Putin orders former Wagner commander to take charge of ‘volunteer units’ in Ukraine

Putin orders former Wagner commander to take charge of ‘volunteer units’ in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, second right, and Chairman of the St. Petersburg regional public organization "League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts" retired Andrey Troshev in Moscow. (AP)
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Updated 02 October 2023
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Putin orders former Wagner commander to take charge of ‘volunteer units’ in Ukraine

Putin orders former Wagner commander to take charge of ‘volunteer units’ in Ukraine
  • Order signals the Kremlin’s effort to keep using the mercenaries after the death of their chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin
  • Wagner mercenaries have played a key role in Moscow’s war in Ukraine, spearheading the capture of Bakhmut in May after months of fierce fighting

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered one of the top commanders of the Wagner military contractor to take charge of “volunteer units” fighting in Ukraine, signaling the Kremlin’s effort to keep using the mercenaries after the death of their chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In remarks released Friday by the Kremlin, Putin told Andrei Troshev that his task is to “deal with forming volunteer units that could perform various combat tasks, primarily in the zone of the special military operation” — a term Moscow uses for its war in Ukraine.
Wagner fighters have had no significant battlefield role since the mercenary company captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the war’s longest and bloodiest battle and then withdrew to march toward Moscow in a brief insurrection.
After the aborted mutiny in late June, speculation has been rife about the future of the mercenary group that provided one of the most capable elements of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. Many observers expected it to be folded into the Defense Ministry, and Putin’s comments appeared to confirm that process was underway.
Since Prigozhin’s death, Wagner troops in neighboring Belarus, where they had moved following their mutiny, have reportedly been packing up and dismantling their camps.
Troshev is a retired military officer who played a leading role in Wagner since its creation in 2014 and faced European Union sanctions over his role in Syria as the group’s executive director.
Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was present late Thursday at Putin’s meeting with Troshev, a sign that Wagner mercenaries will likely serve under the Defense Ministry’s command. Speaking in a conference call with reporters Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Troshev now works for the Defense Ministry and referred questions about Wagner’s possible return to Ukraine to the military.
The meeting appeared to reflect the Kremlin’s plan to redeploy some Wagner mercenaries to the front line in Ukraine following their brief mutiny and the suspicious deaths of Prigozhin and the group’s senior leadership in an Aug. 23 plane crash. The private army that once numbered tens of thousands of troops is a precious asset the Kremlin wants to exploit.
The June 23-24 rebellion aimed to oust the Russian Defense Ministry’s leadership that Prigozhin blamed for mishandling the war in Ukraine and trying to place Wagner under its control. His mercenaries took over Russia’s southern military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and then rolled toward Moscow before abruptly turning back.
Putin denounced them as “traitors,” but the Kremlin quickly negotiated a deal ending the uprising in exchange for amnesty from prosecution. The mercenaries were offered a choice to retire from the service, move to Belarus or sign new contracts with the Defense Ministry.
Putin said in July that five days after the mutiny he had a meeting with 35 Wagner commanders, including Prigozhin, and suggested they keep serving under Troshev, who goes by the call sign “Gray Hair,” but Prigozhin refused the offer.
Wagner mercenaries have played a key role in Moscow’s war in Ukraine, spearheading the capture of Bakhmut in May after months of fierce fighting. Kyiv’s troops are now seeking to reclaim it as part of their summer counteroffensive that has slowly recaptured some land but now faces the prospect of wet and cold weather that could further delay progress.
Ukrainian military spokesperson Illia Yevlash said that only an estimated 500 out of several thousand mercenaries who had moved to Belarus remained there. He told Ukrainian media that some Wagner mercenaries had redeployed to the front line in eastern Ukraine, where they joined the Russian military.
The UK Defense Ministry said Friday in its intelligence briefing that Wagner veterans reportedly were concentrated around Bakhmut, where the British said their experience would be in demand because they are familiar with the front line and Ukrainian tactics after fighting there last winter.
Belarusian Hajjun, an activist group monitoring Russian troops in Belarus, said Friday that Wagner mercenaries continued to dismantle their field camp there and only about 100 of some 300 tents remained.
In other developments:
• The UK announced new sanctions aimed at officials behind Russia’s illegal annexation of territories in Ukraine and elections held there earlier this month by Moscow to try to legitimize their hold on the occupied regions.
Western countries denounced the elections in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow annexed in 2022 — Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia — and on the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014, as a violation of international law.
The new sanctions come on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia laying claim to the territory and will freeze assets and ban travel for officials in those regions and those behind the vote.
“Russia’s sham elections are a transparent, futile attempt to legitimize its illegal control of sovereign Ukrainian territory,” British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly said. “You can’t hold ‘elections’ in someone else’s country.”
• Norway said it would join European Union nations in banning Russian-registered passenger cars from crossing its borders beginning next week. The Scandinavian county, which belongs to NATO but not the EU, has a 198-kilometer-long (123-mile-long) border in the Arctic with Russia.
• At least six civilians were killed between Thursday and Friday during heavy shelling by Russia in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region and the Kherson region in the south, the presidential office said. Another 13 were wounded in attacks that struck more than a dozen villages, the office said.

