Ukraine Claims to Retake a Small Southern Village

Follow live news updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Reclaiming the village of Robotyne would suggest Ukrainian forces have pushed through initial Russian defenses, but tougher terrain lies ahead.

Robotyne’s recapture could boost Ukraine after weeks of grinding fighting.

A pilot who became a face of Kyiv’s efforts to get F-16s dies in a training accident.

The pope’s praise for Russia’s historic empire draws sharp criticism.

Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia, is seen on video for the first time in three years.

Zelensky says he is open to elections in Ukraine next year, if Western allies help.

Russia charges a former U.S. consulate employee with collecting information about the war.

Ukraine’s military said on Monday that its forces had retaken the small village of Robotyne, a sign that the troops waging Kyiv’s counteroffensive are pushing through Russia’s initial defenses on the southern front line.

“Robotyne has been liberated,” Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Malyar, said. She told the Military Media Center, a media platform for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, that Ukrainian forces were now advancing southeast despite “fierce resistance” from Russian forces.

Ukraine’s military said last week that its forces had entered the village and were pushing through it, though its claim to control it completely could not be independently confirmed. Russia’s Ministry of Defense on Monday reported fighting close to Robotyne. Rybar, an influential Russian military blogger, said that fighting was continuing inside the village, without offering details.

One goal of the counteroffensive Kyiv launched in June is to reach the Sea of Azov and drive a wedge through Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine. Ukraine’s military has said that its forces are pushing along two lines of attack, driving toward the cities of Melitopol and Berdiansk.

Robotyne lies along the line toward Melitopol, and is where Ukrainian forces have been held up for weeks by dug-in Russian forces and dense minefields.

While Robotyne is tiny, its recapture could help boost the Ukrainian public’s morale after two months of grinding fighting that has produced few quantifiable gains. It is the first settlement Ukraine has claimed to retake since Urozhaine, also in the south, nearly two weeks ago. Even getting as far as Robotyne has cost Ukrainian forces heavy casualties and a great deal of equipment for only a few miles of territory gained.

Driving Russian forces out of Robotyne could give Ukrainian troops an opening for a larger breakthrough on the southern front line, although it is unclear how far they will be able to go.

About 18 miles south of Robotyne stands the Russian-controlled city of Tokmak, a road and rail hub whose recapture could ease the way for Ukrainian forces toward Melitopol — the gateway to the Sea of Azov.

But satellite images show that to reach Tokmak, Ukrainian forces will have to breach two more Russian defensive lines made up of trenches, dense minefields, earthen berms and anti-tank barriers. Such defenses are designed to slow Ukrainian advances and force them into bloody combat.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive faces an enemy nearly as daunting as the Russians: the terrain.

At the same time, Russia’s military could send reinforcements to the Robotyne area “to engage Ukrainian forces in open terrain” while the second and third lines of defense make “final preparations for combat,” military analysts wrote in a paper released in June by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research group.

In recent days, some military analysts also have suggested that Russia’s military might be shifting forces from the eastern front line in Ukraine to the south. If that is correct, it raises the possibility that those forces could be deployed around Robotyne, although they could also be sent to reinforce the next defensive line.

Valeriya Safronova contributed reporting.

— Constant Méheut

He had flown hundreds of hours in combat, was a prime candidate to train on Western jets because of his fluent English and had become a public face of Ukraine’s appeals for American-designed F-16 fighter planes.

But Capt. Andriy Pilshchikov was killed along with two other pilots in a training accident last week, Ukraine’s Air Force confirmed on Sunday.

Captain Pilshchikov — who was sufficiently well-known that his death was mentioned in a post by Ukraine’s president — was the second of the country’s few English-speaking combat pilots to die in recent months, according to Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force. For the Ukrainians, who are struggling to find enough pilots fluent enough in English to fly the advanced Western fighter jet, the loss of the two pilots is a setback.

