June 27, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Two planes linked to Wagner CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin landed at a Belarusian airbase outside the country's capital city on Tuesday morning, according to a satellite image from BlackSky. 

Prigozhin's exact whereabouts are still unknown. He hasn’t been seen in any videos or photos since he left the Rostov-on-Don military headquarters Saturday evening. 

However, Belarusian state media quoted Belarus’ President Aleksandr Lukashenko on Tuesday, saying that Prigozhin is in Belarus.

The satellite image taken Tuesday morning by BlackSky shows the two planes — with serial numbers RA-20795 and RA-02878 – sitting on the tarmac at Machulishchy Airbase, just outside Minsk. Additional satellite imagery from BlackSky, as well as CNN’s analysis of the planes' measurements, confirmed the planes arrived within the last 24 hours and matched the dimensions of the Prigozhin-linked planes.

Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 indicated that the planes landed near Minsk at around 8 a.m. local time. Both planes had their transponders turned off before landing, obscuring their exact landing location. 

Two sources – a senior European intelligence official and a source familiar with Prigozhin’s planes – confirmed to CNN the planes are linked to the Wagner boss but did not know if Prigozhin was on board.

The movement of Prigozhin’s planes has been closely watched in the aftermath of his attempted insurrection over the weekend.  

On Sunday afternoon, Prigozhin’s plane, RA-20795, appeared to make a trip to Rostov-on-Don from St. Petersburg. Tracking data from FlightRadar24 doesn’t show the plane landing in the city Prigozhin took control of on Saturday, but it makes a sudden turn toward the city before its transponders are turned off. 

Roughly five hours later, the plane’s transponders were turned back on, and it was seen leaving the Rostov-on-Don area, heading back to St. Petersburg. 

Then, at 1:03 a.m. this morning, the same plane appeared to make the same trek to the Rostov-on-Don area and once again, it turned off its transponders before landing. 

The plane appeared back on radar at 5:32 a.m. local time, appearing to leave the Rostov-on-Don area, and began making a circuitous trek around Ukraine and Southern Russia towards Minsk. The transponders were turned off again at 7:37 a.m. local time as it began descending into the Minsk area.  

The second plane, Ra-02878, flew from one Moscow airport to another on Sunday afternoon: Sheremetyevo International to Zhukovsky International Airport. On Monday, it flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg, landing at 1:26 p.m.

At 6:44 a.m. this morning, that plane left St. Petersburg. The transponders were turned off at 7:55 a.m. local time as it began descending into the Minsk area. 

Wagner troops are still inside Ukraine after the weekend mutiny, according to the US Defense Department.

Ryder added that the US did not make any changes to US force posture in response to the events in Russia.

“[W]e've not seen anything that would, from our perspective, require us to make any type of forced posture adjustments,” he said.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu delivered his first on-camera remarks since the Wagner rebellion during a meeting with his Cuban counterpart Gen. Alvaro Lopez in Moscow.

Shoigu said Russia-Cuban relationships “are on the rise today” and that Cuba remains an important Russian ally who showed a “full understanding of the reasons for the start of a ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.”

According to a statement from the Russian defense ministry, the Cuban defense minister said his country opposed “unilateral anti-Russian sanctions.”

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on four companies involved in “gold dealing” and one person they say made “weapons deals” tied to the Wagner Group.

The announcement of the sanctions comes days after the short-lived mutiny led by the head of the mercenary group’s leader, Yevegny Prigozhin.

They target companies in Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Central African Republic that “have engaged in illicit gold dealings to fund the Wagner Group to sustain and expand its armed forces, including in Ukraine and Africa.”

The targeted individual, Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov (Ivanov), is a Russian executive in the Wagner Group who “worked closely with Prigozhin’s entity Africa Politology and senior Malian government officials on weapons deals, mining concerns, and other Wagner Group activities in Mali,” according to a Treasury Department release.

Sweden has fulfilled the requirements set out by Turkey in order to join NATO, Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference alongside the UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Billstrom said that with the introduction of a new terrorism law, Sweden has fulfilled the final requirements to join the alliance agreed in a tri-lateral plan between Finland, Sweden and Turkey.

