'No doubt' US will go to war with Russia if Ukraine falls, Pence says; Prigozhin back in Russia?: Live updates

Providing Ukraine with the military support needed to turn back the Russian invasion is crucial if the U.S. wants to avoid going to war against Russia, former vice president and current presidential hopeful Mike Pence says.

Pence, speaking on the Hugh Hewitt Show, said Russia's military operation in Ukraine "is not just warfare. It’s evil," adding that he believes Russian leader Vladimir Putin is facing sharp divisions inside Russia. Pence promised that, if elected, he would ensure Ukraine received whatever aid was required to win.

"I have no doubt that if Vladimir Putin overran Ukraine, it would not be too long, Hugh, before the Russian military crossed a border where we would have to send our fighting men and women to fight against them," Pence said. He said he was a supporter of Ronald Reagan's doctrine that "if you’re willing to fight the enemies of the United States on your soil, we’ll give you the means to fight them there so our men and women in uniform don’t have to fight them."

Developments:

∎ Delivery of Russian tactical nuclear warheads to Belarus has begun and will be completed by year's end, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said, confirming statements made by Putin last month. Putin said Russia retains control over the warheads.

∎ Equipment contributions by allies and Russia's battlefield losses have allowed Ukraine to match or overtake the the number of tanks available to the Kremlin's forces while reducing a large pre-war disadvantage in artillery and systems that launch multiple rockets, though by a smaller amount, Bloomberg reported.

∎ Ukraine has taken measures to prevent a Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and "the danger of an artificial technogenic catastrophe is quietly going down,'' Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told The Times of London. President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned of the possibility of such an attack earlier in the week.

∎ The warring sides exchanged 45 prisoners of war each, among them Ukrainian soldiers involved in last year's dogged but unsuccessful defense of Mariupol and its Azovstal steel plant. Ukraine also got back two children who had been deported to Russia.

∎ Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina upset 28th-seed Elise Mertens of Belgium on Thursday to move into the third round a the Wimbledon tennis tournament in London.

Wagner group leader Prigozhin may be back in Russia

Yevgeny Prigozhin may be back amid gold bars and stacks of cash at his opulent mansion in St. Petersburg, Russia, instead of bunking at a camp with mercenaries from his Wagner Group in Belarus.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said the man who led a short-lived insurrection against the Kremlin less than two weeks ago is back home, not in the country that offered him and his troops refuge as part of a deal to end the revolt.

Thousands of Wagner fighters have left Russia for camps in Belarus since the threat was quelled at the end of June. “As for Prigozhin, he is in St. Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,’’ Lukashenko said Thursday, after saying last week that Prigozhin had arrived in Minsk. “Maybe he went to Moscow in the morning.’’

In either case, the world has a much better idea now of his affluent lifestyle.

Russian media outlets published Wednesday video of apparent raids into Prigozhin's office and palatial house, showing bags of cash in different currencies, gold ingots, assault rifles, ammunition and several passports with his photo and different identities. A photo hanging in the mansion showed a lineup of decapitated heads.

The images appeared to be part of the authorities’ efforts to tarnish Prigozhin, who has presented himself as an enemy of corrupt elites even though he owed his wealth to his ties to Putin.

Recent Russian media reports said Prigozhin was seen at his St. Petersburg offices, but it’s not clear whether that would constitute a violation of the agreement to end the mutiny or if he was granted extra time in the country. Putin has referred to the rebellion’s organizers as “traitors.’’

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to confirm the whereabouts of Prigozhin but said the agreement on Prigozhin's departure to Belarus remained in force.

“We have neither the ability nor the desire to ... follow his movements,’’ Peskov said.

Russian warplanes again harass U.S. drones

For the second day in a row, Russian pilots harassed American drones conducting surveillance over Syria by buzzing them with their warplanes, the U.S. military said Thursday.

In the latest incident, the Russian fighter jets dropped flares in front of the MQ-9 Reaper spy planes and "flew dangerously close," Air Force Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, commander of the 9th Air Force, said in a statement. That followed a similar incident the day before, the Pentagon said, at a time of high tension between the U.S. and Russia because of the war in Ukraine.

"Once again today Russian fighter aircraft flew incredibly unsafe and unprofessionally against both French and U.S. aircraft over Syria," the U.S. Air Force tweeted. "We fully support our French allies right to conduct security missions in the region."

−Tom Vanden Brook

Russian missiles blast Lviv apartment building, killing 6

Russian cruise missiles slammed into an apartment building in the western Ukraine city of Lviv on Thursday, killing six people, injuring at least three dozen and signaling that no region of the battered country was safe from attack. The bulk of the war has been fought in the south and east, closer to Russia's border. Lviv, a city of about 750,000 that has served as a refuge for many Ukrainians fleeing the unrelenting bombing, is less than 50 miles from Poland and had been relatively safe from Russia's military.

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, who called for two days of mourning, said 35 buildings and 50 cars in the area of the strike were damaged.

"The whole city is without light," he tweeted. "We are waiting for additional information from energy experts. There may be interruptions with water supply."

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Bulgaria rallying support for his country, tweeted that "there will definitely be a response to the enemy. A strong one."

Zelenskyy lashes out at Bulgarian president

Zelenskyy drew support from Bulgaria's prime minister but had stern words for the nation's president during a brief visit to Sofia on Thursday. Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov pledged to supply weapons to Ukraine and to support NATO membership. But President Rumen Radev, who serves in a mostly ceremonial role, suggested that diplomacy, not more guns, was needed to end the war.

That drew a rebuke from Zelenskyy, who suggested that Radev would change his position if his country were invaded − and that Bulgaria's military would be unable to stave off Russian aggression on its own.

Top Russian news agency chief dumped after coup coverage

The head of Russia's most powerful state-run news agency has been ousted in favor of a former press aide of Putin. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin dismissed Sergei Mikhailov after 11 years as director of Tass, BBC Russian reported. Mikhailov had modernized the news agency while retaining its identity as a mouthpiece for the government.

But Tass coverage of insurrection leader Yevgeny Prigozhin may have helped build the Wagner Group leader's popularity in Russia. The new Tass director, Andrey Kondrashov, was the press secretary for Putin’s campaign headquarters in 2018 and has produced documentaries glorifying the annexation of Crimea and Putin’s life.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War says Kondrashov’s appointment might indicate the Kremlin is unhappy with the media coverage of the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion and "highlights the continued importance of loyalty to Putin over professional achievement."

NBC says ex-US officials discussed Ukraine with Russia

A group of former senior U.S. national security officials have held secret talks with Russia's top diplomat and other Russian leaders in an attempt to lay groundwork for negotiations aimed at ending the war, NBC News reported Thursday, citing two current government officials and four former officials the news outlet did not name.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in New York with members of the group for several hours in April, NBC said. The meetings reportedly were conducted with the knowledge but not the authority of the Biden administration, and those who met with Lavrov briefed the White House National Security Council afterward, according to the report. The White House has repeatedly said Ukraine must determine when and if any peace talks take place.

Among those involved in the talks were former diplomat Richard Haass, Europe expert Charles Kupchan and Russia expert Thomas Graham, both former White House and State Department officials. The three did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine updates: US-Russia war likely if Ukraine falls, Pence says