Ukraine war latest news today live: Exiled Wagner boss Prigozhin ‘back in Russia weeks after failed mutiny’

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who last month brokered a deal to end an armed mutiny in Russia, said on Thursday that Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was no longer in Belarus.

Lukashenko said on 27 June that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus as part of the deal.

But he told reporters on Thursday: “As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus.”

The president of Belarus says Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is in St. Petersburg and his Wagner troops have remained at the camps they stayed in before an attempted mutiny against Moscow.

President Alexander Lukashenko helped broker a deal under which Prigozhin ended his abortive mutiny on 24 June in exchange for security guarantees for himself and his soldiers. The deal allowed Prigozhin and his troops to move to Belarus.

Lukashenko said last week that Prigozhin was in Belarus. He told international reporters Thursday that the mercenary chief is in St. Petersburg and Wagner troops still were at their camps.

On Monday (26 June), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ukrainian troops for advancing “in all sectors”, having spent the day presenting awards to front-line soldiers in the east and south.

“Today in all sectors, our soldiers made advances. It is a happy day,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address, which was delivered from a train after visiting two frontline areas.

Ukraine has fought back courageously against Mr Putin’s warped bid to restore territory lost to Moscow with the collapse of the Soviet Union and has continued to defy the odds by defending itself against Russian onslaughts with the help of Western military aid.

A Russian missile strike killed at least four people in Lviv on Thursday in the biggest attack on the western Ukrainian city’s civilian infrastructure since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted a one-minute video online showing buildings with parts of the roof and upper floors destroyed, windows smashed and rescuers searching through the debris for survivors. He said there would be a response.

“Unfortunately, there are wounded and dead. My condolences to the families,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app.

“There definitely will be a response to the enemy. It will be a noticeable one.”

Devastating drone footage shows the aftermath of a Russian missile attack on Lviv which has killed at least four people.

Around nine others were injured in an overnight attack, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said today.

Approximately 60 apartments and 50 cars in the area of the strike were damaged, Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.

Drone video posted by Volodymyr Zelensky shows damaged buildings viewed from above, with third and fourth floors of a building ruined.

Emergency services have been searching for people trapped in the debris in the city which has seen hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian war refugees flee to from other areas to the east.

Volodymyr Zelensky said he wanted a counteroffensive to have started earlier and had urged Western allies to supplies weapons for that to happen, according to excerpts via a translator in an interview to CNN.

“I’m grateful to the US as the leaders of our support but I told them as well as the European leaders that we would like to start our counteroffensive earlier, and we need all the weapons and materiel for that,” he was quoted as saying.

“Why? Simply because if we start later, it will go slower.”

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report today.

The international advocacy group has called on both Russia and Ukraine to stop using the weapons, and urged the US not to supply them.

Ukraine fired cluster munition rockets into Russian-controlled areas in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said, citing interviews with more than 100 residents, witnesses and local emergency personnel.

The Ukrainian attacks killed at least eight civilians and wounded at least 15 civilians in Izium, Human Rights Watch said.

The group has previously reported that Russia’s use of cluster munitions in Ukraine has killed scores of civilians, and the United Nations’ Human Rights Council has also documented the use of such bombs by both sides.

More than 120 countries have signed on to an international treaty banning the weapons, which typically scatter a large number of smaller so-called bomblets over a large area that can kill or maim unwary civilians months or years later.

Russia, Ukraine and the US have all to declined to sign the treaty.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine will serve a “strong” response to Russia for its overnight attack on Lviv which killed four people.

“Lviv. Consequences of the night attack by Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there are wounded and dead. My condolences to the relatives! There will definitely be a response to the enemy. A strong one,” he said this morning.

Former president Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis do not grasp the broader implications of their call for limited military assistance to Ukraine, former vice president Mike Pence has alleged.

“With all due respect, I think the former president and the governor of Florida just don’t understand Americans’ national interest in supporting the Ukrainian military in repelling the Russian military in Ukraine,” Mr Pence, who is competing with his White House boss and Mr DeSantis for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said during the interview before a campaign event in Sioux City.

Mr Pence, who visited Ukraine last week, said, “Make no mistake, China is watching.”