What 27 June 2023 showed about war and its aftershocks
A retrospective on a day when a missile struck a Kramatorsk restaurant and Prigozhin's arrival in Belarus was confirmed.
What did the war look like on 27 June 2023? It was a day of contrasts: grief in a Donbas city, and a confirmation about the aftermath of a rebellion inside Russia.
In Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, a Russian missile struck a restaurant, killing 13 civilians and injuring 61 others. As later described, the strike hit the RIA café in the city centre at 19:29. Four of the dead were children. A second missile hit private housing in the Bilenke neighbourhood, wounding five residents. The attack was an assault on people in an ordinary public place, far from any front line.
The same day, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, had arrived in Belarus under the agreement reached with the Russian government. That agreement followed the short-lived Wagner rebellion, which began on the evening of 23 June 2023 and ended on the evening of 24 June after Lukashenko held talks with Prigozhin. Under its terms, as later summarised, the criminal case against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, Wagner would move to field camps, and Prigozhin would go to Belarus. Lukashenko's confirmation showed that the arrangement was being carried out.
The battlefield and its backers
On 26 June 2023, Ukrainian forces recaptured the uninhabited village of Rivnopil in Donetsk Oblast. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said it was the ninth village retaken in the past month. The same day, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a AU$110 million military aid package for Ukraine.
Why the day matters
Taken together, these reports describe a war that continued on several levels at once: incremental Ukrainian gains in Donetsk Oblast, continued foreign military support, turmoil in Russia's own forces, and Russian missile fire that killed civilians in a Ukrainian city. The Kramatorsk toll, 13 dead and dozens wounded, was the human cost that stood beside the day's political and military developments.
