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Russia’s Prigozhin Renews Appeal for More Ammunition to Seize City of Bakhmut

Fire and smoke raise after artillery shelling near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles between Ukrainian and Russian forces have been taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, April 29, 2023. (AP)
Fire and smoke raise after artillery shelling near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles between Ukrainian and Russian forces have been taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, April 29, 2023. (AP)
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Russia’s Prigozhin Renews Appeal for More Ammunition to Seize City of Bakhmut

Fire and smoke raise after artillery shelling near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles between Ukrainian and Russian forces have been taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, April 29, 2023. (AP)
Fire and smoke raise after artillery shelling near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles between Ukrainian and Russian forces have been taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, April 29, 2023. (AP)

The head of the Wagner private militia on Monday renewed his appeal to Russia's defense ministry to increase ammunition shipments to his fighters trying to seize the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has frequently clashed with Moscow's defense establishment over the conduct of Russia's campaign in Ukraine and what he says is insufficient support being provided to his Wagner soldiers.

In a video posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said he needs at least 300 tons of artillery shells a day for the assault.

"Three hundred tons a day is 10 cargo containers - not a lot at all ... But we are being given no more than a third of that," Prigozhin said as he inspected boxes of rifles in a warehouse he said was in the town of Soledar, to the northeast of Bakhmut.

Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of over 70,000, has been levelled by months of artillery shelling and urban combat between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. Prigozhin claimed on April 11 his forces, which are leading the assault, controlled more than 80% of the city.

Wagner is not part of Russia's official armed forces, and Prigozhin has previously accused the defense ministry of "betraying" his fighters - and Russia's overall war aims - by not providing sufficient ammunition.

In an earlier video in front of a destroyed building in Soledar, Prigozhin said Monday was the anniversary of Wagner's founding, and that if the group was destined to die, it would be "not at the hands of the Ukrainian army or NATO but because of our domestic bastard-bureaucrats".

There was no immediate response from Russia's defense ministry to Prigozhin's statements.

Russia says capturing Bakhmut will open up the battlefield for future offensives in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv and the West have played down the city's strategic importance, though Ukraine has also repeatedly refused to withdraw its troops from there.

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World

Russian Strikes kill 11, Including 3 Children

Local residents stand amid the rubble of a five-story residential building following a Russian attack that killed seven people, including three children, in Zaporizhzhia on October 10, 2026. (Photo by Daria Nazarova / AFP)
Local residents stand amid the rubble of a five-story residential building following a Russian attack that killed seven people, including three children, in Zaporizhzhia on October 10, 2026. (Photo by Daria Nazarova / AFP)
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Russian Strikes kill 11, Including 3 Children

Local residents stand amid the rubble of a five-story residential building following a Russian attack that killed seven people, including three children, in Zaporizhzhia on October 10, 2026. (Photo by Daria Nazarova / AFP)
Local residents stand amid the rubble of a five-story residential building following a Russian attack that killed seven people, including three children, in Zaporizhzhia on October 10, 2026. (Photo by Daria Nazarova / AFP)

Russian strikes on Ukraine's southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday killed at least 11 people, including three children, according to regional authorities.

Ukrainian national police said Russia had targeted residential neighborhoods in the city with "five guided aerial bombs" early Saturday morning, hitting two residential buildings.

The strikes came a day after Ukrainian and European officials met in Miami in a renewed diplomatic push to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

"The toll from the air strikes on Zaporizhzhia continues to rise. At present, 11 civilians have been killed. Among them are three children," said Mykhailo Semikin, head of Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration.

He said rescuers were continuing their search for people under the rubble.

An AFP correspondent at the scene saw people being pulled from the rubble by Ukrainian emergency services.

"We saw people under the rubble -- a woman, her husband and a child," one volunteer rescuer, Daniil Pishkin, told AFP.

He added that he saw two people rescued from the wreckage but "unfortunately there was a little girl who died.”

A resident of one of the buildings that was hit, who identified herself as Iryna, 69, said she just had time to seek refuge in the toilets after receiving an air raid warning.

She said her two neighbors were killed.

"They were 75 years old. They were simply thrown out there, onto the street. They didn't make it to the hospital," she told AFP.

The Zaporizhzhia region, located just a few dozen kilometers from the front line, and its capital by the same name have been the target of frequent strikes.

Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukrainian territory in recent months, causing a growing number of civilian casualties.

Diplomatic efforts mediated by the United States to end the war more than four years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine have so far yielded no results.