In May, at the urging of Britain and the Netherlands, the Biden administration reversed its longstanding position and approved training for Ukrainian pilots on F-16s. Two weeks ago, a U.S. official said for the first time that the Biden administration would allow allies to send the jets to Ukraine.

But the jets will not arrive in Ukraine before next year. And American officials previously said that Ukraine had identified only eight combat pilots who spoke English well enough for training.

Mr. Ihnat, the Air Force spokesman, said Monday that more than eight pilots had qualified for training programs, one of which has begun in Denmark. But the numbers are still small and one other English-speaking pilot, Vladislav Savdiev, who was known by the nickname Nomad, died in combat in June.

“We have lost so many pilots already,” Mr. Ihnat said. As the process of approving and carrying out F-16 training drags on, he added, “the combat continues, unfortunately, and the best people die.”

Captain Pilshchikov — who was better known by his call sign, Juice — died Friday when two L-39 training jets collided in an accident in central Ukraine, military officials said. The two other pilots who were killed, Maj. Vyacheslav Minka and Maj. Serhiy Prokazin, were also seasoned aviators who had logged hundreds of hours of combat flights.

But Captain Pilshchikov — who had flown more than 500 hours in combat in a MiG-29 fighter jet since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to Ukraine’s Air Force — was a face of the war effort. As part of Ukraine’s appeals for F-16s, he traveled to Washington last year to meet members of Congress and spoke to Western news outlets.

Ukrainian pilots, flying aging MiG and Sukhoi fighter planes, have played a key role in the war, fending off the Russian Air Force in the opening days of the invasion. Later, they supported ground operations and tracked and shot down Russian cruise missiles and drones. But neither side has been able to fully control the airspace over all of Ukraine, with pilots in each military flying only over territory controlled by their ground forces.

While Ukraine has argued that F-16s could enable it to control the skies over occupied territory and more effectively shoot down Russian missiles, its allies — chiefly the United States — have considered the advanced jets to be less important to Kyiv’s war aims. Some military analysts and U.S. military officials have said ground-based air defenses are more critical at this phase of the war, as Kyiv presses ahead with a counteroffensive aimed at recapturing occupied land in eastern and southern Ukraine.

— Andrew E. Kramer reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

In comments made by video to Catholic youth in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, Pope Francis praised 18th-century Russian rulers and the Great Russia they helped create — an empire that President Vladimir V. Putin has invoked in framing his invasion of Ukraine.

“Never forget the legacy,” Francis said. “You are the heirs of Great Russia: Great Russia of saints, rulers, Great Russia of Peter I, Catherine II, that empire — great, enlightened, of great culture and great humanity.”

The pope, who was finishing his address at the closing of a conference focused on the church’s young members in St. Petersburg, had shifted from his prepared remarks in Spanish to urge the audience in Italian to keep history in mind, according to Reuters. The Vatican released only the prepared remarks, but a clip circulated later by religious agencies showed him making the additional comments.

While for the past year Francis has been consistently supportive of peace and the Ukrainians he has called “martyrs” in the fight against Russia’s invading forces, his comments were quickly criticized in Ukraine and other countries near Russia that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

“It is very unfortunate that Russian grand-state ideas, which, in fact, are the cause of Russia’s chronic aggression, knowingly or unknowingly, come from the Pope’s mouth,” Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, wrote on Facebook.

The former Estonian president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, wrote on the X platform, previously known as Twitter, that the remarks were “truly revolting.”

And the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, issued a statement noting the “pain” and “disappointment” caused by the pope’s remarks and calling for the Holy See to clarify Francis’ comments to avert “any manipulation of the intentions, context and statements assigned to the Holy Father.”

Mr. Putin — who last year compared himself to Peter the Great — has over the past 18 months used the idea of rebuilding the Russian empire to frame the invasion of Ukraine, which was a Soviet state until 1991, when the U.S.S.R. was dissolving. He has also portrayed the invasion as an effort “to put an end to the war that was unleashed by the West,” as he put it last week.

