The leader of Belarus has gained new prominence in Russia’s politics.

The comments did little to clarify the details surrounding the aftermath of the most dramatic challenge to President Vladimir V. Putin’s authority in his 23 years in power. The Kremlin refused to comment on Mr. Lukashenko’s claims, telling reporters on Thursday that it was unaware of Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts.

“We don’t follow his movements. We have neither the ability nor the desire to do so,” said Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.

Mr. Lukashenko also signaled that at least some of Wagner’s fighting force — which was instrumental in Russia’s capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut this spring — could stay intact. He called the group Russia’s “most powerful unit,” although he said that “the main question of where Wagner will be deployed and what will it do — it doesn’t depend on me; it depends on the leadership of Russia.”

The Belarusian autocrat intervened late last month in the armed mutiny led by Mr. Prigozhin, striking a deal with the Wagner leader that saw him stand down and withdraw his forces in exchange for amnesty for his fighters, and safe passage to Belarus for himself.

Mr. Lukashenko said that he had spoken to Mr. Prigozhin on Wednesday, and that Wagner would continue to “fulfill its duties to Russia for as long as it can.” He said Mr. Prigozhin was “a free man, but what will happen later, I don’t know.”

He said he did not expect that Mr. Putin would seek immediate vengeance for the failed mutiny. “If you think that Putin is so malicious and vindictive that he will ‘kill’ Prigozhin tomorrow — no, this will not happen,” he said.

Mr. Lukashenko previously said that he had offered Wagner fighters an “abandoned” military base, and satellite images verified by The New York Times last week showed new temporary structures being built at a deserted base about 80 miles from Minsk, the Belarusian capital. But on Thursday, Mr. Lukashenko appeared less definitive about the possible presence of Wagner troops in Belarus.

“Whether they will come here, and if so, how many of them will come, we will decide in the future,” he said.

Mr. Lukashenko said any Wagner units in Belarus could be called upon to defend the country, and that the group’s agreement to fight for Belarus in the event of a war was the main condition for granting it permission to relocate to the country.

“If we must activate this unit for the defense of the nation, then it will be immediately activated,” he said. “And their experience will be in high demand.”

After the rebellion in Russia late last month, Mr. Lukashenko positioned himself as a power broker who had helped avert a crisis, even as he has become increasingly isolated from the rest of the world. Viewed by the West as a subordinate under the Kremlin’s control, Mr. Lukashenko appears to be trying to burnish his image as a key player in resolving one of the biggest crises of Mr. Putin’s tenure as Russia’s leader.

By granting an interview session with a small group of reporters at his presidential palace on Thursday, Mr. Lukashenko may be hoping to establish a measure of independence from his benefactors in Moscow, while possibly getting a boost at home, with an electorate more interested in peace than joining Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Anatoly Kurmanaev and Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.

On Wednesday, a prominent television current affairs show aired video footage of what it claimed was the police search of Mr. Prigozhin’s house in St. Petersburg. The footage, which was accompanied by negative commentary, showed packs of cash, numerous firearms, passports, wigs, packs of what was described as drugs, as well as shots of the interior of an opulent mansion.

The footage could not be independently verified and Mr. Prigozhin’s press office denied that it showed the Wagner founder’s home.

“Let see how the fighter for justice lived,” said a pro-government journalist, Eduard Petrov, on the 60 Minutes show, in apparent mockery of Mr. Prigozhin’s self-portrayal as an everyman crusader against corrupt elites.

Mr. Petrov later added that Mr. Prigozhin lived “like a leader of a criminal clan,” and the show’s host, Yevgeny Popov, called Mr. Prigozhin “a traitor.”

The images were later distributed widely by Russian state news agencies and affiliated publications.

Later on Wednesday, another current affairs program on the same state channel ran a segment that attempted to portray Mr. Prigozhin as a Western agent.

Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann said the media attacks on Mr. Prigozhin resembled the Kremlin’s previous propaganda campaigns against Russian opposition leaders and were an attempt to reduce the popularity of the mercenary leader. She added that attacking an opponent’s financial integrity has proved particularly effective for the Kremlin in the past.

Presenting Mr. Prigozhin as corrupt “falls on prepared ground of universal disappointment so common among Russians,” Ms. Schulmann said in a YouTube video. “The idea that everything is for money, that the match is fixed is our national credo.”

A poll conducted days before the failed mutiny by the independent Russian public opinion firm, Russian Field, found that his popularity was rising. More than half of the Russians surveyed said they supported Mr. Prigozhin, a significant achievement given his broad absence from coverage by mainstream state media outlets at the time. But his support fell sharply after the mutiny, to 29 percent, according to another Russian Field poll conducted in late June.

