June 29, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine has moved here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was "somewhat weakened" following the Wagner insurrection, according to former President Donald Trump.

He told Reuters that if Putin were no longer in power "you don't know what the alternative is."

"It could be better, but it could be far worse," Trump told the outlet.

Some background: Trump has praised the Russian leader several times in the past.

“The smartest one gets to the top," the former president said at a campaign rally in Georgia less than a month after Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

"That didn’t work so well recently in our country. But they ask me, ‘Is Putin smart?’ Yes, Putin was smart. And I actually thought he was going to be negotiating. I said, ‘That’s a hell of a way to negotiate, put 200,000 soldiers on the border.’”

And during a CNN town hall in May, Trump would not say who he thinks should prevail in Russia’s war against Ukraine, instead telling New Hampshire GOP primary voters that he wants “everybody to stop dying.”

“I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying,” Trump said. “And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

The World Bank said it has approved a $1.5 billion loan to Ukraine.

The loan is guaranteed by the Japanese government under the Advancing Needed Credit Enhancement for Ukraine Trust Fund, it said.

The World Bank said in Thursday’s statement that it has mobilized a total of more than $37.5 billion to help Ukraine.

New information is gradually coming to light, but many questions remain unanswered about how exactly Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's shocking 36-hour rebellion played out — and what will happen next for the key players involved.

Meanwhile, Moscow's war in Ukraine rages on, with deadly shelling on cities along the front lines and more clashes in hot spots in southern and eastern Ukraine.

If you're just checking in, here's some of the major news from the past day:

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Thursday that the Wagner rebellion is only the small part of a much larger problem for Russia.

Tsahkna said the insurrection represents the "(tip) of the iceberg" for the Kremlin's troubles, and that he is waiting to see what develops in the coming weeks. There are questions now as to whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is weak, he said.

But the “main matter” from the Estonian point of view remains Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Tsahkna told CNN’s Isa Soares.

On Russia's nuclear presence: The foreign minister said Estonia, which borders Russia to the west, is not worried about tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus.

“We must stay calm and continue to work together because Ukraine will win the war,” he said. 

He also urged the NATO alliance to speed up the process of Ukraine's accession.

"The most dangerous place for neighboring countries to Russia is actually to stay in the waiting room of NATO," Tsahkna said. "We have to finish that and make Ukraine a full member of NATO."

The Biden administration is strongly considering approving the transfer of controversial cluster munition warheads to Ukraine, multiple people familiar with the matter told CNN, as the Ukrainians struggle to make major gains in their weeks-old counteroffensive.   

Officials told CNN that a final decision is expected soon from the White House, and that if approved, the weapons could be included in a new military aid package to Ukraine as soon as next month. 

Ukrainian officials have been pushing the US to provide the munitions since last year, arguing that they would provide more ammunition for Western-provided artillery and rocket systems, and help narrow Russia's numerical superiority in artillery. 

But the US had been reluctant to provide them because of the risk they could pose to civilians, and because some key US allies, including the UK, France, and Germany, are signatories to a ban on cluster munitions — weapons that scatter "bomblets" across large areas that can fail to explode on impact and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines. 

The Ukrainian counteroffensive launched earlier this month, however, has not made as much progress as US officials hoped it would by this point, with Russian lines of defense proving more well-fortified than anticipated. 

And it is not clear whether the heavy amount of artillery ammunition the Ukrainians have been expending day-to-day is sustainable if the counteroffensive drags on, officials and military analysts said. 

Cluster munitions, which the US has stockpiled in large numbers since phasing them out in 2016, could help fill that gap, officials said. 

Administration officials also believe they have managed to alleviate some allies' concerns about the US transferring the munitions, officials said.

The US official noted that the weapon would not be a new capability for Ukraine. Both the Ukrainians and the Russians have used cluster bombs since Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, and more recently, Ukrainian forces have begun using Turkish-provided cluster munitions on the battlefield. 

The Ukrainian military has advised residents of the northern Sumy region's border area to leave their homes in light of increased Russian shelling.

Serhiy Naiev, commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, encouraged residents to evacuate, saying, "The Sumy direction remains the most dangerous in the Northern operational zone."

Earlier Thursday, the armed forces published images of damage to property in the border area of ​​the Sumy region, saying there is constant shelling from Russian forces.

The Sumy regional military administration said there was no threat of Russian invasion. "We have not observed any attack groups along our border. No enemy offensive actions have been observed," it said.

However, it added, “Russia's shelling of our border has not stopped for a single day. The intensity and number of attacks is only increasing. The shelling is carried out daily, twenty-four hours a day, using various types of weapons — from machine guns and mortars to air strikes.”

The Sumy region lies 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the border with Russia and was one of the first cities to have been attacked as part of the Russian invasion in February 2022. 

A social network created by one of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s companies said it will cease operations on Friday.

"The YaRus social network will suspend operations on June 30,” the network said on Telegram.

"After careful analysis of the current situation we have been convinced that this is the only possible solution," it continued.

Prigozhin, who called off his private military fighters' march toward Moscow on Saturday, has a wide variety of media interests. 

YaRus has been a large aggregator of news and social content in Russia and boasted some 70,000 pieces of content per day.

The company operated a popular mobile app and said it had more than 11 million users, though few were actually registered.

It’s unclear what will happen to Prigozhin’s other media interests, which include the RIA/FAN news agency. 

A Russian official has said that Gen. Sergey Surovikin is not being held in a pre-trial detention center in Moscow, as some independent media and blogs have suggested.

Questions have swirled in recent days around the Russian air force commander's whereabouts and whether he potentially played a role in Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's short-lived mutiny.

The Public Monitoring Commission has received "a lot" of inquiries from Russian and foreign media outlets asking about reports that Surovikin is in custody, Alexei Melnikov, the commission's executive secretary, said on Telegram Thursday. 

"I don't even want to comment on the nonsense about 'an underground detention facility in Serebryany Bor,'" the Russian official added, referencing another apparent rumor.