Nearly two years after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death, Russian journalist Anastasia Kashvarova has revealed why the Wagner Group chief refused to submit to the Russian Ministry of Defence. At a tense meeting on 29 June 2023, five days after the aborted Wagner rebellion, the Russian dictator demanded that Wagner’s funding and command be placed entirely under military control. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, some 35 Wagner commanders met the dictator at the Kremlin. They pledged to continue fighting in Ukraine, but were presented with an ultimatum: state funding for Wagner would continue only if all finances passed through visible government channels. Prigozhin rejected the offer, unwilling to surrender his power over the private army, despite state funding that amounted, he was told, to death benefits of more than 5 million roubles (about £53,000). Kashvarova suggests this refusal sealed both Wagner’s and Prigozhin’s fate.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s Ballista special unit struck deeply into the Kursk supply lines, destroying three vans, a mini bus, a Tiger military vehicle, a truck and two cars. By targeting enemy logistics, Ukraine aims not to chase soldiers but to deprive them of fuel and ammunition, slowing their advance and undermining their morale.
Meanwhile, Russian stormtroopers have resorted to using stolen civilian vehicles, including a Porsche Cayenne valued between €115,000 and €200,000 (approximately £99,000–£173,000), highlighting a chronic shortage of armoured transport.
Back in Moscow, the Communist Party held a ceremony on Red Square to induct children as pioneers in support of the so‑called special military operation, denouncing “neofascism” much as the Kremlin calls it. In response to growing calls for peace, Pope Leo I 14th urged both sides towards dialogue, and President Volodymyr Zelenski thanked the Vatican for hosting talks.
Russian propagandists have branded Western sanctions “acts of war” and threatened missile strikes as retaliation.
Ukraine’s defenders continue to receive vital aid. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has agreed the transfer of 49 M1 A1 Abrams tanks—used by Australia until 2024—and the first of these are already in combat roles. Additional technical and legal clearances are under way to bring the total to 85 Abrams, including 31 previously supplied by the United States.
In medical innovation, Ukraine’s 12th Azov Brigade pioneered battlefield transfusions. In February 2025, medics used a TRV‑150 drone to deliver blood, transfusion kits, warming agents, calcium, painkillers and antibiotics directly to a wounded soldier under fire, stabilising him until evacuation. This development follows a Ministry of Health training programme initiated in 2023 that now allows trained combat medics—not only physicians—to perform transfusions on the front line.
