Russia-Ukraine WarU.S. Says Main Thrust of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Begun

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The main thrust of Ukraine’s nearly two-month-old counteroffensive is now underway in the country’s southeast, two Pentagon officials said on Wednesday, with thousands of reinforcements pouring into the grinding battle, many of them trained and equipped by the West and, until now, held in reserve.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the campaign. Their comments dovetailed with reports from the battlefield on Wednesday, where artillery battles flared along the southern front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.

And Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s chief spokesman, reported a “massive” assault and fierce battles south of Orikhiv, a town that Ukraine holds about 60 miles north of the Sea of Azov. Vladimir Rogov, an official appointed by Moscow in southern Ukraine, said the assault involved Ukrainian troops who had been trained abroad and were equipped with about 100 armored vehicles, including German-made Leopards and American-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

Another Russian occupation official in Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, said that Ukraine had made 36 attempts to shell settlements in the region since Tuesday. Russian assertions that the Ukrainian attacks had been repelled could not be immediately verified.

Ukrainian troops along the southern front said in interviews on Wednesday that they were steadily pushing Russian troops back, but their progress had been incremental with no major breakthroughs. They have been slowed by minefields, and some said the biggest obstacles were Russia’s withering artillery fire and airstrikes.

Ukrainian officials have told U.S. officials that the enlarged Ukrainian force would try to advance south through Russia’s minefields and other fortifications toward the city of Tokmak, and, if successful, on to Melitopol, near the coast.

Their goal is to sever the so-called land bridge between Russian-occupied Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, or at least advance far enough to put the strategically important peninsula within range of Ukrainian artillery. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and uses it as the base for its Black Sea fleet as well as to supply its forces in the south.

The new operation, if successful, could take one to three weeks, Ukrainian officials have told officials in Washington.

However, little has gone according to plan since the counteroffensive started early in June, and officials at the White House and Pentagon said on Wednesday they were watching the increased activity with keen interest.

“This is the big test,” said one senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

— Eric Schmitt reporting from WashingtonShow less

The State of the WarUkraine’s Counteroffensive: Ukraine has launched the main thrust of its counteroffensive, throwing in thousands of troops held in reserve, many of them Western-trained and equipped, U.S. officials said.

Escalating Grain Attacks: Russia attacked a port on the Danube River in Ukraine, close to the Romanian border, destroying a grain hangar in an escalation of the Kremlin’s efforts to cripple Kyiv’s agriculture.

Frontline Training: The Ukrainian military, straining to replenish its ranks in the middle of the war, trains soldiers and puts them through a grueling obstacle course even after they are deployed to the front.

Ukrainian Marines from the 36th Brigade firing rockets toward Russian positions in the Zaporizhzhia region this month.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

U.S. officials said on Wednesday that Ukrainian officials had told them that their forces were now engaged in the main thrust of a counteroffensive in the southeast, throwing more troops and equipment at the westernmost of three main fronts, near Zaporizhzhia.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Ukraine’s war plans, cited three reasons:

Recent advances: For more than seven weeks, Ukrainian troops have fought along three main fronts across several hundred miles in the country’s east and southeast, pressing to find a weak spot in the heavily dug-in Russian defenses to burst through. They have been making plodding but steady progress clearing a path through dense Russian minefields and other fortifications.

Russian turmoil: Ukrainian forces sensed an opportunity with the sacking of the regional Russian commander, Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, to exploit turmoil in the local Russian leadership. Last month, General Popov addressed his troops in a four-minute recording, accusing his superiors of inflicting a blow on his forces by removing him from his post in retaliation for voicing the truth about battlefield problems to senior leadership behind closed doors.

Potential Russian vulnerabilities: Ukrainian artillery barrages have been steadily attacking Russian artillery, ammunition depots and command posts in areas well behind the front lines, creating a vulnerability to exploit if advancing Ukrainian forces can punch through the Russian defenses, and cause havoc in the rear. “The Russians are stretched,” a Western official said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details and intelligence assessments. “They are still experiencing problems with logistics, supply, personnel and weapons. They’re feeling the pressure.”