World

OpenAI Disrupts 2 Influence Operations Linked to Russia and Iran

A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed OpenAI logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo
A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed OpenAI logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo
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OpenAI Disrupts 2 Influence Operations Linked to Russia and Iran

A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed OpenAI logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo
A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed OpenAI logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration//File Photo

OpenAI on Thursday said it shut down two influence operations -- from Russia and Iran -- that used ChatGPT to push fake journalist personas and run a “think-tank” to covertly peddle anti-Ukraine propaganda.

The American AI giant said it banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts that originated in Russia and Iran and were used to support “false front” entities for geopolitical and conflict-related messaging, according to AFP.

The Iranian operation involved seven “journalist” profiles, each purporting to be from Western countries including the United States, that were used to plant long-form articles in media outlets around the world.

“We identified almost 100 articles published or syndicated under the operation's bylines across roughly a dozen online outlets around the world,” OpenAI said.

“These were small to medium outlets, generally focused on international affairs, geopolitics, and events in the Middle East.”

The earliest article identified by OpenAI was published in July 2025, and the latest in October 2026, with the frequency of reports increasing after the US-Iran war broke out earlier this year.
The operation also generated social media comments on topics related to the US-Iran war, it added.

One of the personas named Ervin B Hoskins, whose bio claimed to be “an American freelance writer,” had social media accounts across tech platforms including Elon Musk's X and Meta-owned Instagram.

X's transparency information showed the account was connected via a “West Asia android app” and Instagram's transparency information showed the account was based in Iran, according to screenshots provided by OpenAI.

Both accounts appeared to be suspended.

The Russian operation co-opted “unwitting people” in Latin America to run a “think-tank” -- called the Social Research Center (SRC) -- used for covert activities aimed at undermining Ukraine's reputation in the region and to influence local politics, the company said.

“The available evidence indicates that the SRC's employees in Latin America were not aware that they were working for a Russian group,” OpenAI said.

The SRC appears to have produced a majority of original content via its co-opted staff. “This stands out as the most complex attempt to run a front identity that we've disrupted over the past two and a half years,” it added.

World

Iran Guards Say Struck Tanker Transiting Strait of Hormuz

An aerial view shows ships anchored off the coast of Khasab in Oman's Musandam Governorate, near the Strait of Hormuz, on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
An aerial view shows ships anchored off the coast of Khasab in Oman's Musandam Governorate, near the Strait of Hormuz, on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
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Iran Guards Say Struck Tanker Transiting Strait of Hormuz

An aerial view shows ships anchored off the coast of Khasab in Oman's Musandam Governorate, near the Strait of Hormuz, on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
An aerial view shows ships anchored off the coast of Khasab in Oman's Musandam Governorate, near the Strait of Hormuz, on October 2, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that they had struck a tanker attempting to take an “illegal route” through the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has sought to blockade since the outset of the Middle East war.

Maritime trackers also reported on Friday that an unknown projectile sparked a fire aboard a ship off the UAE coast, but named a different vessel.

In a statement carried by official media, the Guards said its naval forces were acting in accordance with “the orders of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the Iranian people’s desire to exercise sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.”

“In carrying out this mission, a few hours ago, a giant LPG carrier named NV Sunshine, owned by NatWit, which was attempting to transit via the illegal route south of the Strait of Hormuz, was struck,” they added, according to AFP.

Iran has attempted to impose its control over the Hormuz over the course of the war, insisting that vessels seek its permission to cross via its preferred routes.

However, ships have increasingly been willing to risk transiting via an alternative route hugging the strait's southern coast.

Britain's UKMTO maritime agency said on Friday that a ship 13 nautical miles (24 kilometers) off the UAE's Al Jazeera Al Hamra, southwest of the strait, was struck by a projectile, which caused a fire on board.

“Status of the crew, damage assessment and environmental impact are unknown at present. Authorities are investigating,” UKMTO said in a statement.

British security firm Vanguard also reported the incident, and identified the vessel as the Panama-flagged crude tanker GEM NO2.

The incident comes days after a tanker was hit off Qatar, around 500 kilometers west of the vital strait.

Ships in the Gulf and those attempting to transit the strait -- the only maritime route in or out of the oil-rich region -- have come under repeated attack since the US and Israel sparked the Middle East war on February 28.

Iran has blockaded the strait ever since, though some vessels do manage to cross, and US media has reported on American military efforts to protect ships on the southern route.

The United States has set up its own counter-blockade of Iranian ports and occasionally fires on vessels linked to Tehran.

Hormuz is vital to the world economy, with around a fifth of the planet's oil and liquefied natural gas passing through the strait before the war began.