declared "sanitary losses" of up to a thousand people a day (although he incorrectly included the dead, wounded, missing and "refuseniks" in this category);
Prigozhin confirmed that he owns the cash (about 4 billion rubles ) found during a search of the Gazelle, which stood in the backyard of the Trezzini Hotel, the informal head office of the entrepreneur. According to him, PMC Wagner has been using exclusively cash for 10 years, and when the "Wagnerites" worked in Africa, Ukraine, "nightmare America", then "everyone was satisfied with cash."

Summing up, if we are based on the version of the conflict settlement that was voiced by Peskov, it turns out that the Wagner PMC ceases to exist in its previous form, and Prigozhin is sent to honorable exile in Belarus .

The situation at the front

In the war zone in Ukraine, the rebellion of the “Wagnerites” has not yet led to significant consequences. As far as is known, with the exception of the Chechen units, no units were withdrawn from the front, supplies continued, command and control of troops from the headquarters of the Southern Military District and command posts on the ground was not violated.

According to the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar, since the start of the counteroffensive, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have liberated 130 square meters in the south. km, of which 17 sq. miles in the last week.

Ukrainian sources report that Russian troops have been driven out of the settlement of Rivnopol (west of Velyka Novoselka ), video evidence has been recorded from it.

The WarGonzo project of "military officer" Semyon Pegov reported on June 25 and 26 ( 1 , 2 ) about the advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine south of Orekhov in the direction of Rabotino (insignificant in depth, but on a front 10 km wide) and in the area of the Vremevsky ledge and Bakhmut (new positions at Kurdyumovka and Kleshcheevka ). The transfer of special forces of the Airborne Forces there testifies to the difficult situation on the outskirts of Rabotino .

"Voyenkor" Alexander Sladkov writes about the "difficult, difficult" situation for the Russians and "dozens" of settlements for which there are battles. He says that in the area of the Vremevsky ledge, the Russian military allowed a "deflection, but not a breakthrough" of the front. Sladkov claims that the Russians are forming "powerful reserves", and the Armed Forces of Ukraine "have nowhere to take reserves."

The founder of Azov, Andrei Biletsky, reported on the cleansing of the Russian bridgehead west of the Seversky Donets-Donbass channel on the southern flank of Bakhmut . According to him, the 1st mechanized battalion of the 3rd assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine defeated the 3rd battalion of the 57th brigade of the RF Armed Forces, killing 30 Russian servicemen and taking "a dozen prisoners." The commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, Alexander Syrsky, in turn, published a video taken during the attack described above.

Russian "military correspondents" write ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ) about a "breakthrough" in the area of the Antonovsky bridge and the capture of a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper . It is noted that attempts to dislodge the advanced groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from there were unsuccessful. The well-known Telegram channel “Channel for Special Purposes” published a video with the evacuation of the paratroopers of the “Storm” detachment using the BTR-82A. Rybar writes that the positions of the Ukrainian military were attacked by the Russian Aerospace Forces, but they did not reach their goal. According to him, more than 50 Ukrainian soldiers are near the bridge piers. The Armed Forces of Ukraine move personnel on fast boats, which are very difficult to hit with artillery or mortars.

Voenkor Vladimir Romanov (the author of the Romanov Light channel) posted a photograph of a company, probably staffed by former prisoners, which was sent to storm Ukrainian positions in the area of dachas near Oleshki – two servicemen were on the line without any shoes at all. The result of the assault, as Romanov writes, is "to put it mildly negative." He also characterizes the work of Russian aviation as "everything is past."

Another "military officer" Roman Saponkov clarifies that the bridgehead has not yet been created, but up to 50 Ukrainian servicemen have crossed and taken up defense near the Antonovsky bridge . Saponkov confirms the "low" effectiveness of airborne strikes carried out with the help of unguided bombs.

It is alleged that the Ukrainians have set up mobile EW installations, which doomed the Russians' attempts to use FPV drones (due to loss of communication).

For our part, we note that the proposed landing site is located in a heavily swampy area: it is still about 2-3 km to the “mainland” from there.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in an interview with the American conservative television channel Fox News that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are still conducting formative operations, recognizing the merits of the Russians in building powerful defensive fortifications. According to him, the main forces of the Ukrainian army have not yet joined the battle. At the same time, Reznikov pointed to inflated expectations from the counteroffensive.