The pope’s prepared speech, released in a Vatican bulletin that did not mention his final statements, revolved around the importance of young people building bridges between generations.

“I invite you to be sowers, to sow seeds of reconciliation, tiny seeds that in this wintertime of war will not germinate for the moment on frozen ground, but in a future spring will flourish,” the Vatican transcript read.

In the early months of the conflict, Francis appeared to avoid picking sides and refrained from overtly criticizing the Russian president or the war’s chief religious backer, Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church. In May, after a video conference with Kirill, Francis changed course and warned Kirill not to “transform himself into Putin’s altar boy.”

On Monday, the Vatican issued a statement saying that the pontiff never takes a political stance and that his words “are to be read as a voice raised in defense of human life and the values attached to it.”

It maintained that the pope always condemned a “morally unjust, unacceptable, barbaric, senseless, repugnant and sacrilegious” war.

A peace envoy sent by the pope, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, has traveled to Ukraine, Russia and the United States to facilitate peace talks over the summer.

— Gaia Pianigiani

Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia, appeared in a video released on Monday by a Kremlin-backed news network, giving his family a chance to see him for the first time in three years.

Mr. Whelan, a former Marine serving a 16-year sentence on what U.S. officials say are bogus espionage charges, has been largely out of sight since he was convicted by a Russian court in June 2020, although he has been visited by Western diplomats.

In the video posted by RT — a state-owned English-language network previously known as Russia Today — Mr. Whelan is seen in several settings, including eating in a cafeteria. He appeared to be in good health and declined an interviewer’s request to ask him questions.

In an email to supporters, Mr. Whelan’s twin brother, David, said that Monday “was the first time I’ve seen what he really looks like since June 2020.”

“So thank you, Russia Today, because although your reporting is the worst sort of propaganda and you are the mouthpiece for war criminals, at least I could see what Paul looks like after all of these years,” he wrote.

David Whelan said the video was recorded in May. He added that his brother previously informed their parents that prison officials had punished him for his refusal to participate in the interview, including by taking some of his clothing.

President Biden has said he is working to secure the release of Mr. Whelan. The State Department tried for months to include him in the deal that freed the W.N.B.A. star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in a Russian airport shortly before the invasion of Ukraine and later pleaded guilty to drug charges.

Ms. Griner was released in December in exchange for Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer known as the Merchant of Death.

Aside from diplomatic visits, communications by Mr. Whelan, a corporate security executive, has been limited to phone calls and a phone interview that he did with CNN in May.

Mr. Whelan, 53, and Evan Gershkovich — an American Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in March, also on espionage charges — have been designated by the United States as “wrongfully detained,” which means they are essentially considered political hostages.

David Whelan said in an interview in April that he would “be happy for the U.S. government to make whatever concessions they can to bring Paul home.”

— Jesus Jiménez

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in an interview on Sunday that his country could hold elections in 2024, but it would only be possible with significant help from the West with funding and logistics.

Any elections — which are not currently permitted under martial law — would be complicated by the ongoing invasion by Russia and other factors, such as challenges of making ballots available to members of the military and Ukrainian citizens forced to live abroad.

“We need every vote,” Mr. Zelensky said in the interview with Natalia Moseychuk, a Ukrainian journalist. “We won’t be able to say for ourselves that this was a very democratic election. We need a legitimate choice. We need this choice to be made by society, so that it does not divide our people.”

Mr. Zelensky said that he discussed the possibility of having elections next year with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina during his visit to Ukraine last week. Mr. Zelensky said in the interview that he told Mr. Graham that he would not divert funds from the war toward hosting elections.

“But if you give me this financial support, if the parliamentarians realize that we need to do this, then let’s quickly change the legislation,” Mr. Zelensky said he told Mr. Graham, referring to a need to change martial law to hold elections. “And, most importantly, let’s take risks together.”

