Insurrection: Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin claims his troops have occupied Russian military headquarters in Rostov.
Press service of Prigozhin, UPI/Alamy Live News
Russian forces in Ukraine have been deeply divided. The Kremlin is attempting to remedy that, but the signs are not good.
Facing harder questions at home.
Contributor/Getty Images
Putin was put on the defensive during an increasingly rare Q&A over the war’s progress. Meanwhile, disquiet among potential rivals is growing.
China has been contributing peacekeepers to the UN mission in Sudan for years.
Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo
China’s involvement in Sudan is more financial than military, and favours stability.
Streets are flooded in Kherson, Ukraine, after the Kakhovka dam was destroyed. While the war in Ukraine is largely conventional, the use of paramilitary forces by both sides could escalate hostilities in the months to come.
(AP Photo/Libkos)
Both Russia and Ukraine are using paramilitary forces in their enduring conflict. But employing such forces poses serious risks for both countries.
Armed and dangerous: Wagner Group boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Pool Photo/Wagner Group/Alamy Live News
The Wagner Group boss is becoming increasingly critical of the way the war is being run.
Prigozhin Press Service/AP
The infighting is dangerous for the Kremlin. It’s becoming harder for Vladimir Putin to dissociate himself from serious errors of judgement on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Asatur Yesayants/Shutterstock
The UK’s proscription of Wagner would be an important global signal, but is not without risks.
Jordanians being evacuated from Sudan amid fighting between two factions.
AP Photo/Raad Adayleh
Sudan’s location and natural resources have attracted international partners keen to benefit either geopolitically or economically.
Devastation: much of central Khartoum has been destroyed in heavy fighting.
EPA-EFE/Indonesian Embassy KBRI Khartoum
The role of the Wagner Group in the Sudan crisis is not yet clear, but its mercenaries are reported to be involved in a number of African countries.
Africa is plagued by paramilitary militias and foreign mercenary groups.
Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo
Armed group, mercenaries, mining, power struggles. It’s a familiar story in Africa, sadly.
A Ukrainian soldier fires a grenade launcher on the frontline in Bakhmut in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.
(AP Photo/Libkos)
Bakhmut initially appeared to be a Ukrainian strategic victory as it depleted Russian armed forces. But that looming victory risks becoming a major defeat. Here’s how Russia has outplayed Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers in a trench under Russian shelling on the frontline close to Ukraine’s Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, on March 5, 2023.
(AP Photo/Libkos)
The Battle of Bakhmut embodies Russia’s ill-planned war in Ukraine. Even if it succeeds in taking the city, the divisions it’s created within its armed forces will erode Russia’s ultimate aims.
Burkina Faso servicemen hold portraits during the burial of soldiers killed in an Al-Qaeda attack in Gaskinde in October 2022.
Olympia de Maismont/AFP via Getty Images
The spike in violence was marked by a 68% increase in fatalities involving civilians.
Getty Images
The Wagner Group has become a tool to further Russian objectives in Africa without attracting the scrutiny that regular military units would.
GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/KREMLIN POOL/EPA/AAP
How does Putin extract himself from this mess? The only way to do so is to win the war in Ukraine, or at least to win sufficient concessions that would permit him to spin it as a victory.
Russian flags appeared on the streets of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou shortly after the coup had been announced.
Vincent Badoo/Reuters/Alamy Stock Photo
Burkina Faso looks to be the latest west African state where Russian influence is on the rise.
When Vladimir met Xi: the Russian and Chinese presidents held talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan.
EPA-EFE/Alexander Demyanchik/Sputnik/Kremlin pool
Some of the key articles from our coverage of the war in Ukraine over the past week.
Russian soldiers patrol a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 12, 2022.
Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images
As Ukraine retakes parts of its northeastern region from Russia, the Kremlin continues to increasingly look to private military companies to fill in military power gaps.
The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) supports the transitional authorities of Mali in the stabilization of the country.
After nine years in Mali the Yérèwolo movement demands its withdrawal.
AFP
Mali’s ruling junta, which has already secured the end of France’s Barkhane operation and has largely moved closer to Moscow, is now targeting the UN mission in the country, the Minusma.
Chinese and Ivorian workers at the site of a container terminal at the port of Abidjan.
Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images
China’s need for private security services in Africa has grown significantly as Beijing increases its investment in the continent.