 

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Friday shown meeting one of the most senior former commanders of the Wagner mercenary group and discussing how best to use “volunteer units” in the Ukraine war.
The meeting underscored the Kremlin’s attempt to show that the state had now gained control over the mercenary group after a failed June mutiny by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed with other senior commanders in a plane crash in August.
Just days after the Wagner’s mutiny, Putin offered the mercenaries the opportunity to keep fighting but suggested that commander Andrei Troshev take over from Prigozhin, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper has reported.
The Kremlin said that Putin had met with Troshev, who is known by his nom de guerre “Sedoi” — or “grey hair” — and Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who sat closest to Putin, on Thursday night.
Addressing Troshev, Putin said that they had spoken about how “volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks, above all, of course, in the zone of the special military operation.”
“You yourself have been fighting in such a unit for more than a year,” Putin said. “You know what it is, how it is done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that the combat work goes in the best and most successful way.”
Putin also said that he wanted to speak about social support for those involved in the fighting. The meeting took place in the Kremlin and was shown on state television.
Troshev was shown listening to Putin, leaning forward and nodding, pencil in hand. His remarks were not shown.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the RIA news agency that Troshev now worked at the defense ministry.
The fate of Wagner, one of the world’s most battle-hardened mercenary forces, has been unclear since Prigozhin’s failed June 23 mutiny and his death on Aug. 23.
The aborted mutiny is widely regarded to have posed the most serious internal challenge to Putin — and to the Russian state — for decades. Prigozhin said the mutiny was not aimed at toppling Putin but at settling scores with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
After Prigozhin’s death, Putin ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state — a step Prigozhin had opposed.
The Putin meeting appears to indicate that what remains of Wagner will now be overseen by Troshev and Yevkurov, who has traveled over recent months to several countries where the mercenaries work.
A decorated veteran of Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya and a former commander in the SOBR interior ministry rapid reaction force,Troshev is from St. Petersburg, Putin’s home town, and has been pictured with the president.
He was awarded Russia’s highest medal, Hero of Russia, in 2016 for the storming of Palmyra in Syria against Daesh militants.


Pakistan’s top court begins hearing challenge to expulsion of Afghans

Pakistan’s top court begins hearing challenge to expulsion of Afghans
Updated 01 December 2023
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Pakistan’s top court begins hearing challenge to expulsion of Afghans

Pakistan’s top court begins hearing challenge to expulsion of Afghans
  • More than 370,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan since Oct. 1, after Pakistan vowed to expel undocumented refugees
  • Pakistan is home to more than 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, about 1.7 million of whom are undocumented