A Ukrainian Marine and his unit move after firing rockets toward Russian positions in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine earlier this month.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

The sound of artillery battles could be heard in villages all along the front line in southern Ukraine on Wednesday. Ukrainian guns fired steadily from hidden positions and Russian artillery and mortars targeted former Russian positions and villages now occupied by Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukrainian troops deployed along the southern front as part of the counteroffensive say they are steadily pushing the Russian troops back, but they describe their progress as step by step, rather than breakthrough movements.

The front in Zaporizhzhia is one of three axes of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. One Ukrainian military objective is to reach the Sea of Azov, driving a wedge between Russian-occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine.

But Russian forces have built a layered defense of minefields, tank traps and fortified positions that stretches along the length of the front line and runs at least 20 miles deep. In the two months since their counteroffensive began, the Ukrainians have had to cross these heavily mined fields and tree lines to take dug-in Russian positions, while coming under heavy bombardment and frequent airstrikes.

The devastating artillery fire and powerful aviation bombs have hampered them the most, soldiers on the front line said.

On Wednesday morning a Ukrainian jet flew low over the front line, firing rockets at Russian positions before banking away sharply and releasing flares to deflect any antiaircraft fire.

Some of Ukraine’s newly trained brigades, many of them equipped with Western armored fighting vehicles and personnel carriers, are engaged in the fighting alongside well-established units of marines and mechanized infantry. The Ukrainian army command has said that not all the new Western-provided weapons are in use yet.

The strength of Russia’s firepower has forced the Ukrainians to adjust their tactics, but Ukrainian officials say they are still progressing and in some places have succeeded in breaching the first line of Russian defenses.

That may open the way to faster progress in coming weeks, some officials have hinted, but the army command is also focused on straightening the front line to prevent bulges that would expose the advancing units to a flanking movement.

A building in Orikhiv, Ukraine, that was hit by a Russian missile last month.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Ukrainian forces launched a significant attack south of the town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, suggesting that a new phase of Kyiv’s southern counteroffensive might be underway.

Ukraine deployed three battalions reinforced with tanks, said Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s chief spokesman, but he added that the “massive” attack and a second one near Robotyne, a Russian-held frontline village around eight miles southeast of Orikhiv, had been repelled.

Mr. Konashenkov’s comments, reported by the Russian state news agency Tass, could not be independently confirmed, and Ukrainian officials did not directly comment. But the area south of Orikhiv, a town that Ukraine holds, is a key battleground in its push to expel Russian forces from the south and east of the country, and both sides have built up their forces in the area.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive — launched last month along three axes including in Zaporizhzhia — has failed to score a breakthrough, in part because of dense Russian minefields and heavy entrenchment by Moscow’s forces.

A major Ukrainian military objective is to reach the Sea of Azov, about 60 miles south of Orikhiv, in order to drive a wedge through Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine’s southeast.

Vladimir Rogov, an official appointed by Moscow in southern Ukraine, said on the Telegram app that fierce battles had begun south of Orikhiv, involving Ukrainian troops who had been trained abroad and were equipped with about 100 armored vehicles, including German-made Leopard tanks and American-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

Another Russian occupation official in Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, said that Ukraine had made 36 attempts to shell settlements in the region since Tuesday. He said that Moscow’s forces had rebuffed Ukrainian attempts to break through Russian defenses.

The Ukrainian military’s general staff said in its daily update on Wednesday that Russian forces were engaged in defensive operations in the Zaporizhzhia region. A spokesman for the general staff, Andriy Kovalev, said that Russian forces had unsuccessfully tried to restore lost positions northeast of Robotyne. “The enemy continues to put up strong resistance, moves units and actively uses reserves,” he said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that he had met with Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, and discussed offensive and defensive fighting on the front line. “We believe in our boys,” Mr. Zelensky said on Telegram, giving no details of military operations. “We continue to work.”

People shelter during an air raid at a bomb shelter in Odesa, Ukraine, on Wednesday, as cities across the country came under a barrage of Russian missiles.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

Russia launched a large-scale aerial bombardment of Ukraine on Wednesday evening, firing about 40 cruise-missiles and ballistic missiles at targets across the country.

