June 30, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

The Biden administration acknowledged Friday that the early stages of Ukraine’s counteroffensive have fallen short of expectations but reiterated the United States will continue to provide support in the ways of training, equipment and advice.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Friday that the slower pace is “part of the nature of war.” 

“What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks. It's going to be very difficult. It's going to be very long, and it's going to be very, very bloody. And no one should have any illusions about any of that,” Milley said at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on Friday.  

“This is literally a fight for their life,” he said. “So yes, sure, it goes a little slow, but that is part of the nature of war.”

Some background: Last week, CNN reported that officials believed the counteroffensive is “not meeting expectations on any front,” while Russian lines of defense have been proving well-fortified, making it difficult for Ukrainian forces to breach them. In addition, Russian forces have had success bogging down Ukrainian armor with missile attacks and mines and have been deploying air power more effectively. Ukrainian forces are proving “vulnerable” to minefields and Russian forces “competent” in their defense, one Western official said. 

On the counteroffensive, Kirby acknowledged Ukrainian forces “have made some progress—and they have themselves spoken to the fact that it’s not as much as they would have liked, but again, we’re focused on making sure that they have what they need and will continue to do that.” 

He declined to offer a timeline on how much longer the conflict could be expected to last.

Possible cluster munitions: Milley also said that the US has been “thinking about” providing cluster munitions to Ukraine “for a long time” but that he did not know that a decision has been made yet.  

CNN reported Thursday that the Biden administration is strongly considering approving the transfer of the controversial warheads to Kyiv with a final decision expected soon from the White House. 

CNN's Haley Britzky contributed reporting to this post.

The United States government does not currently have great insight into the current whereabouts of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin or the fighters that took part in the rebellion last weekend, John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said Friday.

The United States officially declared Wagner a transnational criminal organization in January and this week the Treasury issued sanctions against front companies helping the group fund its efforts with illegal gold.

Fighters who decide to stay in the private paramilitary group Wagner will not be sent to the conflict in Ukraine, Russian daily Vedomosti reported Friday, citing Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the State Duma Defense Committee.

The head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had refused to sign a contract with the defense ministry, a dispute that culminated in his brief rebellion last weekend.

However, Wagner fighters can sign up for the conflict in Ukraine after they have attended a training camp, Kartapolov said. 

“They are sent to training camps for several weeks, where they undergo training,” Kartapolov told Vedomosti. “And then they have a choice – either sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense, or go home and sign a contract with another [security] structure,” he said. 

The main power structure will be the National Guard, according to Vedomosti.

More on Wagner: Earlier this week, the US Defense Department said that members of the paramilitary organization were still inside Ukraine after the weekend mutiny.

A prosecutor in Kazakhstan has warned that efforts to recruit Kazakhs to join the Russian military are unconstitutional and illegal.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Kostanay region said in a statement Thursday that “attempts to recruit [the] local population to the territory of the Russian Federation to participate in the armed conflict in Ukraine have been recorded in our region. Such actions are prohibited by the Constitution of Kazakhstan as well as universally recognised international legal documents to which our country is a party.”

The statement continued: “In order to ensure public safety, protect the rights and freedoms of citizens, and prevent any destabilisation of the social and political situation, we urge you not to respond to such provocative statements and appeals in the media and social networks.”

Some key context: Such official statements are unusual in Kazakhstan, which has tried to retain historically close relations with Russia without getting involved in the conflict. Last year, thousands of Russian men trying to avoid military mobilization crossed into Kazakhstan. 

The prosecutor said that social media platforms included “calls for the participation of citizens of Kazakhstan in the conflict, deliberately provocative statements and deliberately false information with indications of inciting ethnic hatred, insulting the national honor and dignity of citizens of both sides.”

The statement said that “the intentional unlawful participation of a Kazakh citizen in military actions in a foreign country, as well as intentional actions aimed at inciting ethnic hatred, public calls for violations of the integrity of Kazakhstan, the inviolability and inalienability of its territory, using the media or telecommunications networks are criminal offences.”