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court began hearings on Friday on a petition by rights activists seeking to halt deportation of Afghan refugees, a lawyer said, as authorities are combing refugee settlements in an effort to find and send home thousands.
More than 370,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan since Oct. 1, after Pakistan vowed to expel more than a million undocumented refugees, mostly Afghans, amid a row with Kabul over charges that it harbors anti-Pakistan militants.
“Due to the urgency, as thousands of people are suffering on daily basis, I’ve requested the court to take up the case as early as next week,” said Umar Ijaz Gilani, the lawyer representing the rights activists.
The panel of three judges hearing the case has asked the government, the interior (home) and foreign ministries, as well as a panel of government and top military officials, to furnish an explanation in reply, the lawyer said.
Thousands of Afghans have gone underground in Pakistan to avoid deportation, fearing for their lives if they return to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan following a hasty and chaotic withdrawal of US-led Western forces in 2021.
Children born to Afghan families in Pakistan could not be sent back due to their birthright, Gilani said.
Friday’s petition is separate from another focused exclusively on seeking Pakistani citizenship for such children, as guaranteed by the South Asian nation’s constitution, he said.
Pakistan is home to more than 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, about 1.7 million of whom are undocumented.
Many arrived after the Taliban retook Afghanistan in 2021, joining a large number living there since the Soviet invasion of the neighboring nation in 1979.
Pakistani police have searched door-to-door in refugee settlements for any who have not left voluntarily, starting from the southern port city of Karachi, where hundreds of thousands of Afghans live. Any remaining are being forced to leave.
Islamabad has not heeded calls from international bodies and refugee agencies to reconsider its deportation plans.


US prosecutors say plots to assassinate Sikh leaders were part of a campaign of planned killings

US prosecutors say plots to assassinate Sikh leaders were part of a campaign of planned killings
Updated 01 December 2023
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US prosecutors say plots to assassinate Sikh leaders were part of a campaign of planned killings

US prosecutors say plots to assassinate Sikh leaders were part of a campaign of planned killings
  • Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Sikh activist exiled from India, was shot and killed outside cultural center in British Columbia in June
  • US prosecutors  said the goal was to kill at least four people in the two countries by June 29, and then more after that

