What did 27 June 2023 reveal about Ukraine's war?
A retrospective on a day when a missile struck a Kramatorsk restaurant, Prigozhin arrived in Belarus and Ukrainian forces kept advancing in Donetsk Oblast.
What does a single day of war look like when violence, politics and diplomacy all arrive at once? Looking back at 28 June 2023, the reports from the preceding days offer one answer: the news was crowded, and the most human part of it was in Kramatorsk.
A restaurant in Kramatorsk
On 27 June 2023, a Russian missile struck a restaurant in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast. As reported at the time, 13 civilians were killed and 61 others injured. Later accounts put the time of the strike at 19:29 and named the venue as the RIA café in the city centre. They also said four of the dead were children, and that a second missile hit a private residential area in the Bilenke district, wounding five residents. The figure for the injured in those later accounts was 59, slightly lower than the initial count.
The target was a place where people gathered in the evening, and the toll was counted in ordinary civilians.
Prigozhin in Belarus
On 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. The arrangement 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 described, the criminal case against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be closed, Wagner fighters would move to field camps, and Prigozhin himself would go to Belarus. His arrival was the first public confirmation that the last part of that deal had been carried out.
Ground gained and aid pledged
The military picture in the preceding days was less dramatic but steady. On 26 June 2023, Ukrainian forces recaptured the uninhabited village of Rivnopil in Donetsk Oblast. According to Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar, it was the ninth village retaken in the past month.
Abroad, support continued. Also on 26 June 2023, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a AU$110 million military aid package for Ukraine.
The shape of the day
Taken together, these reports show a war running on several tracks. In Russia's camp, an internal rebellion was being settled through an arrangement brokered in Belarus. On the front line in Donetsk Oblast, small villages were changing hands. In Kramatorsk, civilians sitting in a restaurant bore the cost of a missile strike. The same oblast that saw Ukrainian forces advance also saw one of the day's heaviest civilian losses.