Alina Lobzina contributed reporting.

The Ukrainian military said that Russian forces fired 10 Kalibr cruise missiles from carriers and submarines in the Black Sea. Seven missiles were intercepted, the military said, with others hitting the apartment complex and other sites.

“This is the largest attack on Lviv’s civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the full-scale invasion,” Andriy Sadovyi, the city’s mayor, said in a video posted on Twitter that showed him standing in front of wrecked cars, broken windows and debris strewn on the street. He said more than 50 apartments had been destroyed.

Maksym Kozytskyy, the head of the regional military administration, said that a piece of critical infrastructure had also been damaged but did not provide details.

In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lviv was considered relatively safe given its proximity to the border with Poland, a NATO member. But it remains well within reach of Moscow’s missiles as fighting rages on the front lines.

Throughout the war, Russian forces have been shifting their tactics with missile and drone attacks, testing and trying to exhaust Ukrainian air defense systems. That’s what happened early on Thursday, according to Ukraine’s military, which said several groups of missiles were spotted on radar heading north before “abruptly changing course” to the west.

Hours after the strike, as rescuers and firefighters removed chunks of rubble from the blast site, a crowd of about 100 people had gathered to watch and wait for permission from the police to re-enter damaged buildings. The air was filled with dust; broken glass crackled underfoot.

Students from a nearby dormitory sat on a table-tennis table, watching the scene. Many wore mismatched clothes, having grabbed whatever they could throw on before running for shelter when the sirens sounded.

Air-raid alerts had started wailing at about 1:30 a.m. in parts of Ukraine — including in the capital, Kyiv — before spreading to other regions. An hour later, the whole country was marked “red” on online alert maps, with Ukraine’s Air Force warning that several missiles were moving toward the west.

The first reports of explosions in Lviv soon followed. The authorities said air defenses were working and urged residents to remain in shelters.

“It was very loud,” Mr. Kozytskyy, the head of the regional administration, wrote on the Telegram app just before 3 a.m., urging people to stay in a safe place.

After the all clear was given around 3:20 a.m., ambulance sirens were heard in the city.

Stanislav Kozliuk contributed reporting from Lviv.

The expected U.S. decision was first reported by National Public Radio and confirmed on Wednesday night by the administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to disclose internal policy discussions.

Here is what to know about the weapons.

What are cluster munitions?

Cluster munitions, first used during World War II, are a class of weapons including rockets, bombs, missiles and artillery projectiles that break apart midair and scatter smaller munitions over a large area.

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Why are they controversial?

Cluster munitions’ bomblets are designed to explode or ignite upon hitting the ground, but historically the failure rate is the highest among all classes of weapons, with lasting and often devastating consequences for civilians. According to humanitarian groups, a fifth or more of bomblets can linger, potentially to detonate when disturbed or handled years later.

Since World War II, cluster munitions have killed an estimated 56,500 to 86,500 civilians. They have also killed and wounded scores of American service members. Civilians, including children in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Balkans and Laos, continue to suffer from incidents involving remnants of cluster munitions.

Aren’t these things banned?

While the deployment of cluster munitions isn’t in and of itself a war crime, their use against civilians can be, because they kill so indiscriminately with long-lasting effects.

Because of those risks, more than 100 countries — though not the United States, Russia or Ukraine — have signed a 2008 treaty known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions, promising not to make, use, transfer or stockpile them. Since the adoption of the convention, 99 percent of global stockpiles have been destroyed, according to the Cluster Munition Coalition.

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Ukraine has said it would deploy the weapons judiciously, given that it is fighting on its own land, and that many frontline areas are already widely affected by land mines.

Have cluster munitions been used in Ukraine?

The New York Times has documented Russia’s extensive use of cluster munitions in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022. Ukraine has also used them in efforts to retake Russian-occupied territories, according to human rights monitors, the United Nations, and reports from The Times. The Cluster Munition Coalition said in its annual report last summer that cluster munitions had killed at least 689 people in just the first six months of fighting.

While the exact number of the weapons used in the conflict is difficult to know, hundreds have been documented and reported in Ukraine, mostly in populated areas, the group Human Rights Watch said in a May 2023 report. The attack with the highest known casualties was an April 2022 strike with a missile equipped with a cluster munition at a crowded train station in Kramatorsk, which killed dozens and injured more than 100 others, according to the group.

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“Transferring cluster munitions disregards the substantial danger they pose to civilians and undermines the global effort to ban them,” Mary Wareham, the group’s arms advocacy director, said in a statement on Thursday.

How do other allies feel about these weapons going to Ukraine?

