Closing summary
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, urged Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to reopen talks on the failed deal he brokered last summer to safeguard Ukrainian grain exports to the world.
Russia failed to hit its targets in Kyiv but has successfully struck ports in the Odesa region with suicide drones in the latest wave of night-time strikes to follow the Kremlin’s decision to pull out of a UN-backed deal safeguarding the world’s food supply.
Operations were suspended at Ukraine’s Izmail port on the Danube after one of Russia’s drone strikes, according to industry sources. The port, across the river from Nato-member Romania, has served as the main alternative route out of Ukraine for grain exports since Russia reintroduced its de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in mid-July.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for reconstruction, Oleksandr Kubrakov, reportedly said that the attacks damaged 40,000 tonnes of food products.
The Polish deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jabłoński, said relations with Ukraine have “not been the best” lately after an official was criticised by Kyiv after suggesting the embattled nation had been ungrateful despite the level of support it had received.
Poland adopted an amended version of a panel to probe “Russian influence”, after an avalanche of EU and US criticism of the move, widely seen as targeting the opposition.
Local militia groups in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine were provided with weapons to defend their territory from Ukrainian attacks, according to local officials.
Pope Francis urged Europe to find “courageous courses of peace” to end the war in Ukraine. “Where are you sailing, if you are not showing the world paths of peace, creative ways for bringing an end to the war in Ukraine?” he said.
Updated
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said that his country is working for peace in Ukraine, but that neither Ukraine’s leader nor Russia’s were prepared to talk peace.
“Neither Putin nor Zelenskiy are ready,” Lula told a news conference, adding that peace proposals he is seeking with other countries will be ready when Russia and Ukraine are willing to negotiate. “Brazil’s role is to try to arrive at a peace proposal together with others for when both countries want it.”
Lula has tried to form a group of neutral countries to get peace talks going. He has been criticised for saying that Ukraine and Russia are equally responsible for the war.
The left-wing president, who was elected last year for a third non-consecutive term, criticised how western powers had backed Ukraine. “The UN security council has not worked. United States invaded Iraq, France and England invaded Libya, now Russia. And everyone has veto power,” he stated.
Updated
Here’s the full story on Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urging Vladimir Putin to reopen grain deal talks from my colleague Daniel Boffey.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has urged Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to reopen talks on the failed deal he brokered last summer to safeguard Ukrainian grain exports to the world after Russia’s latest night strikes destroyed ports and supplies in the Odesa region.
Fires raged at the sites of important infrastructure in the southern area on Wednesday morning while Ukraine’s defence ministry said a grain silo in Izmail, an inland port across the Danube River from Romania, had been badly damaged.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the strikes on Ukraine’s means to export grain was an attack on all. “The world must respond,” Ukraine’s president said. “When civilian ports are targeted, when terrorists deliberately destroy even [grain] elevators, this is a threat to everyone on all continents. Russia can and should be stopped.”
After the drone strikes, Erdoğan, in a phone call to the Kremlin, invited Russia’s president to engage in fresh talks over the agreement, with a spokesperson saying the Turkish leader had “expressed the importance of refraining from steps that could escalate tensions during the Russia-Ukraine war, emphasising the significance of the Black Sea initiative, which he described as a bridge of peace”.
Poland has adopted an amended version of a panel to probe “Russian influence”, after an avalanche of EU and US criticism of the move, widely seen as targeting the opposition.
Poland – a neighbour and ally of Ukraine, which is battling Russia’s invasion – in late May set up a committee with the stated goal of investigating citizens who may have succumbed to Russian influence, AFP reports. Under the law, those found guilty could have found themselves banned for 10 years from public positions relating to public finances and classified information.
Critics have argued the measure, introduced just months before parliamentary elections, would be used to target opposition leader Donald Tusk. His party has even gone so far as to dub it the “Lex Tusk”, or Tusk Law, due to its suspected aim.
Under the revised legislation, a person whom the committee finds to be under Russian influence would not be banned from holding public positions. Instead, the panel will issue a statement that the person has succumbed to Russian influence and cannot be guaranteed to work properly in the public interest.
