Ukraine updates: Russia's Shoigu makes appearance in video

Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked commanders and soldiers from the Wagner Group private military company.

In a televised address to the nation, Putin said Russian society had consolidated and that most of Wagner's forces were "patriots."

Russia scrambled two fighter jets to intercept British airplanes flying towards the Russian border over Black Sea, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

"As the Russian fighter jets approached, the foreign warplanes turned around and distanced themselves from the Russian border," the defense ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said two British Typhoon jets and an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft were nearing the Russian border.

"The Russian planes safely returned to their airfield. There was no violation of the Russian border," the ministry said.

Encounters over the Black and Baltic Seas have steadily increased, with US and European planes having had several close calls with Russian planes in recent months.

An end to the Black Sea grains deal would hit the Horn of Africa hard, aid officials said, warning that another hike in food prices would add to the tens of millions of people facing hunger.

Moscow has been threatening to walk away from the deal known as the Black Sea grain initiative if obstacles to its own grain and fertilizer shipments are not removed.

If the deal collapses on July 18, it would "absolutely hit eastern Africa very, very hard," said Dominique Ferretti, the UN World Food Program's senior emergency officer in the region.

"A non-renewal of the Black Sea initiative would absolutely hit Eastern Africa very, very hard," Ferretti added. "There's a number of countries that depend on Ukraine's wheat and without it we would see significantly higher food prices."

Famine in parts of the Horn of Africa was averted this year as the rainy season, projected to fail for a fifth consecutive year, beat expectations. But aid officials say some 60 million people are still food insecure in seven east African countries and worry about the impact of a further blow.

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin released an audio message, his first statement since a failed revolt by his mercenary forces in Russia.

He said the goal was not to overthrow Russia's political leadership, but rather to protest Russian military leaders' ineffective conduct during its war in Ukraine.

"We started our march because of an injustice," Prigozhin said. He reiterated claims that the Russian military had fired on Wagner forces and that the mercenary group set off for Moscow in reaction to being attacked.

He did not provide details about his whereabouts in the message and did not comment about his future plans.

Germany is still not prepared to send long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine despite repeated requests from Ukrainian officials, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said.

"Regarding long-range weapons, I want to say again very clearly that we are still in a cautious position — just like our US partners, by the way," Pistorius said during a visit to Lithuania to meet NATO leaders. "Nothing has changed in our assessment at the moment."

Ukraine requested Taurus cruise missiles from Germany at the end of May. But Germany remains cautious about delivering missiles that could strike well into Russia, despite Ukrainian pledges not to use Western weapons to strike Russian territory.

Taurus KEPD 350 missiles, which are jointly produced by Germany and Sweden, have a range of up to 500 kilometers (just over 300 miles).

Annabelle Birnie, the director of the Hermitage Amsterdam, said the museum's name would be changed on September 1 after cutting ties with the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in light of Russia's war in Ukraine. 

The Hermitage Amsterdam will instead be called H'ART Museum. 

The museum will work in the future with the British Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.  

Cutting ties with the Russian museum meant that the one in Amsterdam had difficulties working as it does not have its own collection. 

The Amsterdam house has shown some 30 exhibitions with objects from the Russian museum since 2009. 

Birnie has said that now an "exciting new step" will follow.

"Large art exhibitions and intimate presentations" are planned together with international partners, she said. 

Russian state news agency TASS reported, citing remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, that Moscow's intelligence services were investigating whether Western spy agencies were involved in the aborted uprising by the mercenary Wagner Group. 

Lavrov was also quoted as saying that the US ambassador to Moscow "gave signals" that Washington did not have a role in the armed mutiny and hoped for the safety of Russia's nuclear arsenal.

The West has in the past condemned the Wagner Group's involvement not only in Ukraine but also in Africa.  

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has called on NATO members to strengthen the alliance's eastern flank.

Russia's war in Ukraine and the unrest following the aborted Wagner mutiny highlight the need for a stronger eastern flank, Nauseda said. 

"This is the front line of NATO where there is no place for even the slightest security gap," Nauseda said after a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who is in the Lithuanian capital to observe joint drills.

Lithuania, which borders the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Moscow ally Belarus, is hosting NATO drills with Germany this week and is due to host the alliance's summit in July. 

"For the Baltic region and the entire eastern flank, air and missile defense and an increase presence of allied forces on the territories of our countries are critically important. Effective deterrence and forward defense are our top priorities," Nauseda said.

His remarks came as German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who is also in Vilnius for the exercises, announced plans to permanently station 4,000 German soldiers in Lithuania.

"Germany stands by its commitment as a NATO member, as Europe's biggest economy, to stand up for the protection of the eastern flank," Pistorius said, without giving a timeline.

Germany has previously said it would take years for Lithuania to provide barracks, housing areas for the families, depots and sufficient training grounds.

Ukraine's deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, says Kyiv's forces have liberated the southeastern village of Rivnopil from Russian control. 

"Defence forces returned Rivnopil under our control. Let's push on," Maliar wrote on the Telegram messaging app. 

In an earlier statement, Maliar said Ukraine had retaken some 130 square kilometers (50 square miles) on the southern front line since launching its counteroffensive in recent weeks.

