Reuters World News - What's next for Putin and Ukraine after mutiny

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin breaks his silence for the first time since a group of mercenaries threatened to march on Moscow. We look at how this Russian infighting could impact the battlefield in Ukraine and the balance of power back home. Plus, the most important day of the haj pilgrimage. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt-out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, Putin breaks his silence with a defiant speech. But can the Russian leader reassert control after the weekend revolt? We look at the future of the Wagner Mercenary group at the center of the short-lived rebellion and what it means for the battle for Ukraine. It's Tuesday, June 27th. This is Reuters World News with everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Kim Vinal in London. A visibly angry Vladimir Putin

speaking publicly for the first time in two days, insisting that any armed rebellion would have been suppressed. The Russian president's fiery words came after the extraordinary events of the weekend when the mutinous Wagner militia succeeded in driving an armed convoy to within 125 miles of Moscow. Putin made no reference to Wagner leader, Yevgeny Progogsian, in his speech.

Progogsian himself said in an audio message that they did not intend to overthrow the government. He said they just wanted to register a protest over what he said was Russia's ineffective management of the conflict in Ukraine. So what does this mean for Putin? Our Russia chief political correspondent Andrew Osborne has more. Andrew, one of Progosian's demands was that defence minister Sergei Shogu be sacked. Will Putin give him what he wants? This is a very tricky issue for Putin, right? He obviously is the commander in chief of the armed forces, the president of the Russian Federation.

He doesn't want to be seen as giving in to demands, right, from some renegate mercenary leader. But on the other hand, clearly, there's a lot of criticism, not just. just from these mutinous mercenaries, but from others on the political scene in Russia of the military leadership and of how Russia has prosecuted what it calls a special military operation in Ukraine. So it's a very difficult circle for Putin to square.

What happens to the Wagner fighters after this? According to the Kremlin, those who took part in this armed mutiny, they cannot stay in Russia. and it sounds like they are going to go to Belarus, which is where Yuginibri Gorsin, the Wagner's head, is himself meant to be going. That was we think about maybe 5,000 to 8,000 fighters.

So they would go to Belarus. So, of course, there is speculation that these Wagner fighters may well use Belarus as a launch pad themselves to try to open a new front against Ukraine and the Ukrainian capital Kiev would definitely. then potentially be in reach. Although I have to say, the Ukrainians say Ukrainian military spokesmen that they are aware of this possibility of this risk and that this is something that they are prepared for, that very well defended against. And I think one spokesman said it would

be suicide for the Wagner fighters to try to do something like this. So can Ukraine leverage all of this turmoil and use it to turbocharge its counter-offensive? Tom Boundforth in Kiev explains why it might not be as simple as that. The mutiny obviously comes at an important juncture in the war with Ukraine in the early phases of its long-touted counter-offensive. It has reported fresh territorial gains in the south and the east in the last couple of days, but it remains to be seen if Ukraine capitalised with a major breakthrough on the battlefield. It certainly raises questions about Moscow's ability to grind Ukrainian forces down, right? There's definitely been a feeling of point in this war that the Kremlin thinks it could hold out

and simply outlast Ukraine in the West in the long grinding war. But the events over the weekend paint a picture of a Russian political system that is under strain. And there are also big questions as to why Wagner's mercenaries were able to barrel hundreds of kilometers towards Moscow from Rastov without being stopped. That could suggest that Russia's reserve forces are really thin away from the front line, which is not a good indication of Russia's overall force strength. And there is also the possibility that other agencies or prominent players of the Russian sister were somehow involved in mutiny. So it's still really early days to be drawing kind of categorical conclusions.

But neither of those things that I mentioned would suggest that Russia can keep up a long slog. What if the Wagner group is removed from the front line? So Wagner has been Russia's most effective fighting force during the war in the war. Ukraine, they were instrumental in capturing the Ukrainian city of Bahmoud, which is one of the few Russian successes of the last sort of half year. So obviously, it's a boost for Ukraine that they could be taken out of the equation and just kind of turned into sort of regular Russian forces. However, to put it into perspective, it's probably not a huge boost for Ukraine because Russia is still firing missiles and drones at Ukraine on a daily basis, and it still has a vast

force inside the country. It has possibly hundreds of thousands of soldiers in heavily fortified positions that they've been building up for months to prepare for Ukraine's counter-offensives. Now, two other headlines making news around the world. Donald Trump's election campaign is lobbying for changes to Republican Party voting rules to boost his chances for the 2024 primary race. The former president's team is reaching out to Republican state parties to push for changes such as early votes and holding caucuses instead of primaries. Pfizer has said it's scrapping its once-a-day experimental obesity pill because of concerns about liver safety.

It said it will instead continue developing the twice-daily treatment inuglipron as it races to rival the success of other weight loss treatments. Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are getting into Formula One. Flush from their success with the Wrexham Football Club, they're part of an investor group taking a 24% equity stake in the Alpine Formula One team. Joe Biden and every living former US president except Donald Trump, a direct descendants of slaveholders. The discovery was uncovered by Reuters journalists reporting into the links between slavery

and the US political elite. The special series of stories kicks off today, and you can check it out on Reuters.com and the Reuters app. Our weekend episode of the podcast will focus on slavery and the United States, so be sure to tune in for that. Chinese premier Li Qiang telling global business leaders that China is on track to reach its annual economic growth target of around 5% this year. It is the lowest GDP growth target in decades, and analysts who were more bullish before are now downgrading their outlooks. But Li did assure

the World Economic Forum in Tianjin that Beijing would support flagging growth. And that has helped the mood on markets. Here to tell us more is Carmel Crimmons. Carmel. So the UN and Asian stocks have perked up. European stocks are rising and Wall Street looks set to open higher. Investors have definitely been reassured by those comments from Lee. Investors are also going to be focused on comments later on from ECB president Christine Lagarde. They'll be looking at for clues on European interest rates. Changing tech a little bit calm. I can see Bitcoin is doing pretty well this morning. What's going on there? Bitcoin is up 20% over the past two weeks. What's going on? BlackRock is going on. So that's the world's biggest asset manager. It's filed for a Bitcoin exchange traded fund,

and that's got the market super excited. Previously, the regulator, the SEC, has always rejected any application for a physically backed Bitcoin exchange traded fund. So the fact that BlackRock has applied for one has people thinking, perhaps the SEC might give the green light this time around, and that would be a huge boost to that market. In Saudi Arabia, Muslim pilgrims set off at dawn to Mark Arrafa, the most important day in the annual Hajj. Hajj, a once-in-a-lifetime duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it, is considered the world's biggest religious gathering. Worshippers could be seen heading out for Mount Arafat, where Prophet Muhammad is.

is believed to have delivered his final sermon to followers 14 centuries ago. Saudi Arabia is preparing to host some 2.6 million pilgrims for the 2023 Hajj season after removing all COVID-19 restrictions. Prices are steep this year, but pilgrims said they were happy to take the spiritual journey despite the cost. Egyptian pilgrim, Al-Amer Eid al-Omar, said that even if he had to sell everything to come to Hage, he would have done it. That's it for today's edition of Reuters World News.

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