Had Russia not invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine would have proceeded with scheduled parliamentary elections in October, followed by a presidential election in March 2024.

Senator Graham said in a statement on Monday that he was “very pleased to hear that President Zelensky has opened the door to elections in Ukraine in 2024.”

“I cannot think of a better symbol for Ukraine than to hold free and fair elections during the course of a war,” Mr. Graham said. “Elections would not only be seen as an act of defiance against the Russian invasion, but an embrace of democracy and freedom.”

Senator Graham said in the statement that elections would be an “investment for the stability of Europe” and that he encouraged allies of Ukraine to contribute funds and technical help.

Still, Mr. Zelensky said that holding elections would be a logistical challenge given the number of Ukrainians, both citizens and members of the military, who have left the country since the invasion began.

“How will the military be able to vote?” Mr. Zelensky said. “Show me the infrastructure. No one has shown it yet. How will people abroad be able to vote? No one has shown me.”

Mr. Zelensky won election in 2019 by a landslide, with more than 73 percent of the vote, and has increased his domestic and international exposure during the war.

— Jesus Jiménez

Ukrainian officials said Monday that three people died in an overnight Russian missile strike on an oil refinery in the central region of Poltava, an area far from the front lines of the war.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said the missile hit the refinery in the village of Hoholeve as “people were working in the night shift.”

“As a result of the explosion, the oil mill premises caught fire,” Mr. Yermak said in a post on the Telegram messaging app alongside two pictures that showed a smoldering blaze and damage from its aftermath.

On the night of August 28, russian terrorists attacked Ukraine with 4 Kalibr cruise missiles and two Kh-59 guided aviation missiles. The air defense systems destroyed 4 out of 6 targets. Unfortunately, there was a direct hit on an oil refinery in the town of Hoholeve in the… pic.twitter.com/RpgxSF14R5

Ukraine’s interior minister Ihor Klymenko later said on Telegram that in addition to the three people killed, five had been injured and one was missing. All were employees of the refinery, he said, adding that the fire had been extinguished.

Russian forces have been hitting Ukraine’s oil facilities since the early months of the war, leading to nationwide fuel shortages for civilians. Last fall, Russian forces pounded the country’s power plants and heating systems in an aerial campaign that seemed intended to break people’s will by plunging them into cold and darkness.

In addition to the strike in Poltava, the Ukrainian authorities reported several other attacks on Monday morning. Shelling killed a 63-year-old woman in the Kherson region, a local military official said. In Kryvyi Rih, a large city in central Ukraine, authorities said that a missile strike had destroyed two cottages and damaged five others.

— Constant Méheut

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Sunday that he believed Washington would offer his country security guarantees similar to those Israel has received from the United States in a durable partnership that does not depend on which party controls the White House.

While the United States has invested billions in military aid for Ukraine, it has not guaranteed how long, or to what extent, support will continue. Some military analysts and administration officials have pushed for the United States to follow the so-called “Israel model” with Ukraine, which could offer the country more long-term stability and potentially send a message of deterrence to Russia.

“With the United States of America we will probably have a model like Israel, where we have weapons and technology and training and finances and so on,” he said in an interview broadcast on Ukrainian television on Sunday. He added that he did not believe a new American president would endanger such an agreement because “these are things that are voted on by the Congress.”

Ukraine’s larger ambition is to join NATO, which unites the United States and many of Ukraine’s European counterparts in collective defense. Some, including President Biden, have been reluctant to admit Ukraine into the alliance, partly because an attack on one member is considered an attack on all, potentially drawing the United States and the other members into direct conflict with Russia. NATO said in July it would invite Ukraine to join, but has not offered a timeline.

The Israel model would represent a middle ground between NATO membership and the current system, a series of one-off military aid bills passed by Congress.

