Death toll rises to 9 in Ukraine restaurant strike: officials

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in eastern Ukraine rose to nine on Wednesday, as Kyiv played down the effect of a brief mutiny by the head of the Wagner mercenary group on the conflict.

The blast at the Ria Pizza restaurant also killed three children and wounded at least 56 at the eatery, popular with both soldiers and journalists in the town of Kramatorsk, one of the largest still under Ukrainian control in the east.

Days after the aborted rebellion of Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin, widely seen as the biggest threat to Kremlin authority in decades, Kyiv said the mutiny’s influence on fighting was minimal.

“Unfortunately, Prigozhin gave up too quickly. So there was no time for this demoralising effect to penetrate Russian trenches,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CNN in a video published Wednesday.

As Belarus welcomed Prigozhin into exile on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin moved to shore up his authority by thanking regular troops for averting a civil war.

But as Moscow announced preparations to disarm Wagner fighters, Putin’s arch-foe, jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, launched a stinging attack on the president in his first comments since the aborted mutiny by the paramilitaries.

“There is no bigger threat to Russia than Putin’s regime,” Navalny said on social media.

“Putin’s regime is so dangerous to the country that even its inevitable demise will create the threat of civil war,” he wrote.

In the Hague, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said it was still too early to draw conclusions from the move to Belarus of Prigozhin and, likely, some of his forces, but he vowed that the alliance was ready to defend its members.

“What is absolutely clear is that we have sent a clear message to Moscow and to Minsk that NATO is there to protect every ally and every inch of NATO territory,” Stoltenberg said.