The UK foreign secretary also addressed the journalists in the room, reiterating the UK’s support for Sweden’s NATO inclusion. "My position is clear that Sweden must and shall join NATO and should do so as soon as possible," Cleverly said. 

"We will continue to push for the speedy completion of your accession process," Cleverly added. 

The UK foreign minister also stressed that it was in Turkey’s interest “that Sweden becomes a member of the alliance and does so quickly."

Sweden stated its intent to join NATO through its open-door policy in May last year, just weeks after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a $500 million security assistance package for Ukraine Tuesday.

According to a statement, the package includes:

"The enduring courage and solidarity of the people of Ukraine continues to inspire the world. Russia started this unprovoked war against Ukraine," Blinken said in his statement.

Blinken went on to reaffirm US commitment to Ukraine.

"Russia could end it at any time by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine and stopping its brutal attacks against Ukraine’s cities and people. Until Russia does so, the United States and our allies and partners will stand united with Ukraine, for as long as it takes," he said.

Almost 900 Ukrainian civilians have been detained by Russia — with 77 executed — in the first 10 months of the war in Ukraine, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday.  

Russian forces “engaged in widespread torture and ill-treatment of civilian detainees” and, in some cases “subjected (them) to sexual violence,” the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, said in a statement.  

The report covers 15 months of the war, from February 2022 to May 2023.

Civilians who were detained included local public officials, humanitarian volunteers, priests and teachers.  

"Many civilian detainees were held incommunicado, in unofficial places of detention, often in deplorable conditions. In about a quarter of the documented cases, civilian detainees were transferred to other locations within occupied territory or deported to the Russian Federation. Often, no information was disclosed to their families for prolonged periods of time," according to the report.  

The UN also found evidence of civilian detentions by Ukraine, reporting a total of 75 arrests, mostly of people suspected of "conflict-related" offenses. Over half of those arbitrarily detained by Ukrainian forces also reported being tortured or mistreated, usually while they were being interrogated or immediately after arrest, Bogner said.  

According to Bogner, Ukraine offered “unimpeded confidential access to official places of detention and detainees” with the exception of a group of 87 Russian sailors, while Russia did not grant similar access, despite the UN’s requests.

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus Tuesday, according to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

In an address, Lukashenko said he cautioned Prigozhin that his forces would be destroyed if they continued their march to the Russian capital. "Halfway you'll just be crushed like a bug,” Lukashenko recalls telling Prigozhin during a call on Saturday, according to Belarusian state media. 

Lukashenko also provided new details about the conversations he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prigozhin over the weekend, saying that negotiations with the Wagner boss occurred all day Saturday.

The Belarusian president claimed the country is not currently building camps on its territory for Wagner mercenary forces, and that he'd offered the group some abandoned land inside Belarus if they needed it.

Earlier, Putin told Russian security personnel that they "virtually stopped a civil war" in responding to Wagner forces' failed insurrection, in strong remarks following Russia's weekend of chaos.

Here are other key developments related to the Wagner rebellion:

For two days after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his abortive mutiny, Russian President Vladimir Putin said nothing in public. Having faced the greatest challenge to his authority in 23 years, and almost witnessed his country tip into civil war, many expected the president to respond with sound and fury.

Instead, the silence was broken first by his adversary. In an 11-minute audio message posted to his Telegram channel, Prigozhin claimed to have merely staged a protest, rather than a coup, attempting to “bring to justice” Russia’s top military brass for their “mistakes during the special military operation.”

When Putin finally addressed the nation again on Monday, he was remarkably clement. The last time he had been seen on Saturday, he told the nation that Prigozhin’s mutiny was “a stab in the back of our country and our people,” and promised to hold the insurgents “accountable.”

But, according to Kirill Shamiev, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Putin’s first priority will be to “demilitarize, disarm and demobilize the Wagner group,” before issuing any potential punishment.

“On the tactical level, it’s important to pacify a bit, to make it calm, to give some hope and benefits to the ordinary Wagner mercenaries and senior command, to reduce their incentives to act,” Shamiev told CNN.

Read the full story here.

CNN’s Katherina Krebs, Anna Chernova and Jessie Yeung contributed reporting.