Israel is not part of the Atlantic alliance, but the United States designates it a “major non-NATO ally,” cooperating on defense, supplying weapons, coordinating spy agencies and offering billions in military aid. Since the 1960s, American presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have consistently reaffirmed the close relationship. With an Israel-like relationship, Ukraine could benefit from a long-term aid agreement that would help it build up its military over a matter of years.

But Mr. Zelensky’s optimism does not guarantee American action, and appetite for Ukrainian support varies among U.S. politicians. Though Democrats are largely united behind continued military aid for Ukraine, Republican presidential candidates were split on the question at last week’s debate. And former President Donald J. Trump, the overwhelming front-runner for the Republican nomination, has said the war is not a vital U.S. interest.

In Congress, some Republicans have bristled at the money allocated to Ukraine — and it is unclear how the spotlight of an election year, paired with a conflict that has shown few signs of ending soon, could change the political landscape.

In the interview on Sunday, Mr. Zelensky acknowledged that nations do not want to be drawn into “a NATO war,” which would be World War III, but said that Ukraine needs security agreements as it waits to join the alliance.

“Later, these security guarantees may decrease, someone may refuse, but we need them on our way to NATO,” he said.

Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting.

— Daniel Victor

Russia’s domestic security service said on Monday that a former employee of the U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok had been charged with illegally collecting information about the war in Ukraine and passing it to American officials.

The Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., announced the charges against Robert Shonov, a Russian national who was detained in May. The charges carry a punishment of three to eight years imprisonment.

A State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said in a statement that the allegations against Mr. Shonov were “wholly without merit” and that the arrest “only highlights the increasingly repressive actions the Russian government is taking against its own citizens.”

“We strongly protest the Russian security services’ attempts — furthered by Russia’s state-controlled media — to intimidate and harass our employees,” he said.

Mr. Miller said that Mr. Shonov had worked for the U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok for 25 years and began working for a private contractor for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in April 2021, after the Russian government ordered the firings of all Russian staff at U.S. diplomatic missions in the country.

Mr. Miller said that Mr. Shonov’s job had been to write summaries of news media reports “from publicly available Russian media sources,” and that his employment was “in strict compliance with Russia’s laws and regulations.”

In its statement on Monday, the F.S.B. said that it was seeking to question two employees of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, whom it accused of directing Mr. Shonov’s activities.

Mr. Shonov’s arrest came amid tensions in U.S.-Russian relations over President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s detention in March of Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Gershkovich has been accused by the Russian government of espionage and is being held in pretrial detention, which was extended last Thursday to at least Nov. 30.

American officials have vehemently denied the charges against both Mr. Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive and former U.S. Marine, who was arrested in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges and given a 16-year prison sentence. The Biden administration considers both to be wrongly detained, or essentially political prisoners.

— Valeriya Safronova

Israel is not a NATO member and does not have a formal defense treaty with the United States. But the United States has for decades designated Israel a “major non-NATO ally,” signed multiple defense cooperation agreements with it, and provided sophisticated weapons and billions of dollars in military aid.

As Ukraine awaits a firm timetable for NATO membership, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview over the weekend that he believed the United States would follow the “Israel model” with his country in the meantime.

Here is a look at what that means:

Since the 1960s, one American president after another has described U.S.-Israeli ties in terms of ironclad support and deep cooperation, much like the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States. That led to close coordination between American and Israeli spy agencies and helped Israel develop one of the world’s most technologically advanced militaries.

Although American military aid normally requires the purchase of U.S.-manufactured weapons, Israel has been allowed to use some of that money to buy Israeli-made weapons, contributing to the growth of its defense industry into a powerhouse. (That special allowance is being phased out.)

The United States has supplied vast sums to Israel over the years. In 2016, for example, Congress passed a 10-year security assistance agreement pledging $38 billion through 2028. The Biden administration has sent more than $41 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the start of the war, well surpassing that sum.