German and Ukrainian lawyers have filed a criminal case with Germany's attorney general on behalf of Ukrainians who accuse Russian forces of sexually assaulting them. 

The lawyers from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group are seeking to hold two perpetrators and their superiors, two high-ranking commanders, to account. 

Ukrainian state prosecutors have launched investigations into 155 cases of alleged sexual violence by Russian troops in Ukraine as of January 2023. 

Germany has seen multiple similar cases of trying foreign nationals for crimes committed abroad. The country's judicial system is able to look into these cases thanks to the principle of universal jurisdiction.

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg agreed on increasing the joint military aid fund for Ukraine by €3.5 billion ($3.85 billion).

"We will continue to double down on our military support on both equipment [and] training. For as long as it takes," EU top diplomat Josep Borrell wrote on Twitter, announcing the move.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who joined the meeting via videolink, said he "urged the EU to accelerate Russia's defeat by stepping up support for Ukraine." 

The unrest in Russia over the weekend prompted German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to shorten a planned trip to South Africa so she could attend the gathering.

Before the meeting, Baerbock said the latest developments in Russia were exposing "massive cracks in the Russian propaganda."

Borrell had also made similar remarks as he headed to the meeting. 

"The political system is showing fragilities, and the military power is cracking," he told reporters.

"It's not a good thing to see that a nuclear power like Russia can go into a phase of political instability," Borrell said, adding that it was crucial for the EU to continue supporting Ukraine.

"The monster that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin created with Wagner, the monster is biting him now, the monster is acting against his creator." 

Walter Feichtinger, the president of the Center for Strategic Analysis in Vienna, told DW that Russian President Vladimir Putin would do anything to restore his image as a "strong leader" after the short-lived Wagner uprising.  

"First of all, he has to demonstrate that he is the leader, so the personal environment [around him] can expect some changes," Feichtinger said. 

"And in external affairs, especially in the war in Ukraine, he will do everything to put more pressure on the military forces to show and to demonstrate [to] the world and his population 'I'm still in place and we are stronger as we were before,'" he added. 

Russia's Defense Ministry has now released footage of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for the first time since Wagner forces sought his removal. There has been speculation that Shoigu's removal from office could be part of the Belarus-brokered deal between Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Moscow. 

But Feichtinger said such an outcome was unlikely, at least in the coming days or weeks, because this would demonstrate that Prigozhin's assessment was right and ultimately hurt Putin's image. 

Besides the unrest at home, the latest developments also create a headache for Putin as Wagner fighters were a "very important military tool for Russia," Feichtinger said. 

"They are well equipped, they are trained, they are experienced in war fighting ... They have to be under [the] control of the state of Russia," he said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the aborted mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group in Russia showed that Moscow committed a strategic mistake by launching a war on Ukraine.

"The events over the weekend are an internal Russian matter, and yet another demonstration of the big strategic mistake that President [Vladimir] Putin made with his illegal annexation of Crimea and the war against Ukraine," Stoltenberg told reporters on a visit to Lithuania's capital, Vilnius.

"As Russia continues its assault, it is even more important to continue our support to Ukraine."

Stoltenberg is in Vilnius to observe a joint NATO exercise named "Griffin Storm" between the German and Lithuanian armies. He is also expected to discuss preparations for the upcoming NATO summit in the same city with the German and Lithuanian defense ministers.

Kyiv has voiced hope that the Vilnius summit in July will bring it closer to becoming a member of the alliance. But Stoltenberg has ruled out that the conference would result in a formal invitation for Ukraine to join NATO. 

The Russian ruble sank to 87 against the dollar as markets opened on Monday after the aborted mutiny during the weekend raised further concerns about the country's stability. 

It was the Russian currency's weakest point since late March 2022, shortly after President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian currency started regaining ground later on Monday, after traders rushed away from the currency when markets opened in the morning, and was 0.2% stronger against the dollar at 84.88. 

The ruble had also lost 0.6% to trade at 92.86 versus the euro, and shed 0.5% against the yuan to 11.77, its lowest value against both currencies in more than two months.

Stock markets were closed for business as usual over the weekend, meaning these figures did not track Wagner's rebellion in real time. However, Bloomberg reported that at the height of the uncertainty on Saturday, banks had been unofficially valuing the ruble as low as 100 against the dollar. 

Meanwhile, oil prices rose on the news from Russia, which is a major producer. Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Moscow's main export, was up 0.8% at $74.43 a barrel.

Hanna Maliar, Ukraine's deputy defense minister, said Kyiv has reclaimed some 130 square kilometers (50 square miles) from Russian forces along the southern front line since it started its counteroffensive operation. 

"The situation in the south has not undergone significant changes over the past week," Maliar told Ukraine's national broadcaster.

The eastern part of the front line, including Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Maryinka, saw some 250 combat clashes over the past week. 

Separately, the British Defense Ministry said in its regular intelligence update that Ukraine had "made progress" on the northern and southern flanks of the key town of Bakhmut. 

"There has been little evidence that Russia maintains any significant ground forces operational level reserves which could be used to reinforce against the multiple threats it is now facing in widely separated sectors, from Bakhmut to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, over 200km away," the report said.