Last week (June 19–25), the Russian authorities worked to restore the reputation of Vladimir Putin that was possibly undermined after the recent Wagner mutiny.

The aggressor country may blow up the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to create a man-made disaster. Hungary continues to play along with Russia.

Ukraine announced the decisions of the NATO summit in Vilnius that would be considered acceptable, and Russia wants to stop the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine.

Ukraine expects clarity on NATO membership at Vilnius summit

On July 11–12, a NATO summit will be held in Vilnius. Its key intrigue is the decision on Ukraine. According to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Yevhen Perebyynis, the Vilnius summit can be considered successful if the allies take a decisive step from the vague wording that Ukraine will become a NATO ⁠member, to a clear algorithm that will show how and when it is going to happen.

At the same time, according to Deputy Head of the Office of the President, Ihor Zhovkva, Ukraine has formulated two specific expectations from the Vilnius Summit: these are political decisions on the beginning of Ukraine’s invitation to membership and on obtaining security guarantees.

“The level of formulations that Ukraine wants to receive in Vilnius, the so-called deliverables, is on the table for each of the leaders of NATO member states. Everyone knows about them and everyone feels that Ukraine will insist on them until the last day before the summit,” the diplomatic adviser to the President explained.

Ukrainian diplomats has been actively working with all NATO allies in recent months. They insist that, according to the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Dmytro Kuleba, “the time has come to clarify Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance” – and, it seems, not without success. Thus, on July 1, Ukraine and Spain signed a joint declaration, which became the 21st document on support for Ukraine’s membership in NATO.

Several European politicians expressed support for Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic prospects. Dutch Prime Minister Mac Rutte said that the NATO summit in Vilnius should send a clear signal to Ukraine: its future is in the Alliance.

The President of Lithuania arrived in Kyiv with a message “Ukraine’s place is in NATO”. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace believes that Ukraine should be able to “skip” the NATO Membership Action Plan (OPORA) on its way to joining the Alliance.

At the same time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (who will remain in his post for another year) said that the issue of Ukraine’s future membership in NATO will be discussed after the summit in Vilnius. “I am absolutely confident that allies will send a very strong message of support to Ukraine,” he said.

According to the Secretary General, NATO should now focus on preserving Ukraine because if they do not do it, it will not make sense to discuss the membership. “At the NATO summit, we expect the announcement of new commitments for military support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said .

At the same time, he recalled the consensus among all members of the Alliance: its doors are open, Ukraine will one day become a member of NATO, and the right time to grant Ukraine a full-fledged invitation will be decided by the allies but not by Russia.

The topic of NATO was also actively commented by Dmytro Kuleba. In particular, in an interview with the German newspaper, he urged the Federal Government “not to repeat the mistake that Chancellor Merkel made in Bucharest in 2008, when she strongly opposed any progress towards Ukraine’s membership in NATO.”

The Minister said that some politicians in Europe consider Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance a path to a new war. “In fact, it is a path to peace. When we become a NATO member, Russia will never dare to attack us again,” Kuleba said.

According to the diplomat, Kyiv does not count on NATO membership during the war. “But after the war, it would be suicidal for Europe not to accept Ukraine into NATO because the Ukrainian army will help the states on its eastern flank that will express a desire to strengthen their defense against the Russian threat,” he said.

As for military aid, last week many of Ukraine’s allies announced their military aid packages. We are talking about the United States (armored vehicles and missiles for air defense), Lithuania (NASAMS, armored vehicles), Poland (sub-machineguns), Bulgaria (no details), Australia (vehicles and ammunition), Germany (air defense radar and bridge0laying equipment), Denmark (air defense missiles and funds for the purchase of artillery shells).

However, the most significant was the decision of the EU who increased the volume of the European Peace Fund by EUR 3.5 billion, which finances the purchase of weapons for Ukraine. Russia could not ignore the decision and called the EU “the main sponsor of the escalation of the war in Ukraine.”

In general, the issue of supplying Ukraine with weapons is of great concern to official Moscow. On June 29, Russia once again convened the UN Security Council because of this. At the meeting, Russian diplomats spread propaganda narratives in order to disrupt the supply of Western weapons necessary for Ukraine to fight and liberate all occupied territories.

The Kremlin Trying to Boost Putin’s Reputation and Merges the “Prigozhin Empires”

After Prigozhin’s attempted coup, the Kremlin faced a number of political challenges. By far the most important of them is the need to boost the reputation of Vladimir Putin against the background of positive (58%) support by Russians for the actions of the Wagnerites leader.

Much of the efforts of the Russian authorities are now aimed at strengthening the role of Putin who is presented in the media space as a person who consolidated Russian society in the face of the threat of an armed insurgency.

To do this, the Russian dictator went to Dagestan to meet with the head of the Republic and discuss the development of tourism. Russian propagandists stressed that the crowd of the city of Derbent enthusiastically met Putin, who, despite the epidemiological restrictions, “could not refuse these people and had to greet them.”