Washington’s military aid to Ukraine so far has been allocated on an ad hoc basis. Under an Israel-style arrangement, Congress could pass a long-term military aid agreement that would help the Ukrainians build up their military over a matter of years.

It could also potentially foster the growth of Ukraine’s defense industry by allowing for the purchase of arms from Ukrainian manufacturers, said Grant Rumley, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research group.

Such a relationship, he added, would send a strong message to Russia without entangling the United States in a formal treaty. Critically, it would avoid a provision like NATO’s Article 5, which declares that an attack against one member state is an attack against them all.

Some critics argue that it wouldn’t, and that the only effective deterrence is NATO membership for Ukraine.

“If the trans-Atlantic community consigns Kyiv to the Israel model, Ukraine will be left indefinitely in the gray zone of insecurity that has repeatedly catalyzed Putin’s hegemonic ambitions into violent actions,” Ian Brzezinski, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote in an article recently.

Western leaders including President Biden, in an effort to avoid a full-blown conflict with Russia, have said NATO membership for Kyiv will have to wait until the end of the fighting.

Whereas the U.S. relationship with Israel benefits in part from decades of strong bipartisan support in Congress, it is unclear how long American lawmakers will agree to underwrite Ukraine’s war effort.

Although Democrats are largely united behind continued military aid for Ukraine, Republican presidential candidates were split on the question at last week’s debate. In Congress, some Republicans have bristled at the money allocated to Ukraine — and it is unclear how the spotlight of an election year, paired with a conflict that has shown few signs of ending soon, could change the outlook for continued support.

Israel and Ukraine also face very different threats with very different militaries.

Israel possesses a powerful army, advanced weaponry and a nuclear arsenal; Ukraine, which gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s, rebuilt its military from Soviet stockpiles while fighting an invasion.

Israel’s enemies — who range from Palestinian militants to the more sophisticated Iran — do not include a global superpower armed with nuclear weapons.

— Aaron Boxerman and Alan Yuhas

Government officials from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia demanded on Monday that Belarus expel the Russian mercenary group Wagner from its territory, amid heightened tensions related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The four countries — which are all NATO members and, except for Estonia, share a border with Belarus — said in a statement that the presence of Wagner fighters posed a threat to their territorial integrity.

Poland and Lithuania already closed several border checkpoints in recent months, citing security concerns. Speaking at a news conference in Warsaw with his counterparts from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Poland’s interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, said that the four countries would shutter all their border crossings with Belarus “if there is a critical incident.”

The officials’ comments came just a day after Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of Wagner, was confirmed dead, plunging the mercenary group into an uncertain future. The fighters relocated to Belarus after Mr. Prigozhin staged a short-lived mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in June.

Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, offered exile to Mr. Prigozhin and his forces under a deal that ended the rebellion.

Earlier this month, leaders of Poland and Lithuania warned against “provocations” and “sabotage actions” by the Wagner forces. And Poland — where the nationalist governing party, Law and Justice, has tried to portray itself as tough on national security ahead of a general election in October — sent an additional 2,000 troops to reinforce its border with Belarus.

The death of Mr. Prigozhin has only increased the uncertainty over the future of Wagner, as Western officials say the Kremlin is considering ways to bring it under more direct control while retaining its fighting power.

In recent weeks, some of the Wagner troops stationed in Belarus — which numbered at least 4,000, according to Polish authorities — were reported to have left the country over low pay. But their whereabouts have been unclear, raising concerns among Western countries.

Border tensions with Belarus predate the Ukraine invasion, particularly on the issue of migrant crossings, which was mentioned in the joint statement. In 2021, Polish and European authorities accused Mr. Lukashenko of luring migrants from the Middle East and Africa with flights and visas and then pushing them into Poland in order to destabilize the country and gain diplomatic leverage. In response, Poland built an 18-foot razor-wire-topped wall along 115 miles of the border.