The attack included a handful of the most sophisticated conventional weapons in Russia’s arsenal — hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. At least one of those missiles was directed at the capital, Kyiv.

Many of the Russian rockets appeared to be aimed at the Khmelnytskyi region in western Ukraine, Yuriy Ihnat, the Ukrainian Air Force spokesman, said. The area is home to an important Ukrainian military airfield outside the city of Starokostiantyniv, though it remained unclear if the air base was a target or if it had been hit. Ukraine does not comment on Russian attacks on military facilities.

At least three cruise missiles made it through air defenses. It remained unclear where they landed. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a statement that, according to preliminary reports, more than 30 of the missiles had been shot down, though he noted that there had been “several hits,” as well as falling missile fragments. The air force reported that it had destroyed at least 33 of the missiles.

Many of the missiles abruptly changed course during flight in a maneuver to evade Ukrainian air defenses, the air force said. Mr. Ihnat said that some missiles, for instance, appeared to be heading toward the city of Lviv in western Ukraine before turning 180 degrees and shifting course to Khmelnytskyi.

Ukrainian air defenses also downed Russian missiles in the Kharkiv region in the east and the Dnipro region in the center of the country, the air force said.

The attack began shortly before 5 p.m. local time when eight Russian bombers flying over the Caspian Sea fired 36 cruise missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force said. As the missiles crisscrossed Ukraine, antiaircraft missile units, mobile fire groups and Ukrainian fighter jets scrambled to meet the threat.

Two hours later, Russian fighter jets took to the sky and launched four Kinzhal ballistic missiles, which travel at several times the speed of sound, sending them toward the Khmelnytskyi region. How many of the Kinzhals got through was still being determined late Wednesday night, officials said.

The evening assault came only hours after Ukrainian air defense forces shot down three Kalibr cruise missiles over Vinnytsia, about 167 miles southwest of Kyiv, the air force reported.

President Biden at the White House on Tuesday. In recent days, he ordered the government to begin sharing evidence of Russian war crimes with the International Criminal Court in The Hague.Credit...Desiree Rios for The New York Times

President Biden has quietly ordered the U.S. government to begin sharing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, according to officials familiar with the matter, signaling a major shift in American policy.

The decision, made by Mr. Biden in recent days, overrides months of resistance by the Pentagon, which argued that it could pave the way for the court to prosecute American troops, according to the officials. It was unclear why Mr. Biden let the impasse linger or what finally led him to resolve it.

American intelligence agencies are said to have gathered information, including details about decisions by Russian officials to deliberately strike civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and forcibly deport thousands of Ukrainian children from occupied territory. Already, they have shared some of that evidence with Ukrainian prosecutors but had refrained from doing so with The Hague.

Since the International Criminal Court was created by a 1998 treaty to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, administrations of both parties have viewed it with wariness and sometimes hostility. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 has helped thaw those relations.

Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development and second from right, visiting the offices of Save Ukraine, an organization that helps children cope with trauma, in Kyiv this month. Credit...Natalie Keyssar for The New York Times

A top Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday said the Biden administration should do more to support children forcibly taken from Ukraine by Russia and should impose financial penalties on the Russian officials responsible.

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged the government to focus more on the issue, increase aid to organizations trying to help the children and impose economic punishments on Russian officials involved in the forced removal of the children.

Senator Menendez made the recommendations in a letter to the State Department and United States Agency for International Development.

While estimates vary widely, government officials agree that thousands of Ukrainian children have been taken from their parents and relocated elsewhere in the occupied Crimea peninsula or deeper into Russia. In March, the International Criminal Court charged President Vladimir V. Putin and a member of his administration with war crimes in connection with those unlawful deportations.

In an interview, Senator Menendez said on Wednesday that the United States needed to support the reunification of children with their families and provide more help to children coping with the trauma of the separations.

“The sooner that we help that child, not only be reunited with their family but also overcome the nightmare that they’ve experienced, the less likely that there will be long-term consequential damages,” Mr. Menendez said.

U.S.A.I.D. has supported one of the organizations, Save Ukraine, which has planned rescue missions to retrieve the separated children and bring them back to Ukraine. On a trip to Kyiv this month, Samantha Power, the leader of U.S.A.I.D., visited with Save Ukraine, and some of the children they have helped.