Updated
The European Commission has green-lighted £631bn in state support for businesses affected by the Ukraine war, and the green transition, since March 2022, the since after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Financial Times reports that German firms have received almost half of the funds. However, there is unease in smaller countries amid suggestions that the rules favour bigger economies.
“We are unhappy about it because we see that the conditions for doing business are widening again between member states,” one senior diplomat told the FT. “It is due to exceptional circumstances, but that excuse is beginning to be a bit too easy to bring to the table.” Another diplomat said: “They make up all these excuses to keep relaxing rules.”
An eastern European member state diplomat said: “[The single market] was designed by the Dutch, the Germans, the French and others and it doesn’t benefit those on the fringes.”
A spokesperson for the commission said: “EU state aid rules, which have been recently subject to a modernisation process, make sure that aid granted by a member state or through state resources does not distort competition and trade within the EU by favouring certain companies or the production of certain goods, ensuring a level playing field in the single market.”
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry has said restrictions on movement have been imposed on ships and aircraft in the Kerch Strait, the Tass news agency reported.
It did not immediately give a reason for the move. The Kerch Strait connects the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, to the east of the Crimean peninsula.
Updated
Local militia groups in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine have today been provided with weapons to defend their territory from Ukrainian attacks, according to local officials.
The militias were created in the two Russian regions last December to assist the armed forces, National Guard and police, AFP reports.
The governor of Russia’s western Kursk region said his territorial militia had received its first batch of weapons, while state media reported that units in Belgorod region had received weapons. Both regions have reported repeated drone strikes and shelling from Ukraine’s armed forces.
Kursk governor, Roman Starovoit, said:
The Kursk region is experiencing terrorist attacks from Ukraine on an almost daily basis. The first batch [of weapons] has already arrived at the base. In the near future we will increase the number of weapons up to 300 units.
As Russia presses ahead with its full-scale military campaign in Ukraine, Moscow’s ability to protect its own border from external threats has come into doubt. In May and June, pro-Ukrainian militants calling themselves Russian partisans crossed the border into Russia’s Belgorod region, clashing with security forces.
Updated
The UK Foreign Office has announced the appointment of Nigel Casey as the new ambassador to Russia, at a time of perhaps unprecedented tensions between Moscow and London since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Casey succeeds Deborah Bronnert, who held the post since 2020, and will take up the role in November, AFP reports. Casey, 54, is a career diplomat who joined the Foreign Office in 1991 and most recently served as the prime minister’s special representative for Afghanistan.
He has also served as Britain’s high commissioner in South Africa and as ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Between 2003 and 2006 Casey was posted to Moscow.
In response to London “hindering the normal operation of Russian foreign missions in the UK”, Moscow last month announced travel restrictions for British diplomats working in Russia. The diplomats will mostly need to notify authorities in advance about their movements around the country.
Updated
Britain’s leading arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, has raised its annual profit forecast, the Financial Times reported.
It said war in Ukraine had helped push orders to new records, though it only cited a recent £280m gift from the UK to Ukraine to produce key munitions. BAE is also planning to set up a base in Ukraine to produce and repair weapons and vehicles.
The company said today it had gained a record £21bn in new orders during the first six months of 2023 and that its earnings would grow up to 12% a share this year. The value of shares in BAE has increased 70% since the beginning of 2022.
Charles Woodburn, the BAE chief executive, told the FT:
Defence and security is moving up national agendas … There were elements of the London market in particular that were shying away from defence … our involvement in the nuclear deterrent meant that a number of our traditional shareholders in London were putting us on the wrong side of the debate.
Updated
The lineups for the exhibition football match organised by Ukrainian footballers Andrii Shevchenko and Oleksandr Zinchenko, Game4Ukraine, are beginning to be announced.
The match on 5 August at Chelsea’s ground Stamford Bridge, west London, will feature footballing legends such as Samuel Eto’o, Gianfranco Zola, Petr Čech, Gerard Piqué and Fabio Cannavaro.
