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Ukraine presses criminal charges against Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin
The prosecutor general’s office of Ukraine has pressed criminal charges against Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group of mercenaries fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine.
The Ukrinform website reports that the statement was published in the Uriadovyi Kuryer government gazette.
Prigozhin has been charged with encroaching on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine (Article 110 part 3 of the criminal code of Ukraine) and of waging a war of aggression against Ukraine (Article 437 [art 2).
In a grim video released over new year, Prigozhin – a long-term ally of Putin – was filmed visiting a basement near the eastern front in Ukraine filled with the bodies of his fighters, many of them convicts, who had been killed during the bitter fighting for the city of Bakhmut, a key Russian objective.
Key events
Germany approves Leopard 1 tank deliveries to Ukraine
Germany has approved a delivery of Leopard 1 main battle tanks to Ukraine from industrial stocks, government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit has said.
Hebestreit confirmed “an export licence has been issued” for the delivery by a private arms-marker of its older Leopard 1 tanks, but did not provide further details.
Süddeutsche Zeitung had reported that the German government approved German arms maker Rheinmetall’s plans to sell 88 of the older Leopards to Ukraine for a total cost of more than €100m.
Deliveries of the older Leopard 1 tanks from the industrial stocks could be made as soon as the tanks are repaired, the paper writes. However, there are still problems in obtaining the required 105-millimetre ammunition, it writes.
It comes after the German government announced it would send 14 Leopard 2 main battle tanks from Bundeswehr stocks to Ukraine.
Berlin is also considering buying back 15 Gepard tanks it had sold to Qatar, the German newspaper reported. It said several German officials had discussed with Qatar’s foreign ministry the possible purchase of Gepard tanks that Doha had bought to secure the World Cup stadiums.
The paper quoted Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, as saying:
The Gepards have proven themselves very well in the war in Ukraine. If we could get more from partners here, that would definitely help the Ukrainians.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here again, taking over the live blog from Martin Belam. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Summary of the day so far …
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Top EU officials are due to meet on Friday in Kyiv with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the European Council president, Charles Michel, as well as 15 European commissioners, traveled to the Ukrainian capital for ‘a summit meeting’. Von der Leyen is on her fourth visit to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion.
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EU leaders will seek to cool Ukraine’s expectations of a fast track to membership, while avoiding negative public statements that could weaken morale and damage Zelenskiy’s efforts to project a European future for Ukrainians. Western EU member states are concerned that Kyiv’s expectations on speedy membership talks are unrealistic.
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Zelenskiy called on Thursday for more punitive measures against Russia by the EU, but sanctions being prepared by the bloc for the anniversary will fall short of his government’s demands. “We see today that the pace of sanctions in Europe has slowed down a little,” Zelenskiy told a joint news conference. “The terrorist state increases the pace of adaptation to sanctions instead. It should be resolved. We believe that we can do it together.”
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Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, responded to the Ukrainian president’s comments on Friday, saying: “Western Europe, falling into recession, having long lost the habit of survival, is sinking, with Ukraine tied to its feet.”
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The EU has pledged to double a military aid programme for Ukraine by training an extra 15,000 soldiers as part of a blizzard of announcements aimed at showing it will “stand by Ukraine for the long haul”. Von der Leyen also reiterated that the EU would cap the price of Russian petroleum products, as part of a broader G7 plan to restrict oil revenues available to the Kremlin’s war machine.
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The prosecutor general’s office of Ukraine has pressed criminal charges against Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group of mercenaries fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine. Prigozhin has been charged with encroaching on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine and of waging a war of aggression against Ukraine.
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There are reports that one person has been killed in a car bomb explosion in occupied Enerhodar in Zaporizhzhia region. Dmitri Orlov, Ukraine’s mayor of the city, claimed the victim was a former Ukrainian policeman who had defected to help the authorities in the area of Ukraine which the Russian Federation has claimed to annex.
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The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has this morning said the war will continue in Ukraine as Donbas is not “fully protected yet”.
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Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said on Friday they had nationalised about 500 properties in the peninsula, including some belonging to senior Ukrainian politicians and business figures.
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Nato called on Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Start nuclear reductions treaty, it said in a statement on Friday.
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Norway will order 54 new German-made Leopard tanks for its army from the KraussMaffei group, the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported on Friday.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be with you for the next few hours.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has this morning said the war will continue in Ukraine as Donbas is not ‘fully protected yet’.
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass quotes him as saying:
Donbas is not fully protected yet, so a special military operation continues. Actually, we must protect the people who live there until this goal is fully achieved. This remains to be done.