NEW YORK: A foiled plot to assassinate a prominent Sikh separatist leader in New York, just days after another activist’s killing, was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada, according to US prosecutors.
In electronic communications and audio and video calls secretly recorded or obtained by US law enforcement, organizers of the plot talked last spring about plans to kill someone in California and at least three other people in Canada, in addition to the victim in New York, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
The goal was to kill at least four people in the two countries by June 29, and then more after that, prosecutors contend.
After Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist who had been exiled from India, was shot and killed outside a cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18, one of the men charged with orchestrating the planned assassinations told a person he had hired as a hitman that he should act urgently to kill another activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
“We have so many targets,” Nikhil Gupta said in a recorded audio call, according to the indictment. “We have so many targets. But the good news is this, the good news is this: Now no need to wait.”
He urged the hitman to act quickly because Pannun, a US citizen living in New York, would likely be more cautious after Nijjar’s slaying.
“We got the go-ahead to go anytime, even today, tomorrow — as early as possible,” he told a go-between as he instructed the hitman to kill Pannun even if there were other people with him. “Put everyone down,” he said, according to the indictment.
The attack plans were foiled, prosecutors said, because the hitman was actually an undercover US agent.
The US attorney in Manhattan announced charges Wednesday against Gupta, and said in court papers that the plot to kill Pannun was directed by an official in the Indian government. That government official was not charged in the indictment or identified by name, but the court filing described him as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in security management and intelligence.
Indian officials have denied any complicity in Nijjar’s slaying. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Wednesday that the Indian government had set up a high-level inquiry after US authorities raised concerns about the plot to kill Pannun.
Court filings revealed that even before Nijjar’s killing in Canada, US law enforcement officials had become aware of a plot against activists who were advocating for the secession from India of the northern Punjab state, where Sikhs are a majority.
US officials said they began investigating when Gupta, in his search for a hitman, contacted a narcotics trafficker who turned out to be a Drug Enforcement Administration informant.
Over the ensuing weeks, the pair communicated by phone, video and text messages, eventually looping in their hired assassin — the undercover agent.
The Indian government official told Gupta that he had a target in New York and a target in California, the indictment said. They ultimately settled on a $100,000 price and by June 3, Gupta was urging his criminal contact in America to “finish him brother, finish him, don’t take too much time .... push these guys, push these guys ... finish the job.”
During a June 9 call, Gupta told the narcotics trafficker that the murder of Pannun would change the hitman’s life because “we will give more bigger job more, more job every month, every month 2-3 job,” according to the indictment.
It was unclear from the indictment whether US authorities had learned anything about the specific plan to kill Nijjar before his ambush on June 18.
The indictment portrayed Gupta as boasting that he and his associates in India were behind both the Canadian and New York assassination plots. He allegedly told the Drug Enforcement Administration informant on June 12 that there was a “big target” in Canada and on June 16 told him: “We are doing their job, brother. We are doing their New York (and) Canada (job),” referring to individuals directing the plots from India.
After Nijjar was killed, Gupta told the informant that Nijjar was the target he had mentioned as the potential Canadian “job” and added: “We didn’t give to (the undercover agent) this job, so some other guy did this job ... in Canada.”
On June 30, Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic at the request of the United States after arriving there on a trip from India. Federal authorities have not said when he might be brought to the United States to face murder-for-hire and conspiracy charges. It was unclear who would provide legal representation if he arrives in the US
Pannun told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that he will continue his work.
“They will kill me. But I don’t fear the death,” he said.
He mocked India’s claim that it is conducting its own investigation into the assassination plots.
“The only thing, I think, (the) Indian government is going to investigate (is) why their hitman could not kill one person. That’s what they will be investigating,” he said.
Pannun said he rejects the Indian government’s decision to label him a terrorist.
“We are the one who are fighting India’s violence with the words. We are the one who are fighting India’s bullets with the ballot,” he said. “They are giving money, hundreds of thousands, to kill me. Let the world decide who is terrorist and who is not a terrorist.”
Some international affairs experts told the AP that it was unlikely the incidents would seriously damage the relationship between the US and India.
”In most cases, if Washington accuses a foreign government of staging an assassination on its soil, US relations with that government would plunge into deep crisis,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia institute. “But the relationship with India is a special case. Trust and goodwill are baked into the relationship, thanks to rapidly expanding cooperation and increasingly convergent interests.”
Derek Grossman, Indo-Pacific analyst at the Rand Corp., said the Biden administration has demonstrated that it is prioritizing the need to leverage India as part of its strategy to counter Chinese power.
“I think publicizing the details of the thwarted plot will have very little, if any, impact on the deepening US-India strategic partnership,” he said.


India's ruling BJP, opposition Congress in tight race to win state elections

India's ruling BJP, opposition Congress in tight race to win state elections
Updated 01 December 2023
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India's ruling BJP, opposition Congress in tight race to win state elections

India's ruling BJP, opposition Congress in tight race to win state elections
  • State elections are seen as a big test of Modi's chances of winning a third term in a national vote due by next May
  • Votes in all five states - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram - will be counted on Dec. 3

NEW DELHI: India's main opposition Congress party is likely to win two of five state assembly elections while it is in close contest with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling nationalist party in two heartland states, TV exit polls showed on Thursday.

The state elections are seen as a big test of Modi's chances of winning a third term in a national vote due by next May.

More than 160 million people - or about one-sixth of India's total electorate - were eligible to vote in the regional polls, which were held in four legs ending on Thursday.

Votes in all five states - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram - will be counted on Dec. 3 and the results are expected that same day.

Three of the five states in contention have witnessed a tough battle between Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress party. BJP has been in power in one of the states, Congress in two, and regional parties in the remaining two.

At least nine exit polls predicted Congress party's victory in mineral-rich Chattisgarh and Telangana state. Some of them said BJP was set to defeat Congress in Rajasthan.

Poll predictions from Madhya Pradesh state showed mixed results. A regional party was set to win again in the northeastern state of Mizoram, according to two exit polls.

Exit polls are conducted by various private organisations to predict election outcomes but critics say they tend to be inaccurate in India, partly because of the size and complexity of the electorate in the world's most populous nation.

Politicians and analysts also note that state elections do not always influence the outcome of the general elections or indicate national voter mood.