Most members of NATO, the Western military alliance that has been staunch in its support for Ukraine, have signed on to the international ban. Ms. Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense, said “concerns about allied unity” was one of the reasons holding the United States back from providing the weapons to Ukraine. The Convention on Cluster Munitions also limits the ability of nations that have signed on to cooperate militarily with countries that employ them.

How would supplying cluster munitions affect the war?

Ahead of Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, Russian troops have had months to prepare lines of defense against the coming assault, with miles of trenches, tank traps and mines. Ukraine and the Biden administration have argued that the cluster munitions could help the Ukrainian forces, which are outnumbered by the Russian military, overcome those defenses.

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In February, Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for restoration, said speedy provision of arms from allies would be critical to Kyiv’s advance in the counteroffensive against Russia, and that it should be Ukraine’s choice to deploy the weapons on its soil.

“It’s our territory. I understand how it’s complicated with all these conventions, but we can use to resist them on our territory,” he said in a town hall at the Munich Security Conference. “Our allies, the U.S., many other countries, they have millions of rounds of such type. Again, we will wait, wait, wait, and suddenly one day, probably, we will receive such type of munitions.”

Eric Schmitt and John Ismay contributed reporting.

What had looked like a possible coup attempt in Russia appeared to have ended with a diplomatic coup for Mr. Lukashenko.

Mr. Putin later called the Belarusian president to thank him for his role in the talks, the Belarusian news agency said. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that Mr. Lukashenko had personally offered to broker the deal, under which Mr. Prigozhin was allowed to go to Belarus and his fighters granted amnesty.

Three days after the uprising ended, Mr. Lukashenko said that the Wagner leader had arrived in Belarus. In an account of his role issued by Belarusian state media, Mr. Putin had raised the possibility of killing Mr. Prigozhin but Mr. Lukashenko argued against it, saying that “a bad peace is better than any war.”

The Belarusian leader said that he had then called Mr. Prigozhin, warning him that Mr. Putin intended to “squash him like a bug.” Neither the Kremlin nor Mr. Prigozhin have corroborated those conversations.

In any event, the crisis in Russia has brought a seeming reversal of roles for Mr. Lukashenko, who relied on Kremlin support in 2020 to violently crush a democracy movement challenging his claim to a landslide re-election win. Seemingly in exchange, in 2022, he let Mr. Putin use Belarus as a staging ground for his invasion of Ukraine, and he recently allowed Russia to station tactical nuclear weapons in his country.

Still, observers say that the most important factor in Mr. Lukashenko’s continued hold on power is the fact that Mr. Putin remains in control in Russia. The Belarusian leader appeared to acknowledge as much last week, when he said he was motivated to intervene in the Wagner mutiny because “if Russia collapses, we will remain under the rubble — we will all die.”

Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting.

By the time Mr. Prigozhin’s mercenaries were marching on Moscow, he was trying to draw his firepower from the same core grievance as Mr. Navalny: that Putinism is a system with no accountability, run by a cabal of corrupt officials, who are more interested in enriching themselves and pleasing the boss than in doing what’s right for the country.

The similarities end there. The extraordinary events of last month demonstrated not only Mr. Putin’s vulnerability to a power grab but also the prospect that whatever comes next could grow out of the extreme and unpredictable forces the Russian president has unleashed during his costly war against Ukraine.

Mr. Prigozhin, whose mercenaries have been accused of indiscriminate killings and other crimes, made clear those forces could be equally if not more grim.

“Why? Simply because if we start later, it will go slower.”

The slow progress has been a common refrain from allies and pro-Russian military bloggers assessing the counteroffensive, which has encountered extensive Russian defenses.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the Ukrainian troops were “advancing steadily, deliberately.”

“Slow advance is very deliberate,” the general added in remarks to the National Press Club in Washington on Friday.

He said the fact that the long-awaited push to recapture Russian-occupied territory was not advancing as rapidly as many experts had predicted did not surprise him.

“It’s going to be very long, and it’s going to be very, very bloody, and no one should have any illusions about any of that,” General Milley said. “Ukrainian soldiers are assaulting through minefields and in the trenches, and this is literally a fight for their life. So, yes, sure, it goes a little slow, but that is part of the nature of war.”

Ukraine has yet to commit the bulk of its reserves, including troops trained in Europe over the winter and spring, and equipped with weaponry from NATO countries, meaning it can bring still more force to bear.

In the CNN interview, Mr. Zelensky made a familiar plea for even more advanced weapons, and for American-made F-16 fighter jets.

“In some directions we cannot even think of starting” the counteroffensive, he said, “as we don’t have the relevant weapons. And throwing our people to be killed by Russian long-range weapons would be simply inhumane.”

Eric Schmitt and Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting.