Ex-Wagner commander to lead units
some of its lands but now faces the prospect of wet and cold weather that could further delay progress.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said in its intelligence briefing on Friday that hundreds of former Wagner troops had likely begun to redeploy to Ukraine to fight for either the Russian military or proRussia private military companies.
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.
In other developments:
– The U.K. has 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 123mile-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.