Ukraine recap: counter-offensive gathers pace while Wagner Group takes on new role
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Thursday, August 3, 2023
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Reports from the front lines of the various conflict zones reveal daily just how difficult Ukraine is finding its summer counter-offensive.
Key Points:
- Reports from the front lines of the various conflict zones reveal daily just how difficult Ukraine is finding its summer counter-offensive.
- “The number of mines on the territory that our troops have retaken is utterly mad,” he told Ukrainian television this week.
- Read more:
Ukraine war: after two months of slow progress the long-awaited counteroffensive is picking up speed.
The trouble with the Wagner Group
- This is a 60-mile stretch of Polish territory on its border with Lithuania, linking Belarus with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
- Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko mischievously quipped to Vladimir Putin that he might not be able to control the Wagner mercenaries who, he said, were itching to “go west”.
- Natasha Lindstaedt, professor of international relations at the University of Essex with a special interest in non-state paramilitary groups, says that while Lukashenko was clearly joking, mercenary companies such as the Wagner Group are notoriously difficult to control.
- Read more:
Wagner Group boss and Belarus's president are still manoeuvring for power
Scramble for Africa
- But what Putin may not be able to achieve through diplomacy in terms of influence in Africa, Russia’s Wagner Group proxies appear to be securing by propping up unstable regimes (and destabilising others) across west Africa.
- Read more:
Russia-Africa summit: Putin offers unconvincing giveaways in a desperate bid to make up for killing the Ukraine grain deal
Crimean Tatars’ guerrilla war
- Another important non-state group that is playing an increasingly prominent role in the war – this time on Ukraine’s side – are the Crimean Tatars.
- It is waging what appears to be a highly effective guerrilla campaign, disrupting logistics, sabotaging key targets and stoking discontent against – and within – the Russian army.
- Read more:
Crimean bridge attack is another blow to Putin's strongman image
Russians on the home front
- Matveeva has spoken with ordinary Russians who either donate funds or run grassroots campaigns to provide everything from stretchers and medical supplies to drones and other weaponry to help fill perceived shortfalls.
- But there’s a sense that by helping the men at the front, it could reduce the prospect that their own sons might be called up.
- Read more:
Ukraine war: how Russians are rallying on the home front to support 'their boys'