Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin orders former Wagner boss to control ‘volunteer units’ and rejoin frontline

Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered one of the top commanders of the Wagner military contractor to take charge of “volunteer units” fighting in Ukraine, signalling the Kremlin’s effort to keep using the mercenaries after the death of their chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In remarks released by the Kremlin on Friday, Putin told Andrei Troshev that his task is to “deal with forming volunteer units that could perform various combat tasks, primarily in the zone of the special military operation” — a term the Kremlin uses for its war in Ukraine.

Deputy defence minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was also present at the meeting late Thursday, a sign that Wagner mercenaries will likely serve under the Defence Ministry’s command. Speaking in a conference call with reporters on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Troshev now works for the Defense Ministry and referred questions about Wagner’s possible return to Ukraine to the military.

Slovaks started voting on Saturday in a parliamentary election closely fought between former leftist prime minister Robert Fico, who has pledged to end military aid for neighbouring Ukraine, and pro-Western liberals.

Final opinion polls showed the two parties in dead heat, with the winner expected to get the first chance to try to form a government to replace the caretaker administration running the country of 5.5 million since May.

A government led by Fico would mean Slovakia joining Hungary as EU countries challenging the bloc’s consensus on support for Ukraine, just as the European Union looks to keep unity in opposing Russia’s invasion.

It would also add to a bloc of eastern ex-Communist states with governments publicly hostile to liberalism, along with Poland’s nationalist PiS, which also faces an election next month, though Poland remains pro-Ukrainian.

A Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia, PS) government would stay the course on foreign policy, keeping Slovakia’s strong backing for Ukraine and putting the country in a pro-integration and liberal camp in the EU on issues such as majority voting to make the bloc more flexible, green policies and LGBT rights.

Neither Fico’s SMER-SSD (Direction-Slovak Social Democracy) nor the PS, led by European Parliament Vice-Chairman Michal Simecka, is expected to win a majority, meaning the future government is likely to depend on results for over half a dozen smaller parties, from libertarians to far-right extremists.

Slovakia holds an early parliamentary election on Saturday that pits populist former Prime Minister Robert Fico, who campaigned on a clear pro-Russia and anti-American message, against a liberal pro-West newcomer.

Fico and his leftist Smer, or Direction, party vowed to reverse Slovakia’s military support for neighboring Ukraine in Russia’s war, if his attempt to return to power is successful.

Slovakia’s vote is a key test that could put the country on a new course away from Kyiv and towards Moscow, threatening to break a fragile unity in the European Union and NATO.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was only a “matter of time” before Ukraine became an official Nato member as he met the defence bloc’s chief in Kyiv.

Kyiv has pushed to join Nato despite Russia‘s threat.

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg reiterated on Thursday that Ukraine would be a member of the trans-Atlantic military alliance. He said the bloc would stand with Kyiv as long as it takes.

Mr Stoltenberg met the war-time president in Kyiv to discuss the status of the ongoing Russian war, a day after Moscow accused Ukraine’s allies of helping plan and conduct last week’s missile strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Ukraine launched a new wave of drone strikes on Russia’s border regions of Kursk and Kaluga overnight, according to the Russian defence ministry.

At least one drone targeted a power substation, Russian officials said, blowing up a transformer and cutting power supplies to the village of Belaya, less than 25km from the border.

Kyiv is yet to comment on the attacks, which began on Thursday evening and continued into Friday morning, and does not typically claim responsibility for operations across the border in Russia.

Mexico’s president on Friday slammed U.S. aid for Ukraine and economic sanctions on Venezuela, Cuba and other nations as the first of two high-level U.S.-Mexico meetings got underway in Washington.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a broad criticism of U.S. foreign policy, saying U.S. economic sanctions were forcing people to emigrate from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The harsh comments came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai met their Mexican counterparts at the State Department. None of the officials, including Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena and Secretary of Economy Raquel Buenrostro, addressed or were asked about López Obrador’s comments.

The Russian president met Andrei Troshev, who is known by his nom de guerre “Sedoi” or “grey hair“, along with deputy defence minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov on Thursday night, the Kremlin said in a statement.

“At the last meeting, we talked about you overseeing the formation of volunteer units that can carry out various tasks, first and foremost, of course, in the zone of the special military operation,” Mr Putin was quoted as saying to Mr Troshev. Special military operation is what Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian athletes will be able to compete as neutrals at next year’s Paralympic Games in Paris despite the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

International Paralympic Committee member nations voted against a full suspension of the Russian committee at the organisation’s General Assembly in Bahrain, but a motion to partially suspend was passed on Friday afternoon.

The decision means Russian athletes will be able to compete in Paris next summer, provided they do not wear kit or fly the flag of Russia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán cast doubt Friday on the prospect of the European Union beginning negotiations any time soon for Ukraine to join the bloc, saying it was unrealistic to launch the accession process with a country that’s at war.

Speaking to state radio, Orbán noted that unanimity among the EU’s 27 member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc. In the case of Hungary, he said, the parliament would have to give the go-ahead to Ukraine, which has ambitions to join the EU within two years.

“When I’m in the chamber, I don’t feel the insurmountable desire for the Hungarian parliament to vote for Ukraine’s membership of the European Union within two years. So I would be careful with these ambitious plans,” Orbán said.

The Biden administration on Friday named Mark Lambert as its top China policy official at the State Department, appointing the veteran diplomat amid tense relations between the two powers over issues including Taiwan, trade and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Lambert will be the deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan as well as head the Office of China Coordination – informally known as China House – a team created late last year to unify China policies across regions and issues.

Reuters was first to report Lambert’s planned appointment on 29 August.

An Asia expert who did two stints at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, Lambert most recently served as a deputy assistant secretary focused on Japanese, Korean and Mongolian affairs, and on relations with Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.