— Constant Méheut

The Russian authorities have officially confirmed the death of the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, with investigators saying on Sunday that genetic testing showed that the victims of a plane crash last week matched all the names on the jet’s manifest.

The announcement put an end to several days of speculation over the fate of the mercenary chief, who was presumed to have died in the plane crash on Wednesday, just two months after he launched a failed mutiny against Russia’s military leadership. U.S. and Western officials believe the crash was the result of an explosion on board and several have said they think that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may have had Mr. Prigozhin killed in retaliation for his mutiny — suggestions the Kremlin on Friday dismissed as an “absolute lie.”

Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for Russia’s investigative committee, said in a statement on Sunday that “the identities of all 10 victims have been established” and that “they correspond to the list stated in the flight manifest.”

Mr. Prigozhin and Wagner’s top field commander, Dmitri Utkin, were listed as passengers on the plane. Russian authorities had said they were awaiting the results of an investigation before confirming the identities of the 10 people on board.

In his first comments about the crash, Mr. Putin on Thursday spoke obliquely of Mr. Prigozhin’s death, referring to him in the past tense. “He made some serious mistakes in life, but he also achieved necessary results,” Mr. Putin said.

Mr. Prigozhin led the Wagner private military group, which has operated in Syria, Africa and Ukraine to advance the Kremlin’s interests — while gaining a reputation for military effectiveness and severe brutality. In Ukraine, the group shored up Russian forces and drew the Ukrainian military into a costly fight for the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Russia captured in May after a nearly yearlong battle.

To build out the private army, Mr. Prigozhin recruited thousands of ex-prisoners to join Wagner’s ranks. He also became increasingly critical of the Russian military leadership’s handling of the war in Ukraine, accusing them of corruption and incompetence.

In June, Mr. Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny against the top military leadership.

The rebellion presented Mr. Putin with the most dramatic and public challenge to his two-decade rule, and speculation had been rife that the Russian president would not let such an affront go unpunished.

— Constant Méheut

A cargo ship carrying steel from Odesa has become the second to travel through a temporary corridor set up by Ukraine’s government for civilian vessels, according to marine traffic data.

As of Monday morning, the Liberian-flagged cargo vessel, Primus, was off the coast of Bulgaria en route to Dakar, Senegal, after using a route set up following Russia’s decision to pull out of an agreement that guaranteed safe passage for Ukrainian grain exports.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Sunday that the vessel was “loaded with steel for African consumers,” and had “successfully” navigated the temporary Black Sea corridor.

“We defend freedom of navigation with real deeds and the world benefits from stability,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I thank everyone who made this possible, our port workers, our warriors and everyone who defends freedom.”

The temporary corridor, which hugs the coast from Ukraine to Turkey, was established to allow passage for civilian ships that have been docked in Ukrainian ports since before Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Last summer, Russia agreed to allow Ukraine to restart shipments of grain from a trio of Black Sea ports, ending a blockade that had been in place for months. After repeated threats to pull out of the deal, Russia left the agreement in July, claiming that terms easing its own exports were not being honored. Moscow vowed to treat vessels arriving and departing from Ukraine as hostile and stepped up its targeting of Ukraine’s granaries and ports.

Ukrainian officials responded by laying out the new temporary corridor. It passes through a maze of maritime mines that have been deployed to protect Ukraine’s coast, allowing ships to then chart a course out of the Black Sea via the territorial waters of three NATO members: Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Earlier this month, the Joseph Schulte, a nearly 1,000-foot-long container ship, left Odesa in the first test of the new corridor. The company that owns the vessel said it held 2,000 containers of goods.

On Monday, the Kremlin’s spokesman insisted that the passage of the Primus through the temporary corridor had no bearing on the prospect of restarting the grain deal.

Such a development would be “directly dependent on the fulfillment of — not in words, but in actions — the promises and commitments that were put in front of the Russian side,” the spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said.

Valeriya Safronova contributed reporting.

— Jesus Jiménez