Jessica Jennings, a U.S.A.I.D. spokeswoman, said the United States is supporting organizations working on family reunification, has provided $208 million to provide protective services for Ukrainians affected by the conflict and has given other financial support through the U.N. Children’s Fund.

“There are no words for the travesty the people of Ukraine have gone through,” Ms. Jennings said in a statement. “U.S.A.I.D. will continue to stand with Ukraine as long as it takes.”

Mr. Menendez’s letter, which was made public on Wednesday, also called on the administration to increase cooperation with the International Criminal Court, something that President Biden in recent days ordered the government to do.

Mr. Menendez said he believed there was a variety of information that the United States could provide the court about Russia’s war crimes.

Helping bring justice to Ukrainian families, Mr. Menendez said, will be a key part of the diplomacy that ends the war.

“There cannot be peace unless there is justice,” Mr. Menendez said. “And there cannot be justice unless there is accountability. And so that’s what we are trying to ultimately achieve here. And that is just as important as the military might that we’re giving Ukraine.”

A home that was heavily damaged following Russian missile attacks in Odesa, Ukraine, on Tuesday.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

The United Nations Security Council convened meetings on Wednesday for the third time since the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal last week and the bombardment by Russia of Ukrainian port cities that followed.

Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, and Ukraine both requested meetings. Russia is accusing Ukraine of persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church because Kyiv says it has links to Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church, which supported the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine requested a meeting to discuss Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian port cities, including Odesa, in an attempt to block exports of grain and agricultural products.

Tensions were at display at both meetings. Russia complained that the Council had blocked a priest from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from speaking at its session. As an act of protest, Russia boycotted the second session on Ukraine, said Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the U.N. He accused the U.S. and other Western representatives of the Council of double standards on human rights violations and said they had turned a blind eye on discriminations against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

When the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, spoke at Ukraine’s session, she called Russia’s program a “sham meeting” and warned against attempts to both-siding the conflict.

“The world is paying the price for Russia’s barbaric attacks, so let’s not ‘both sides’ this issue,’ said Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. “Only one country — one country — is weaponizing food.”

Since withdrawing from the grain deal, which allowed Ukrainian ships carrying food exports to bypass wartime blockades in the Black Sea, Russia has sought to choke off the other routes for Ukraine to export its products. Earlier this week, the attacks escalated when Russian drones destroyed a grain hangar in the town of Reni, just across the Danube River from Romania, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“These attacks targeting Ukraine’s grain export facilities, similarly to all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, are unacceptable and must stop immediately,” said Khaled Khiari, a senior U.N. official in political affairs who was briefing the Council.

The U.S. and Britain, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, have said they expect the escalation to continue.

Debris from a farm silo that was destroyed in a Russian attack in the Odesa region of Ukraine last week.Credit...Libkos/Associated Press

Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to the U.N., said on Tuesday that Britain had information indicating that Russia is planning to target more grain storage facilities across Ukraine and attack civilian ships in the Black Sea. British intelligence also showed that Russia had laid sea mines in the passageway to Ukrainian ports in the sea, she said.

Britain was working with the U.N. and Turkey, which helped broker the original grain deal, to revive the agreement, but details of the negotiations were not clear, Ms. Woodward said. Russia has listed a set of conditions, including the lifting of sanctions on its international banking transactions, for rejoining the deal. The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, has sent Russia proposals and said last week that he was “deeply disappointed” that they had not been accepted.

Ukrainian officials have accused the Orthodox Ukrainian church of abetting the Russian invasion, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has called for lawmakers to prevent the church from operating in the country.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.N., Sergiy Kyslytsya, said Russia was escalating the scale of its attacks and casualties, particularly among children, in Odesa and other parts of his country. He called for the Council to take action.

“This Council must, I repeat, must act,” said Mr. Kyslytsya. Russia’s permanent seat at the Council gives it veto power to block any legally binding action.

A meeting between the defense ministers of Russia and North Korea on Wednesday ended with the Russian official, Sergei K. Shoigu, vowing to increase the two nations’ military collaboration.