Poland has arrested a Russian professional athlete suspected of spying for Russia.  

In a statement Friday, the Polish Internal Security Agency said it initially detained the athlete on June 11 in connection with an investigation into an alleged Russian spy ring.

The agency said that 14 other suspects had already been arrested as part of the investigation into the alleged spy ring.

On June 13, the District Court in the city of Lublin issued a decision allowing the suspect to be held in pretrial detention for a period of three months.  

According to the security agency statement, evidence gathered indicates that the suspect is “a professional sportsman” belonging to a first league club. 

The athlete has been in Poland since October 2021 with evidence showing that he was “systemically rewarded” for providing information.  

The Internal Security Agency stressed that that it is continuing to work intensively on the “dynamic” case.

Colombia’s ambassador in Russia, Héctor Arenas Neira, was invited to a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday to discuss the circumstances of Tuesday's attack in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, where three Colombian citizens were injured, according to a statement released by the Russian ministry.

“We drew the Ambassador's attention to the urgent need to recommend that Colombian citizens refrain from visiting territories located in the war zone,” it added. 

Colombian member of parliament and former High Commissioner for Peace Sergio Jaramillo, writer Hector Abad and journalist Catalina Gomez were injured during the missile attack. The three Colombians were having dinner along with Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina at a pizzeria on Tuesday evening. Amelina is in critical condition as a result of a skull injury, according to a statement issued by Jaramillo and Abad.

CNN has reached out to Colombia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and Colombia’s embassy in Moscow for comment. 

President Gustavo Petro has condemned the strike. 

“Russia has attacked three defenseless Colombian civilians. It has violated the protocols of war," he said. 

More about the attack: The strike left 12 dead, the deadliest attack against civilians in months. The area around Ria Lounge, the restaurant that was struck, is a particularly popular spot with a busy post office, a jewelry store, a cafe and a pharmacy all within a stone’s throw from Ria. One of Kramatorsk’s biggest supermarkets is just down the road.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region military administration, said Russia used Iskanders – high-precision, short-range ballistic missiles.

The Ukrainian Security Service has alleged that the attack was premeditated, saying that it had detained a man who allegedly scouted the restaurant and sent a video to the Russian Armed Forces prior to the strike.

Russian assets frozen in European accounts could generate billions of dollars a year for rebuilding Ukraine. But can that money be used without breaching international law or damaging the euro’s international standing?

European Union leaders grappled with that question in Brussels Thursday.

The World Bank estimates Ukraine will need at least $411 billion to repair the damage caused by the war. And the EU and its allies are determined to make Russia foot part of the bill.

One idea put forward in the EU is to draw off the interest on income generated by Russian assets while leaving the assets themselves untouched.

This approach would probably deliver about 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) a year, according to Anders Ahnlid, the director general of the Swedish National Board of Trade and head of the EU working group looking into frozen Russian assets.

But some EU member states, and the European Central Bank, have concerns that it could shake confidence in the euro as the world’s second biggest reserve currency. The EU has been at pains to contrast the illegality of Russia’s invasion with its own strict adherence to the rule of law.

“We have to respect the principles of international law,” said a senior EU diplomat, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss closed-door meetings. “It’s a matter of reputation, of financial stability and trust.”

The ECB declined to comment.

Read more about how it would work here.

The head of Ukraine's military intelligence unit has said that he understands that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has been "charged with a task to assassinate" Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. 

Meanwhile, at least three people have been killed and four wounded after Russia shelled Ukraine's Kherson region.

Here are the latest developments:

Here's the latest map of control:

Ukraine has claimed it hit the Russian military “headquarters” and storage facility in the occupied port city of Berdiansk in the Zaporizhzhia region on Friday. 

Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-installed official in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, earlier said that air defenses had downed the missiles Ukraine fired at Berdiansk.

CNN is unable to verify either claim.