Peskov went on to say that “the security of Crimea is ensured reliably”. Russia claimed to annex the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014 in a move not widely recognised by the international community.
The air alert that has been in force across Ukraine for nearly the last two hours has ended, the state broadcaster Suspilne reports.
Nato called on Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Start nuclear reductions treaty, it said in a statement on Friday.
“We note with concern that Russia has failed to comply with legally binding obligations, including on inspection, and call on Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty,” Reuters reports Nato’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in a tweet.
The main event in Kyiv today is that top European Union officials are due to meet Friday in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, as well as 15 European commissioners, traveled to the Ukrainian capital for what they described as a summit meeting. Von der Leyen is on her fourth visit to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion.
Susie Blann at Associated Press writes that the last such summit was held in Kyiv in October 2021 — a few months before Russia’s latest incursion into Ukraine. Since then, assistance for Ukraine from the EU has reached almost €50bn (£44.6bn / $55bn) since the fighting started. The EU is providing Ukraine with financial and humanitarian aid and plans to adopt a 10th package of sanctions again Russia in the coming weeks – the pace of which has been criticised by Zelenskiy.
Ukraine wants to join the 27-nation bloc on an accelarated timescale, though it could take years. In the meantime, von der Leyen said Thursday that the European Commission is willing to let Kyiv join what she called some “key European programs” that will bring benefits similar to membership. Those programs were due to be discussed in Friday’s meeting, which will also address one of the main obstacles to Ukraine’s EU membership: accusations of endemic corruption.
Norway will order 54 new German-made Leopard tanks for its army from the KraussMaffei Group, Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported on Friday, citing anonymous sources.
Reuters reports the Nordic Nato member, which shares a 196 km (122 miles) Arctic border with Russia, had planned to choose either German-made Leopard 2 A7 tanks or the rival Korean-produced K2 Black Panther.
Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said on Friday that they had nationalised around 500 properties in the peninsula including some belonging to senior Ukrainian politicians and business figures.
In a statement on Telegram, Vladimir Konstantinov, speaker of the Crimean parliament, said that the decree targeted “accomplices of the Kyiv regime” and that the nationalised properties included banks and tourist and sport infrastructure.
Reuters reports that according to a document published on a Crimean government website, properties belonging to former Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and businessmen Igor Kolomoisky, Rinat Akhmetov and Serhiy Taruta were among those confiscated.
Crimea, which is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, has been controlled by Moscow since 2014, when Russia unilaterally annexed the peninsula.
Ukraine presses criminal charges against Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin
The prosecutor general’s office of Ukraine has pressed criminal charges against Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group of mercenaries fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine.
The Ukrinform website reports that the statement was published in the Uriadovyi Kuryer government gazette.
Prigozhin has been charged with encroaching on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine (Article 110 part 3 of the criminal code of Ukraine) and of waging a war of aggression against Ukraine (Article 437 [art 2).
In a grim video released over new year, Prigozhin – a long-term ally of Putin – was filmed visiting a basement near the eastern front in Ukraine filled with the bodies of his fighters, many of them convicts, who had been killed during the bitter fighting for the city of Bakhmut, a key Russian objective.
There are reports that one person has been killed in a car bomb explosion in occupied Enerhodar in Zaporizhzhia region. The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is quoting Vladimir Rogov, leader of the pro-Russian We are together with Russia movement in occupied Ukraine.
He reported on Telegram: “It’s loud in Enerhodar. The cause of the explosion that sounded this morning in the city was a car explosion. According to preliminary data, one person died as a result of the terrorist attack. The fire has now been extinguished. Pyrotechnic teams are checking for the presence of explosives to prevent another explosion.”
Enerhodar is the city adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Dmitri Orlov, Ukraine’s mayor of the city, also posted to Telegram about the incident. He reported that the victim was a former Ukrainian policeman who had defected to work for the occupying Russian authorities. Zaporizhzhia is one of the regions of Ukraine which the Russian Federation has claimed to annex.
In his message, Orlov implied that the policemen had been targeted because of criminal and corrupt activities among the occupiers, writing:
Since the beginning of March last year and until now, Enerhodar has been a city where the occupiers have been active in criminal activities: they torture and capture people, rob the city’s residents and entire businesses. But they put in their pockets a part of what they receive from the Russian Federation to provide for their needs. Living Rashists do not need … witnesses. Therefore, they will continue to carry out similar “cleanings”. And the first one has already left.
None of the claims by either Rogov or Orlov have been independently verified.
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