Mr. Shoigu said in a statement that the countries were linked “by a common border and a rich history of cooperation,” and said he was “confident that today’s talks will contribute to strengthening cooperation between our defense ministries.” He issued the statement from Pyongyang, which he called “the capital of a friendly state.”

Mr. Shoigu and other Russian officials arrived in North Korea on Tuesday. Along with a Chinese delegation led by Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party. The visits are the first by high-level foreign delegations since North Korea shut its borders in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The delegations’ arrivals are timed to North Korea’s Victory Day celebrations on Thursday. The event marks the 70th anniversary of what North Korea considers its triumph over the South in the Korean War, which technically never ended. In his statement, Mr. Shoigu said that military exchanges between Russia and North Korea had helped keep the peace on the peninsula.

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has expressed support for Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and Washington has accused the North of shipping weapons and ammunition to Russia, which Russia and North Korea have denied. North Korea uses Russian military equipment.

Mr. Shoigu’s visit to Pyongyang is part of a Russian effort to strengthen its ties with Asian allies, to counter its isolation by the West since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In October, Mr. Putin will travel to a conference in China, where he will meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to discuss bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

The port of Odesa on the Black Sea last year.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

New Western warnings that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is taking an increasingly aggressive posture in the waters off southern Ukraine are underscoring the rising tensions after Russia pulled out of an internationally brokered deal that allowed Ukraine to export tens of millions of tons of grain.

The British military intelligence agency said on Wednesday that the Russian naval fleet was preparing to enforce a blockade against Ukraine. The warning came after recent comments by U.S. and British officials that Russia could attack civilian ships in the Black Sea.

Nearly every night since the deal collapsed on July 17, Russia has bombarded Ukraine’s ports and grain infrastructure. It has warned that any vessel moving to and from Ukraine would be “at risk” and Kyiv, in response, has said it would expand its efforts to combat the Russians at sea.

Highlighting the fears of increased violence on the open sea, the Russian military said on Tuesday that it had thwarted an attack on one of its warships by Ukrainian forces using naval drones packed with explosives. The Russian claim could not be independently confirmed. In the past, Ukraine has used maritime drones to attack Russian ships both at sea and at port.

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Emergency workers at the site of a destroyed building near the Port of Odesa last week.Credit...Libkos/Associated Press

Russia maintains dominance in the Black Sea, but Ukraine — whose small naval fleet was decimated in the opening days of Moscow’s full-scale invasion 17 months ago — has sought to wage an asymmetric battle on the water. It has used its growing fleet of maritime drones to harass and threaten the Russian Black Sea fleet.

In October and November of last year, Ukraine directed bold assaults on the Black Sea Fleet port of Sevastopol, in Russian-occupied Crimea. It has since expanded the reach of its drone fleet to target Russian Navy vessels in the Black Sea, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials.

The latest Ukrainian attack, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, targeted the Sergey Kotov patrol ship, on Monday night southwest of Sevastopol. The Russian military said in a statement that it had repulsed the attack, and that “both enemy remote-controlled boats were destroyed by fire” from its ship. The statement reported no casualties, and said the Kotov continued on its mission of “controlling navigation in the southwestern part of the Black Sea.”

The British military intelligence agency said in its daily update on Wednesday that the movements of the Kotov around Black Sea shipping lanes was part of a broader shift in Russia’s naval posture. “There is a realistic possibility that it will form part of a task group to intercept commercial vessels Russia believes are heading to Ukraine,” the agency reported.

On Tuesday, Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, said that Britain had information indicating that Russia was planning to target more Ukrainian grain storage facilities and attack civilian ships in the Black Sea.

She did not publicly elaborate, although her remarks followed similar warnings from the White House. Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, on Tuesday reiterated American warnings that Russia could use sea mines to blow up a ship and blame the attack on Ukraine.

In a meeting held virtually on Wednesday, the newly-created NATO-Ukraine council debated the security situation in the Black Sea region. The military organization and its allies “are stepping up surveillance and reconnaissance” in the region, including with maritime patrol aircraft and drones, according to a statement released after the discussion.

