Wagner mercenaries are still in Ukraine, Pentagon says

Ukraine’s military intelligence said Friday that Russia is slowly reducing its number of personnel at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.

Among the first to leave the station were three employees of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear power facility, who managed the actions of the Russians, Ukrainian officials wrote on Telegram.

Russia, which has occupied the plant since March 2022, did not immediately comment on the assertion and CNBC could not verify Ukraine’s assertion.

— Karen Gilchrist

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday told Ukraine’s leading military commanders to strengthen the country’s northern military sector close to the border with Belarus.

It comes after Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was exiled to Belarus in a deal brokered by President Alexander Lukashenko following last weekend’s failed insurrection. Satellite images released Thursday appeared to show a build-up at a military base outside Minsk.

— Karen Gilchrist

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, former U.S. President Donald Trump said that Russia’s President Putin had been “somewhat weakened” by Wagner forces’ aborted mutiny over the weekend.

Trump, a longtime admirer of Putin, said however that the Russian president remained “strong,” and noted that an alternative leadership could be “better, but it could be far worse.”

“You could say that he’s [Putin] still there, he’s still strong, but he certainly has been I would say somewhat weakened at least in the minds of a lot of people,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview on Thursday.

Trump also said that now was the time for the U.S. to broker a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv. But he said that President Joe Biden was not the right leader to do it.

Were he in charge of such talks, the ex-president said that everything would be “subject to negotiation,” noting that Kyiv may need to cede some territory — an oft stated red line for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I think they would be entitled to keep much of what they’ve earned and I think that Russia likewise would agree to that. You need the right mediator, or negotiator, and we don’t have that right now,” he said.

— Karen Gilchrist

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister said Friday that the country’s troops were “advancing in all directions” as they step up their counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces.

“If we talk about the entire frontline, both east and south, we have seized the strategic initiative and are advancing in all directions,” Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television, according to a Reuters translation.

Kyiv’s forces were moving “confidently” around the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, and with varying success in the south, according to Maliar.

“In the south, we are moving with varying success, sometimes there are days when it is more than a kilometer, sometimes less than a kilometer, sometimes up to 2 kilometers,” she said.

CNBC was unable to verify the situation on the battlefield and Russia has not acknowledged the Ukrainian gains.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russia can “still do the right thing … and stop this invasion,” U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said Friday.

Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia,” Dowden said the “best possible outcome” of the war would leave Ukrainians able to “regain their full freedom and full independence and full territorial integrity from before this invasion happened.”

He did not specify how that could come to fruition.

Asked how the U.K. would view China taking on a mediator role in the conflict, Dowden said London would “welcome any interventions to bring peace and security to Ukraine,” but that this requires sustained hostility towards Russia and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Dowden reiterated the U.K.’s stance with Kyiv and its focus on “support for people in Ukraine and the defence of freedom and security in Europe.”

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday accused Western allies of having a “schizophrenic” approach to the conflict in Ukraine, preferring to extend the fighting than bring about peace.

In comments reported by Reuters, Lavrov said that the West wanted to freeze the conflict in order to buy time to send further weapons to Ukraine. He added that Kyiv’s allies would prefer to see Russian leaders go on trial before pressing for peace in Ukraine.

Lavrov said that the continued African operations of the Wagner mercenary group, which staged a failed insurrection against Moscow last weekend, remain a matter for those governments with which they hold contracts.

— Karen Gilchrist

EU leaders see fissures in Russian unity, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told CNBC, after bloc representatives on Thursday agreed further security commitments to Ukraine.

“What is clear [is that] Russia has played on us getting tired first, so we will see cracks in our unity, but actually it hasn’t happened. We see cracks on their side. So what we have to do is to keep pressure on Russia,” the Estonian leader said.

Russia’s top brass was divided last week, as formerly allied paramilitary group Wagner fleetingly took arms against Moscow.

