Ukraine Update…491 days into the Russian move on Ukraine…Ukraine Offense….Yards NOT Miles…..

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

• Questions have swirled, according to Russian media and the country’s elites, concerning the whereabouts of a top general who was leading the war in Ukraine,The Washington Post reported. As Russians brace for a broad investigation into last weekend’s Wagner rebellion, national media has raised questions about Gen. Sergei Surovikin, commander of the Russian aerospace forces, who had good relations with Wagner boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin and reportedly intervened amid Prigozhin’s demands for ammunition.
• “We need to make sure that we provide the Ukrainian military with what they need to push back on and defeat Russian aggression here,” Pence told reporters. “We’ll make it clear to Russia, to China and any other nations in the world that would seek to redraw international lines by force that the free world will not stand for it. The free world will stand together for freedom, and it’s my great honor to help deliver that message here in Ukraine today.”
• In expressing support for aid to Ukraine, Pence, so far the only GOP presidential hopeful to visit, sought to distinguish himself from Republican critics of the policy, including former president Donald Trump and other presidential contenders.
• Two sisters, ages 17 and 14, were among those killed in a restaurant strike in Kramatorsk, the city council said on Telegram. An 8-month-old was among about 60 people injured in the attack. The popular Ria Lounge was struck by an Iskander ballistic missile, Ukrainian officials said.
• Ukraine’s intelligence agency said it arrested a local gas transportation company employee on charges of aiding in the Kramatorsk attack. The employee is accused of surreptitiously filming the restaurant and its vicinity for Russian security services.
• Before his mutiny, Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin was told by Russian officials that his forces could no longer participate in the war, Duma defense committee chairman Andrei Kartapolov said Thursday. According to Kartapolov, Prigozhin was informed of the decision after he refused to sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Prigozhin arrived in Belarus after the insurrection and was offered an abandoned military base for his forces.
• Russian media published images of Putin briefly interacting with a cordoned-off crowd on a major street in the city of Derbent. He visited the area Wednesday while on a trip to the North Caucasus region, days after a mutiny by the Wagner Group presented the most serious challenge to his rule since he rose to power more than two decades ago.

• European leaders agreed at a Brussels summit to continue their “long-term” support for Ukraine. Members pledged “future security commitments to Ukraine, which will help Ukraine defend itself in the long term, deter acts of aggression and resist destabilization efforts,” according to a version of the text dated Wednesday and seen by The Washington Post. If formally approved, the agreement would signal Europe’s long-term commitment to Ukraine, while falling short of the mutual self-defense pledges that a NATO membership provides.
• A group of countries, including Ukraine, said they will refer the 2020 shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger jet to the International Court of Justice. Iran shot down the plane in January 2020, killing all 176 people aboard. In a statement, the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752 — which represents Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and Britain — said it was making the referral because no agreement has been reached between Iran and the coordination group to organize arbitration.
• A Vatican delegation traveled to Moscow to meet with top Russian officials as part of Pope Francis’s efforts to promote “a much-wished-for peace,” the Vatican’s envoy to Moscow, Giovanni D’Aniello, said Thursday. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who visited Kyiv earlier this month, was due to meet with Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a Putin ally, and Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. The talks did not yield any agreement, but the sides agreed to continue dialogue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state media outlets.
• Israel cannot allow the United States to give the jointly developed Iron Dome air defense system to Ukraine, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, citing concerns that Israeli weaponry could be seized on the Ukrainian battlefield and end up in Iranian hands. “We have concerns that I don’t think any of the Western allies of Ukraine have,” he said.
• Putin’s position has been diminished by the Wagner rebellion, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a television interview, adding that the West was not involved in the short-lived mutiny. The ramifications of the rebellion for the conflict in Ukraine remain unclear, he said.

• Ukrainian troops are “seizing the strategic initiative” at the front despite strong Russian resistance, Ukrainian armed forces chief Valery Zaluzhny told U.S. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a phone call, Zaluzhny’s office said Wednesday. “We are advancing,” Zaluzhny said, reiterating Kyiv’s need for military aid to help it neutralize minefields. According to U.S. assessments, Ukraine has made limited gains in the early weeks of its counteroffensive, with a focus on breaching Russia’s “initial security zone,” The Post reported.
• The loss of a Russian Il-22 airborne command-post plane during Wagner’s rebellion is likely to deplete Moscow’s military capacity and undermine morale, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Thursday. Wagner forces shot down the plane and at least six helicopters during the mutiny, according to open-source intelligence analysts. British intelligence officials said the plane was one of 12 “high value” airborne command and control posts orchestrating military efforts from the safety of domestic airspace.
• Belarus said it agreed to establish joint military training centers with Russia on its territory. These centers are meant to implement combat training and exchange information about weaponry, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said on Telegram. Analysts have said, however, that these measures are part of Russia’s attempt to eventually bring Belarus under its control, even as Minsk claims credit for helping to stave off the Wagner rebellion.

On this part of the eastern front, Russia is still on the attack:As Ukraine continues to report small gains on several fronts in its counteroffensive, Russia is driving the fighting in the forests near the eastern Russian-occupied town of Kreminna, Francesca Ebel and Kamila Hrabchuk report. The Kremlin has strengthened forces in the region in a bid to retake towns and cities that Ukraine has liberated, according to Ukrainian fighters…..

More….

*Missing General Was Secret Member of Wagner Group