In addition, Vladimir Putin addressed the people of Russia, thanking them for their endurance, cohesion, and patriotism. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized the efforts and will of the President of the Russian Federation aimed at preventing the worst development of events.

Also on June 27, Putin gathered the heads of Russia’s security agencies and military personnel to thank them for suppressing the rebellion. He reiterated the messages about the “consolidation of society.” Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak believes that this is how Putin wants to justify his “Valdai-backed courage”.

However, Russian propagandists rigidly argue about the unification of the people around the President’s personality, especially in the context of the riots in France. For the Kremlin, they were a telling counterargument to the accusations of Russia’s weakness. Moscow emphasized that the protests in France result from Washington’s indulgence and are the consequence of the legacy of colonial policy. Moreover, the chair of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, concluded that after the rebellion, Putin further strengthened his position in the world. He said that if he had been at the head of the state in 1917 and in 1991, there would have been no revolution and collapse of the USSR.

On the other hand, international leaders have a different stance. French President Emmanuel Macron is confident that the rebellion demonstrates the differences within Russia and the fragility of its army. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that Putin is weak. This opinion of Scholz was supported by U.S. President Joe Biden. At the same time, British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, recalled that Prigozhin publicly destroyed the Kremlin’s justification for the war in Ukraine, and his rebellion is an unprecedented challenge to Putin’s authority.

According to NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, the rebellion once again demonstrated that the decision to launch an invasion of Ukraine was Putin’s huge strategic mistake. However, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, expressed concern that an unstable Russia is a greater risk to the world. That is why all the intelligence services of the EU member states are thinking about different scenarios.

Another challenge for the Kremlin was the cleansing of power from disloyal people. After the rebellion, Putin did not change power. Instead, he cemented the system by distributing awards to his vertical line. Experts of the Institute for the Study of War say that the Russian ultranationalist information space has split into those who want to forget about the mutiny and those who demand attention to the internal security problems that the rebellion exposed.

Last week, Russian General Sergei Surovikin was allegedly detained and questioned. Of course, the official spokesman for the Kremlin denied the fact. However, The New York Times notes that Surovikin knew about Prigozhin’s plans. Therefore, experts of the Institute for the Study of War suggest that the Kremlin could use Surovikin and his henchmen as scapegoats to publicly explain the weak opposition to the rebellion.

“The Kremlin will try to balance between appeasing the Defense Ministry’s discontent and cleaning it of disloyal figures, without contradicting its rhetoric and actions,” ISW said.

Now the Kremlin has to rebalance part of the power system and decide the fate of the “Prigozhin empire.” Despite the death of Russian pilots during the coup, Putin thanked the Wagner fighters and allowed them, if desired, to move to Belarus. However, the Russian dictator needs Wagner forces in the war with Ukraine, and is trying to keep them and integrate them into the Ministry of Defense.

The process of transferring heavy weapons from Wagner to the Russian Defense Ministry has already begun, and Putin promised to deal with the Prigozhin Concord company, which supplies food for the Russian army at public expense. In general, last week it became known that in the war against Ukraine, the Wagner PMC is financed exclusively from Russia’s state budget. From May 2022 to May 2023, the company received more than $1 billion.

In parallel, the Kremlin launched a media campaign to discredit the Wagnerites. On the Russian “Channel One,” they talk about the inefficiency of “Wagner” PMC compared to the soldiers of the Russian Federation. Moreover, according to the head of Chief Intelligence Agency the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, the FSB was assigned to kill Prigozhin.

The Kremlin is also trying to take control of Wagner’s forces in Africa and the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal notes that at minimal cost, Wagner helped the Kremlin increase international influence and collect revenues. Prigozhin’s companies earn hundreds of millions of dollars each year by exporting Sudanese gold to Russia, diamonds from the CAR to the UAE, and timber to Pakistan. In addition, for many years, the Wagner Group has worked as a security force for autocratic regimes in the Middle East and Africa.

By funding the Wagnerites, official Moscow confirmed they promoted terrorism and organized crime in the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called on the international community to recognize Russia as a high-risk jurisdiction, and provide the appropriate market recommendations.

Finally, the presence of Wagner fighters in Belarus may become an additional threat to the security of NATO and the EU. Speakers of the Baltic states insist that it is necessary to strengthen collective defense and deterrence forces on the borders of NATO’s eastern wing. They expect that the NATO summit in Vilnius will present concrete measures to achieve this goal.

A similar opinion was expressed by the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. He expects certain decisions at the NATO summit. On the other hand, the spokesman of the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service, Colonel Andriy Demchenko, said in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda that up to 8,000 “Wagnerites” can be accommodated in Belarus. That is why the Defense Forces are on constant alert. On June 30, the Ukrainian command decided to carry out a series of measures to strengthen the northern section.

Finally, the world community tends to think that the “Wagner Group” should not exist. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the Wagnerites carry with them “death and destruction,” wherever they come.