Look up 'legend' in the dictionary and you'll find these names 📖
— game4ukraine (@game_4_ukraine) August 2, 2023
Will Team Blue come out on top? Find out this Saturday (5th August) at Stamford Bridge. For tickets and more info, including how to donate: https://t.co/UPaeinPY8K#Game4Ukraine pic.twitter.com/uJK5v8nejy
Оголошений склад матчу зірок з Шевченком та Зінченком на підтримку України https://t.co/w2ndUbCYpo pic.twitter.com/GshWk9utuk
— Українська правда ✌️ (@ukrpravda_news) August 2, 2023
Updated
The Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, has condemned the Russian attacks on infrastructure on the Danube in southern Ukraine, towards the border with his country.
Russia's continued attacks against the Ukrainian🇺🇦 civilian infrastructure on #Danube, in the proximity of Romania🇷🇴, are unacceptable. These are war crimes and they further affect UA's capacity to transfer their food products towards those in need in the world.
— Klaus Iohannis (@KlausIohannis) August 2, 2023
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for reconstruction, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said that the attacks damaged 40,000 tonnes of food products, Ukrinform reports.
Ukrainian grain is irreplaceable for the world and it cannot be replaced by any other country in the coming years. That is why any disruption of logistics chains causes a shortage and price hikes, which affects everyone around the world.
Updated
Reuters reports that the Russian state-owned news agency RIA is carrying a claim, without evidence, that Russia hit military targets when it struck at the Danube port city of Izmail. RIA cites a source who claims an oil terminal, a naval repair yard and a building hosting foreign military forces were the targets.
Updated
The head of Latvia’s state border guard has said the country has started training a special taskforce in response to the arrival of Wagner mercenary troops in Belarus, amid reports of a border incursion into Polish airspace.
AP reports Guntis Pujāts told Latvian media Wednesday that security risks in the immediate vicinity of the Belarus border have been high since Minsk started using migrants as a tool of “hybrid warfare” but have grown with the arrival of the Wagner group.
Poland’s authorities have been criticised after they failed to initially acknowledge that Belarusian helicopters entered Poland’s airspace on Tuesday. At first, the military insisted Belarusian aircraft had not entered Poland. But after local residents posted photos on social media of aircraft with Belarusian insignia several kilometres from the border inside Poland, the defence ministry issued a statement saying it was true.
Updated
Workers have taken down the Soviet Union emblem from the Motherland monument in Kyiv. It is to be replaced with the national symbol of Ukraine.
Updated
This video shared by Christopher Miller of the FT gives an idea of the experience of being in Kyiv during a drone attack.
He writes: “You can hear and see what we hear and see in Kyiv during Russia’s air attacks. The buzzing sound is the Iranian Shahed drone which Ukrainians call flying mopeds or flying lawnmowers. Air defences destroy it, sending debris falling to the ground.”
In this video you can hear & see what we hear & see in Kyiv during Russia’s air attacks. The buzzing sound is the Iranian Shahed drone which Ukrainians call flying mopeds or flying lawnmowers. Air defenses destroy it, sending debris falling to the ground. pic.twitter.com/WDizNhsjPR
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) August 2, 2023
Updated
Russian drone attacks early on Wednesday damaged almost 40,000 tons of grains bound for China, Israel and countries in Africa, the Ukrainian infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, has said.
“The Russians attacked warehouses and grain elevators - almost 40,000 tons of grain were damaged, which was expected by the countries of Africa, China, and Israel,” Reuters reports Kubrakov said in a post on social media.
Kubrakov appealed for air defence equipment, saying: “The world must resist. Attacks on Ukrainian ports are a threat to the world”
Updated
Pope Francis has urged Europe to find “courageous courses of peace” to end the war in Ukraine as he opened a five-day visit to Portugal for a major Catholic youth festival.
The 86-year-old pontiff has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine and has sought to play a mediating role, though his efforts have yet to yield results and he has faced criticism for failing to blame Russia for the war, AFP reports.
We are sailing amid storms on the ocean of history, and we sense the need for courageous courses of peace. With deep love for Europe, and in the spirit of dialogue that distinguishes this continent, we might ask her: ‘Where are you sailing, if you are not showing the world paths of peace, creative ways for bringing an end to the war in Ukraine?’
Francis, the first Latin American pope, said he hoped this year’s event would serve as an “impulse towards universal openness” for Europe.