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary chief, in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, last month.Credit...Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

When President Vladimir V. Putin said recently that the Wagner mercenary group legally “does not exist,” a collection of social media accounts that have historically been associated with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the group’s founder, quickly endorsed the Russian leader’s statement.

“Prigozhin was respected inside the country,” said a post on a Twitter account under the name Bogdan Goryunov. “But with his single act, he has forfeited all that respect,” he added, referring to the Wagner leader’s aborted mutiny last month. “What remains of Wagner is nothing now, just a memory.”

A group of volunteers who monitor Twitter for trolls identified Mr. Goryunov as a likely one. His account had few followers or original posts, mainly posting replies to more popular accounts, and it sometimes contradicted itself. Days earlier, it had defended the Wagner leader, tweeting in response to reports that he had met with Mr. Putin after the mutiny: “Did Prigozhin finally recognize that it was a big mistake and he wants to be useful to the country again?”

More than a decade ago, Mr. Prigozhin became a pioneer in the dark arts of internet trolling, launching so-called troll farms to shape narratives in Russia and beyond, including by sowing pro-Trump discord during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

But as his conflict with the Russian Defense Ministry over the conduct of the war in Ukraine deepened in recent months, some social media accounts, labeled trolls by activists, also turned against Mr. Prigozhin himself.

The change suggests that many of the tools that Mr. Prigozhin operated don’t specifically serve him — they serve the Kremlin. It also shows that the Russian state, which moved quickly to take down other parts of Mr. Prigozhin’s news media empire, may seek to take advantage of the troll farms, whose posts have often reflected how the Kremlin wishes to steer the public narrative in Russia.

“Prigozhin is Putin’s instrument,” said Antibot4navalny, a leader of a group of anonymous volunteers who monitor trolls, and identified Mr. Goryunov. “Without Putin, and the finances he provides, Prigozhin is nothing.”

Posts coming from troll accounts are both pro- and anti-Prigozhin, but that also may serve the Kremlin’s interests, according to Antibot4navalny, by allowing an outlet for those who support the Wagner leader’s views, including his harsh criticism of the Russian military leadership. What is clear, the group says, is that the trolls devote outsize attention to news related to Mr. Prigozhin’s interests, sometimes steering the discussion in his favor.

Over the past two decades, Mr. Prigozhin has been willing to undertake some of the most sensitive tasks for the Russian state — including by deploying Wagner mercenaries in Africa and the Middle East — in exchange for lucrative state contracts and increased influence.

His aborted mutiny — born out of his ambition to assume a greater role in the Russian power hierarchy — has sidelined Mr. Prigozhin, but the tools he helped develop could still serve the Russian state’s interests, analysts say. Since the uprising, Russian troll farms have been as active as ever, according to Darren Linvill, who studies trolls and social media disinformation at Clemson University in South Carolina.

“I think it would be a priority for the Russian government, especially right now when there are so many threats to Putin’s power,” Mr. Linvill said. “I would argue that the work of troll factories is as important as ever for Putin.”

By contrast, the Russian authorities moved quickly to take down Mr. Prigozhin’s media company, a collection of crudely designed news websites that never matched the reach of the better financed Russian state-run media.

According to Vladimir Yagudayev, who worked for one of Mr. Prigozhin’s websites, Politics Today, police officers searched the company’s offices in St. Petersburg after the mutiny. Days later, Mr. Yagudayev’s manager told him that the whole operation would shut down.

“It was very sad,” Mr. Yagudayev said in an interview, adding that he supported Mr. Prigozhin’s political views and believed his media companies made a valuable contribution.

“It wasn’t about money,” he said. “I was putting my soul into it.”

Alina Lobzina contributed reporting.

The limits on VK, a large Russian social media site, are a part of a wider effort by the authorities to use technology to shape public opinion and crack down on dissent.Credit...Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via Shutterstock

What’s the difference between Russia’s internet before and after the invasion of Ukraine? The answer: a thirtyfold increase in censorship.

That was the finding of a report published on Wednesday by Citizen Lab, a group from the University of Toronto that studies online censorship in authoritarian countries. The new report was one of the first attempts to quantify the extent of Russian internet censorship since the war began in February 2022.

