The Kremlin stated that Russian troops only struck targets with a military connection, but on Wednesday the death toll from a Russian missile assault on a restaurant in eastern Ukraine reached 11, including children.
The newest catastrophe occurred as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that while the Wagner mercenary group’s mutiny had damaged Russian President Vladimir Putin, the long-term effects of the uprising were yet unknown.
The attack on the Ria Pizza restaurant in the Kramatorsk town left at least 56 people wounded, including three children.
In one of the main eastern towns that is still under Ukrainian control, the restaurant was well-liked by both troops and journalists.
Injuries to 56 individuals, including one kid, were reported by Ukraine’s emergency services on social media. “Eleven bodies, including three children, have been pulled from the rubble.”
Terrible and really depressing
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a person who planned the assault had been detained in Ukraine. In his nightly speech to the country, Zelensky said that anybody who aids Russian terrorists in destroying lives “deserves the maximum penalty.”
Galyna, a military medic, claimed to have been nearby when the restaurant was attacked.
She said, “We were in an apartment and we heard an explosion,” adding that there were many wounded people there.
I am not shocked that a missile came here, even though it is terrible and incredibly sad. You may go there for a delectable meal and a cup of coffee.
I have sat there many times myself.
Moscow, though, insisted that it had solely attacked Ukrainian military installations.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, said that only targets connected to military infrastructure were struck.
He said, “The Russian Federation does not conduct attacks on civilian infrastructure.
“Pariah Across the Globe”
German Foreign Minister Scholz said that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed uprising, generally seen as the strongest challenge to Kremlin power in decades, will “certainly have long-term consequences in Russia.”
“It shows that the autocratic structures, the power structures, have cracks and he in no way sits as firmly in the saddle as he always claims,” said Scholz to public television ARD.
However, I don’t want to speculate on how long he’ll hold that position since we are unsure of the answer.
US President Joe Biden said in Washington that it was too soon to determine if Putin had been weakened by the failed uprising of the Wagner group.
It’s difficult to say, Biden said to reporters on Wednesday. In Ukraine, though, and “at home,” he is “clearly losing the war.”
In his short comments, Biden noted that Putin is now “a pariah around the world.”
Putin said that he “didn’t doubt” that he had the backing of Russians during the mutiny at a meeting with the governor of the southern Russian region of Dagestan, which was shown in part on state television on Wednesday.
“A POSSIBLE THREAT”
The Russian army and Wagner had been engaged in a bitter dispute for months, with Prigozhin accusing the generals of mishandling the Ukrainian attack and causing tens of thousands of Russian casualties.
According to a Wall Street Journal story published on Wednesday, Prigozhin intended to arrest the leaders of the Russian military during the revolt, but they were alerted to his plot and managed to escape.
The mutiny had no effect on the combat, according to Kyiv.
Prigozhin regrettably gave up too soon. Therefore, there was no time for this demoralizing impact to reach the Russian trenches, according to a video interview with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that was released on Wednesday.
With widespread deaths on both sides and a mounting civilian toll, the deadly battle has been raging for sixteen months.
Polish President Andrzej Duda issued a warning about Wagner forces stationed in the Moscow-allied neighboring country a day after Belarus welcomed Prigozhin into exile.
During a visit to Kyiv, Duda told reporters that it was “difficult for us to exclude today that the presence of the Wagner Group in Belarus could pose a potential threat to Poland, which shares a border with Belarus, a threat to Lithuania… as well as potentially to Latvia.”
On Wednesday, Lithuania announced that it had purchased two NASAMS air defense launchers for Ukraine and would deploy them in three months.
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