Vladimir Putin, in his message to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, accused the West: “It was they who started the war. And we used force and are using it to stop it!” Yevgeny Prigozhin said that the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense is seeking to destroy the Wagner PMC and equated this to treason. According to him, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov prohibited helping PMCs with transport, ammunition and even sapper shovels.
The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case against a military doctor who refused to participate in hostilities in Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden arrived in Kyiv. The Pentagon announced the allocation of another $460 million to help Ukraine.
During the years of the second Russian-Chechen armed conflict, thousands and thousands of people were kidnapped and disappeared into obscurity. If for some of them relatives have guesses and suspicions that they were taken away on some, albeit often dubious, basis, then why were others kidnapped? This remains a mystery to this day. Death squads are behind many of these crimes.
Heavy fighting for Bakhmut continues. Russian media report the advance of the Wagner PMC north of Bakhmut in the village of Paraskovievka. Ukrainian sources claim that southwest of Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces managed to push back Russian troops in the area of the village of Ivanovskoye.
Wagner PMC mercenaries complain about the lack of ammunition near Bakhmut.
The Russian army fired at an ambulance station in the city of Berislav, Kherson region.
The Gray Zone Telegram channel published a video of the extrajudicial execution of a former Russian prisoner, who allegedly went to war with Ukraine as part of the Wagner PMC, surrendered to the Ukrainian military, and was then kidnapped by former colleagues and executed with a sledgehammer blow to the head.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reports record losses of the Russian army, including due to unsuccessful attempts to attack Ugledar. Thus, over the past 24 hours, 1,140 Russian military personnel have been eliminated. The total losses of the Russian Federation in manpower reached 136,880 killed.