A survey conducted in August by the India Today media group said Modi's popularity remains intact after a decade in power, with 52% of respondents saying he is best suited to keep the top post for a third time.


Germany arrests French woman who allegedly committed war crimes after joining Daesh in Syria

Germany arrests French woman who allegedly committed war crimes after joining Daesh in Syria
Updated 01 December 2023
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Germany arrests French woman who allegedly committed war crimes after joining Daesh in Syria

Germany arrests French woman who allegedly committed war crimes after joining Daesh in Syria
  • The woman is suspected of having participated as a member of two foreign terrorist organizations as a teenager
  • She allegedly traveled to Syria in September 2013, where she first joined Jabhat Al-Nusra, Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate at the time

BERLIN: German authorities said Thursday they had arrested a French woman who allegedly committed war crimes is Syria after joining the Daesh group.
Germany’s federal prosecutor said the woman, who was only identified as Samra N. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested Tuesday in the western city of Trier.
The woman is suspected of having participated as a member of two foreign terrorist organizations as a teenager, the prosecutor’s statement said.
She allegedly traveled to Syria in September 2013, where she first joined Jabhat Al-Nusra, Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate at the time, and married one of the group’s fighters according to Islamic rites. In November 2013, the couple joined the Daesh extremist group.
Syria was in the throes of a civil war that broke out following a brutal government crackdown on pro-democracy mass protests in 2011. Protesters took up arms and the unrest eventually devolved into a civil war that drew in Islamic extremists and fighters from around the world.
While in Syria, N. allegedly tried to persuade people living in Germany to also go to Syria to become a member of Jabhat Al-Nusra. She also temporarily took in a woman who had been persuaded to leave the country in this way.
The suspect ran the household for her husband and helped him procure military equipment for Daesh, according to the charges.
On two occasions, when her husband was away on combat missions, she stayed in women’s houses that Daesh had occupied after driving out the original residents, which Germany considers a “war crime against property.”
N. returned to Germany at the beginning of 2014, but remained a member of Daesh until at least February 2015, prosecutors said. It was not immediately clear why, as a French citizen, she went to Germany.


Bangladesh opposition boycotts ‘farcical’ polls

Bangladesh opposition boycotts ‘farcical’ polls
Updated 30 November 2023
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Bangladesh opposition boycotts ‘farcical’ polls

Bangladesh opposition boycotts ‘farcical’ polls

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s main opposition officially boycotted upcoming general elections on Thursday, removing the only party that could have offered a realistic challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s fourth consecutive term in power.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, warning that thousands of its members had been arrested in a sweeping crackdown, said it had not applied to contest a single seat on the last day of filing candidate nominations before the Jan. 7 polls.

“We are boycotting the election,” A.K.M Wahiduzzaman, a spokesman of the party, said.

“We remained steadfast to our stand that we will not take part in any election with Sheikh Hasina in power.”

The BNP and other parties have held mass protests calling on Hasina to quit power and let a neutral government run the polls, demands the government has said are unconstitutional.

Human Rights Watch warned Monday of a “violent autocratic crackdown,” with almost 10,000 opposition activists arrested and at least 16 people killed since protests escalated in October, including two police officers.

Wahiduzzaman, accusing Hasina of having “rigged the previous two elections,” said the number arrested was even higher.

“She has arrested more than 18,090 of our leaders and supporters in an unprecedented crackdown since late Oct. 28 to rig another election,” he said.

“We won’t join any farcical election.”

Hasina has overseen massive economic growth during her 15 years in power, but there has been international alarm over democratic backsliding and thousands of extrajudicial killings.

Other key opposition parties have also said they will boycott the elections, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party, and the Islami Andolon Bangladesh.

Election Commission spokesman Shariful Alam said they would confirm who was participating later.

Apart from the ruling Awami League, several smaller allied parties have said they will take part. Some BNP officials are understood to have left the party hoping to contest a seat as independents.

Human Rights Watch has accused the government of targeting opposition leaders and supporters.

“The government is claiming to commit to free and fair elections with diplomatic partners while the state authorities are simultaneously filling prisons with the ruling Awami League’s political opponents,” said Julia Bleckner, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.