“Therefore, we have always urged any country not to come into contact with Wagner forces because of the disastrous consequences this would have for them,” a State Department spokesman said.

Orban Serves the Kremlin Again, and Russia Can Blow Up ZNPP

One of the most pertinent topics last week was the possible Russian provocations around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. In particular, the head of Ukrainian intelligence Kirill Budanov said that Russia had prepared everything to make an artificial man-made disaster: “If the decision is made, the part of the station that they are likely to blow up is an artificial pond that provides cooling.” The GUR also reported that “the Russian invaders began to gradually leave the ZNPP, and a number of employees were instructed to leave the station before July 5.”

Russia’s actions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are “closely monitored” by the UK Ministry of Defense. In particular, the head of the Agency, Ben Wallace, said that Russia “does not show any restrictions in the use of weapons against critical and civilian infrastructure.” Also, the situation is “very closely” monitored by the White House but the U.S. currently does not consider the threat of blowing up the Zaporizhzhya NPP by Russian invaders as “imminent”.

Interestingly, the Russian Permanent Representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, allegedly “confirmed” that the Kremlin “did not intend to undermine the ZNPP under its control,” and also “called on the Secretary-General and the international community to influence Kyiv to refrain from provocations against ZNPP.” On the other hand, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, generally accused Kyiv authorities of preparing a terrorist attack. It should be mentioned that Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said that Russia’s probable terrorist attack on the ZNPP will be considered by all civilized countries “as the use of nuclear weapons against the civilian population.”

Moreover, the unfriendly actions and statements against Ukraine coming from Hungary have intensified, again. In particular, in an interview with Bild, PrimeMinister Viktor Orban said that Ukraine allegedly “would no longer be a sovereign state.” He stressed that “a belligerent country cannot be a member of NATO,” and also said that the only way to save Ukrainians is to start negotiations with the Russians, agree on a security architecture and “find a place for Ukraine in it.” It is noteworthy that this quote was used for propaganda by the Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzia.

At another meeting, the Hungarian Prime Minister advocated that the ban on the import of Ukrainian grain to Hungary would remain in force even after the expiration of its term, on September 15. Besides, on June 30, Orban objected to the European Commission’s plan to provide Ukraine with more financial support.

Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak, responded to Orban’s provocations. He emphasized that the Hungarian Prime Minister “openly humiliates European values, strictly adhering to Russian propaganda myths” and “cynically tramples the reputation of his own country into historical dirt.”

Also last week, it became known that Hungary did not support the allocation of a tranche of 500 million euros from the European Peace Fund to EU member states (which is used, among other things, to pay compensation to the countries for weapons transferred to Ukraine). The reason is that Ukraine entered the Hungarian OTP Bank in the list of “sponsors of the war.” Radio Liberty also reported that the Hungarian government intended to block negotiations on Ukraine’s EU accession.

Last week, there were also more events positive for Ukraine. For instance, the first meeting of the International Working Group on the environmental consequences of the war. Among others, it includes the ex-Prime Minister of Sweden, Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Parliament Heidi Gautala, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and environmental activist Greta Thunberg. The group’s work will focus on three areas: assessing the effects of war on the environment, finding mechanisms to hold Russia accountable for environmental crimes, and environmental recovery. Volodymyr Zelensky said that such a meeting is “an extremely important signal of support.” At the same time, Greta Thunberg called for Russia to be held accountable for its crimes and stressed that she “did not think that the global reaction to that ecocide [the blowing up of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station] was sufficient.”

Another important event was the meeting of national security advisers and political advisers to the leaders of several countries in Copenhagen. According to the head of the Office of the President, Andriy Yermak, the talks were primarily devoted to the implementation of the Ukrainian peace formula, in particular, the holding of the peace summit: “Ukraine will do its best to hold the summit as soon as possible. However, everyone wants it to end with concrete decisions.” A number of media outlets also wrote that the purpose of the meeting was to enlist the support of countries that still held a mostly neutral or restrained position on the war in Ukraine.

The event in Copenhagen caused a sharp reaction from Russia. For example, Sergei Lavrov once again called the “Ukrainian regime” Nazi. He was indignant that the upcoming peace summit would take place without Russia’s participation. He said that “the only basis of the Zelensky’s formula is the position of the West” and stressed that “Russia had not not refused to negotiate.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said that “the peace plan of the Kyiv ergime is a set of ultimatums to Russia.” One of these, in her opinion, is the withdrawal of troops from the Russian “legitimate territory ”of Donbas, Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson region. Also, according to her, “attempts to determine the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict without the participation of Russia are doomed to failure.”

Another diplomatic victory for Ukraine was the decision taken on June, 29 by EU leaders. We are talking about intensifying diplomatic efforts “to ensure the widest possible international support for the key principles and goals of the Ukrainian ‘peace formula,’ including through the upcoming Global Peace Summit.”

It should be noted that, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, the second meeting at the level of security and political advisers (that we mentioned above) should take place within one or two months. That is when the date and venue of the summit of the peace formula could be finalized.