To compile its findings, Citizen Lab analyzed more than 300 court orders from the Russian government against Vkontakte, one of the country’s largest social media sites, demanding that it remove accounts, posts, videos and other content. Before the war, Russia’s government issued internet takedown orders to Vkontakte, known as VK, once every 50 days on average. After the conflict began, that number jumped to nearly once a day, according to Citizen Lab.

Often the court orders focused on getting VK to remove news from independent media sites, as well as posts and accounts that expressed opposition to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin or the war. The government also used keyword blocking to censor lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer terms on the site, the report said.

“These findings suggest the extreme political sensitivity of the Ukraine war in Russia and in Russia’s need to tightly control Russians’ access to information regarding the invasion,” said Jeffrey Knockel, one of the report’s authors.

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The Russian government has issued more than 300 court orders against Vkontakte, the country’s largest social media site, demanding that it remove accounts, posts, videos and other content.Credit...Andrey Rudkov/Bloomberg

The limits on VK are a part of a wider effort by Russian authorities to use technology to shape public opinion and crack down on dissent. That campaign also includes a wider internet censorship system, a propaganda blitz and the deployment of digital surveillance tools to track people’s mobile phones and online activities.

Since the war began, Russia has also blocked access to some international sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. To get around the bans, many in Russia have taken to using virtual private networks, or VPNs, which are tools that circumvent those controls.

Despite Mr. Putin’s determination to limit what can be said online, Russia’s bureaucracy has not had great success in responding to real-time events. When Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, turned against the Kremlin last month, Russia’s censors blocked some content related to the mutiny — like Mr. Prigozhin’s name and that of the Wagner Group — but proved ineffective at stopping widespread discussion and even media articles about what had transpired.

Platforms like Telegram and YouTube remain available in Russia and are widely used sources of information.

In the report, Citizen Lab researchers also compared content on VK that was available in Canada, where the site is less restricted, against what was not viewable to internet users in Russia. Citizen Lab found evidence of personal accounts, videos and community groups blocked from Russian users, much of it related to the war.

Russia’s online content purges are small compared with those in other authoritarian countries such as China and Iran. Yet the techniques the countries use are similar.

The primary way Russian censors cut content on VK was by blocking community and personal accounts on the site. But Russian authorities also employed other techniques that are common in China, including measures to prevent users from searching for specific words on the site.

— Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano and Aaron Krolik Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano and Aaron Krolik report on Russia’s use of surveillance and censorship technology.

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Russian forces fired shells at a small reservoir miles behind the frontline in eastern Ukraine on Monday evening, killing three people, including two children, and wounding three other children who had been playing in the summer heat as well as three adults, a senior local official said on Wednesday.

The attack hit the town of Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the regional military administration. He said that a girl born in 2011 and a 10-year-old boy had been killed, while a 12-year-old boy and two girls including a 5-year-old had been injured.

“The Russians once again prove that they are at war with civilians, and in their desire to kill they stop at nothing,” Mr. Kyrylenko said. “I appeal to parents once again: There is no place for children in a war zone! Take care of them. Evacuate.”

Ukraine has urged civilians to leave the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since last summer, but many remain.

Mr. Kyrylenko said that the Russian forces had used cluster munitions, and posted pictures on the Telegram messaging app of the aftermath of the attack. One showed a pool of blood on a patch of sand next to a body of water. Another showed the remains of an abandoned picnic. A water pistol, some flotation aides and a pair of sandals lay on a rug spread over the grass.

There was no independent confirmation of the attack and the authenticity of the photographs has not been verified. There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities.

The town is around 12 miles southwest of the city of Bakhmut, which was seized by Russian forces in May after some of the bloodiest fighting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion 17 months ago. Ukraine has regained some ground in the outlying areas north and south of the city amid heavy fighting.

Russian forces have struck many civilian sites in the Donetsk region during the invasion. For example, more than 50 people died at a train station platform packed with civilians fleeing the city of Kramatorsk in April 2022, while 11 people, including 14-year-old twin sisters and another teen, died last month in an attack on a restaurant in Kramatorsk, which is around 15 miles northwest of Kostyantynivka.