Wars in the World

A rebellious mercenary commander said Saturday he ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to field camps in Ukraine, appearing to defuse a dramatically escalating crisis that represented the most significant challenge to President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.

Moscow had braced for the arrival of forces from the Wagner Group, a private army led by Yevgeny Prigozhin that has been fighting alongside regular Russian troops in Ukraine, by erecting checkpoints with armored vehicles and troops on the city’s southern edge. Red Square was shut down, and the mayor urged motorists to stay off some roads.

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Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin announced early on Saturday that his forces had taken control of Russia’s army headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don, a city of more than a million people where Russia has based one of its outposts overseeing military operations in Ukraine.

Prigozhin demanded that Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and armed forces Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov come meet him in Rostov, a city near the Ukrainian border.

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Militants linked to Islamic State reportedly killed at least 41 people and abducted others in an attack on a school in western Uganda, police have said.

“Our forces are pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted and destroy this group,” defence spokesperson Felix Kulayigye said on Twitter.

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Residents of Sudan’s South Kordofan State reported mobilisation by a large rebel force on Thursday, raising fear that internal conflict could spread in the country’s southern regions.

The rebel force, the SPLM-N, is led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, and is estimated to contain tens of thousands of men as well as heavy weaponry.

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Ukrainian troops have retaken seven villages spanning 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) from Russian forces in the past week, the deputy defense minister said Monday as the early stages of Kyiv’s counteroffensive notched small successes.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on the Telegram app that the Ukrainian flag was again flying over the village of Storozhov, in the eastern Donetsk province, and that her troops had also retaken three other nearby small villages and three in neighboring Zaporizhzhia province.

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