As the Kremlin fights internal divisions, EU heads on Thursday pledged unspecified future security commitments to Ukraine, noting in a statement that these “will be taken in full respect of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and taking into account the security and defence interests of all Member States.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will begin his country’s six-month rotating presidency of the European Union Council on July 1 with a visit to Kyiv, Spanish media outlets and the Ukrainian presidency said.

“I believe it is symbolic that this Saturday, on the first day of Spain’s presidency, Mr. Sanchez, the Prime Minister of Spain, will visit Ukraine at my invitation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “For the first time, the beginning of a country’s presidency will be emphasized by a visit to Ukraine. And this actually says a lot about how important the next six months will be for our Europe.”

Sanchez visited Ukraine earlier in February for the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Nations holding the EU presidency traditionally try to play a key role in setting the bloc’s agenda. The visit comes at a time when Ukraine is pushing for a fast-tracked accession to the European coalition.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Parts of Russian paramilitary group Wagner remain in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, U.S. Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said during a Thursday press briefing.

“On Wagner Group and its disposition, what I would tell you is, right now, we continue to see some elements of the Wagner Group in Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine,” Ryder said, according to a transcript. He did not give any more detail.

Ryder added that the U.S. continues to monitor the fate of the Wagner group “and how they will be employed going throughout the rest of this — this conflict and — and elsewhere around the world,” following the militia’s attempted insurrection against the Kremlin last week and the exile of troops leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to Belarus.

Russia has deployed Wagner capabilities both in the conflict in Ukraine and in Syria, Libya and elsewhere in Africa.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The World Bank on Thursday said it approved a new $1.5 billion loan for Kyiv, which is guaranteed by the government of Japan under the Advancing Needed Credit Enhancement for Ukraine Trust Fund.

The funds seek to bring relief to households of those impoverished or displaced by the war, bolster transparency over expenditures, and support markets.

The latest loan brings the emergency financing supplied by the World Bank and individual international donors to $37.5 billion to date, the institution said.

Antonella Bassani, World Bank regional vice president for Europe and central Asia, commended Ukraine for “taking on difficult reforms during a war, with an eye to its future and the long-term development gains of the country.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

New facilities have been set up at a military base housing Wagner fighters in the southeast of Belarus’ capital Minsk, satellite images captured by the European Space Agency appeared to show.

The images captured on June 27, seen and reported on by Reuters, show rows of long structures in a field which appeared empty less than two weeks prior.

The footage appears to support reports from Russian media that a new base for Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has been constructed near the town of Asipovichi, outside of Minsk.

CNBC could not immediately verify the nature of the construction.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed late on Tuesday that Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus and said other mercenaries had been offered accommodation at an abandoned naval base if they wish to join him.

It comes after the Wagner group launched an aborted armed mutiny against the Russian military over the weekend.

— Karen Gilchrist

Yevgeny Prigozhin — the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group who was exiled to Belarus following his attempted insurrection — has been told that he will be deprived of financing if his fighters do not sign contracts with the defense ministry, the state-owned RIA news agency cited a senior lawmaker as saying on Thursday.

The chair of the lower house of parliament’s defense committee, Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov, said Prigozhin had refused to sign the contracts and was later told that his mercenaries would no longer fight in Ukraine, state-owned TASS reported.

— Karen Gilchrist

At least 12 people were killed and 60 were injured in a Russian missile attack that hit a restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian state emergency services said on Twitter, according to a Google translation.

The toll of the dead included three children.

Emergency rescue operations have now completed, the services said.

The U.S. State Department on Wednesday “unequivocally” condemned Russia’s targeting of civilians in its latest alleged attacks against populated Ukrainian sites.

A Kremlin spokesperson reiterated Russia’s position that Moscow does not target civilian infrastructure in response to Kyiv’s accusations regarding the strike at Kramatorsk.

CNBC could not independently verify the military progress on the ground.

— Ruxandra Iordache