Mutual shelling and sabotage

According to the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the night of June 26, 13 air targets were destroyed . Three Caliber cruise missiles were launched from a submarine in the Black Sea, two of them were shot down. Seven kamikaze drones of the Shahed family (aka Geranium) were also destroyed. Four suspected strike UAVs of an unidentified type were shot down in northern Ukraine.

During the night, the Russians launched four missile strikes on Druzhkovka , Pavel Kirilenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said. Two high-rise buildings and two private buildings were damaged, and the water supply system was also interrupted.

In the Kursk region, a drone tried to hit an oil depot. The device fell on the territory of the tank farm. The governor of the region Roman Starovoit writes that no damage or destruction of the facility was recorded. A drone over the village of Giryi was intercepted by means of electronic warfare. It is reported that he was carrying a K3-6 shaped charge, and, based on the direction of his flight, was heading towards Moscow .

In the Belgorod region , a drone dropped ammunition (presumably VOG-17) on the territory of one of the world's largest producers of artificial sapphires, BZS Monocrystal. The transformer of the electrical substation located on the territory of the plant was struck. The fire was extinguished. Also, the UAV was intercepted over the village of Dolgoye , the governor of the region Vyacheslav Gladkov writes that "the consequences on the ground are being specified."

The southwestern region of Luhansk was hit , presumably by Storm Shadow missiles. A similar attack was recorded in Donetsk .

Losses

The final alignment of the losses confirmed by photo and video materials during the rebellion of PMC Wagner, according to the Oryx OSINT project, looks like this:

On the part of the Russian Defense Ministry: one Il-22M aircraft and five helicopters were shot down, another helicopter was damaged. One armored "Kamaz" and one armored car "Tiger" were seized near the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov.
From PMC Wagner: five cars and armored vehicles were destroyed.

Telegram channel Helicopterpilot clarifies that the crews of most of the downed helicopters survived. The crew of the downed Ka-52 was killed, as well as three people from the crew of the Mi-8MTPR, whose commander managed to eject. At the same time, the latter was shot down in the Luhansk region , so it is unlikely that the "Wagnerites" have anything to do with this.

Prigozhin, according to Irina Kuksenkova, a military correspondent, explained the downing of the Il-22 by saying that “the fool pvoshnik in the convoy shot down everything that took off” and offered to pay 50 million rubles to the families of the dead pilots.

Judging by the geolocation , the plane crashed almost on the border of the Voronezh and Lugansk regions .

According to propagandist Anastasia Kashevarova, there are dead on both sides. According to various estimates, from 13 ( Fighterbomber version) to more than 20 ( Rybar version) servicemen of the Russian Aerospace Forces died.

A video appeared on social networks, in which a Russian T-80 tank of the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade destroys two Ukrainian mine-protected armored vehicles in the village of Makarovka .

According to The New York Times, U.S. officials acknowledged that at least 17 Bradley IFVs were destroyed or damaged in the UAF counteroffensive. This is approximately 15% of the supplies of this equipment to Ukraine promised by the Pentagon.

Ukrainian sources publish footage of the destruction of seven Russian trucks with ammunition by Ukrainian artillery at once in the Novohorivka area in the Zaporozhye direction . Logistical strikes became an important element of Ukrainian counter-offensives, most prominently in the attack on the Chongarsky Bridge .

Armaments and military equipment

Australia will provide Ukraine with an A$110 million aid package. В него войдут 70 военных военных автомобилей, включая 28 бронетранспортеров М113, 105-мм артиллерийские боеприпасы.

США готовятся объявить новый пакет военной помощи для Украины, в который могут войти 30 Bradley, 25 Stryker, ракеты для РСЗО HIMARS, ЗРК Patriot и другие вооружения. Интересно, что число поставляемых Bradley выше, чем заявленное число потерянных БМП, что может означать, что в США убедились в способности ВСУ эффективно применять подобную технику (или же она поставляется «впрок» с учетом будущих потерь).

Дания заявила о начале тренировок украинских пилотов на истребителях F-16. Помимо этого, в Министерстве обороны страны обещали определиться с тем, готова ли страна передать свои самолеты Украине, и если да — то сколько.

Появились новые фотографии шведских боевых машин пехоты CV9040C в Украине.