“For the world needs Europe, the true Europe. It needs Europe’s role as a bridge and peacemaker in its eastern part, in the Mediterranean, in Africa and in the Middle East,” he said.
A Ukrainian naval drone tried to attack a Russian warship escorting a civilian transport ship in the Black Sea early today, the state-owned RIA news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying.
The warship allegedly destroyed the drone. Its the second consecutive day the ministry has made such claims, the BBC reports. There were two reported attempted such attacks yesterday.
Updated
Here’s the full story from the Guardian’s Daniel Boffey on the attack of the Odesa region’s ports.
Russia failed to hit its targets in Kyiv but has successfully struck ports in the Odesa region with suicide drones in the latest wave of night-time strikes to follow the Kremlin’s decision to pull out of a UN-backed deal safeguarding the world’s food supply.
Fires were said to be raging at the sites of important Ukrainian infrastructure at undisclosed locations in the southern area while Ukraine’s defence ministry said a grain silo in Izmail, an inland port across the Danube River from Romania, had been badly damaged.
The shooting down of 23 Iranian-Shahed drones on Tuesday night, including 10 fired at Ukraine’s capital, highlighted the crucial role of Ukraine’s air defences, in particular the patriot systems donated by the US, but the gaps elsewhere in the country are becoming clearer every day.
Updated
The deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andrii Sybiha, has said on Monday that while Ukraine thanks its allies every day, it views the conflict with Russia as an existential battle for “the entire free world” and that supporting the country is an investment, rather than charity.
We categorically reject the attempts by some Polish politicians to impose on Polish society the baseless idea that Ukraine does not appreciate the help from Poland … Supporting us with weapons is not charity, but an investment in Poland’s own security.
It is Ukrainians who are protecting the values and security of our region, and they also do it in the interests of Poland and the entire free world.
Updated
Poland’s insinuation that Ukrainian officials are lacking in thankfulness for the considerable support the country has received since the Russian invasion is not the first time an ally has recently made such comments.
At the Nato summit in Vilnius last month, the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, Ukraine must show “gratitude” to its allies if it wanted to retain long-term public and political support. “I told them that last year, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list [of demands for weapons], that I’m not like Amazon,” he said.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, argued that “the American people do deserve a degree of gratitude”, in response to a pointed question from a Ukrainian activist who asked if Joe Biden was withholding Nato membership because he was “afraid of Russia losing, afraid of Ukraine winning”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was unsure what else he could do to express his thanks.
[Wallace] can write to me about how he wants to be thanked, so we can fully express our gratitude. We can make a point to wake up [every] morning and thank him.
Updated
The Polish deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jabłoński, has said relations with Ukraine have “not been the best” lately after an official was criticised by Kyiv after suggesting the embattled nation had been ungrateful for the support it had received.
Jabłoński said there are many issues on which Poland and Ukraine “cannot agree”, European Pravda reported, and that “due to the remarks made by some representatives of the Ukrainian authorities recently” relations have not been “the best, no one is hiding this.”
We follow a policy of Polish national interests. We support Ukraine to the extent that it aligns with Polish national interests. This has always been the case and will always be the case.
On Monday, Poland’s head of the international policy bureau, Marcin Przydacz, said Ukraine should “start appreciating the role Poland has played for Ukraine in recent months and years” and advocated for an extension to an EU ban on certain Ukrainian exports to protect Polish farmers.
Oleg Nikolenko, spokesperson for the foreign ministry in Kyiv, said:
During the meeting, it was emphasised that the statements about the alleged ingratitude of the Ukrainians for the assistance of the Republic of Poland do not reflect reality and as such are unacceptable.
Updated
Two civilians were wounded in shelling of the city of Kherson overnight, the regional governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, has said.
A summary from the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said a doctor was killed and five medical personnel were wounded in an attack on a city hospital in Kherson, but did not specify if the attack was today or yesterday, AP reports.
A 91-year-old woman died in an attack on a village in the Kharkiv region, the presidential office said.
In the eastern region of Donetsk, four people were wounded in Russian shelling over the past day, according to the governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
The area around the city of Nikopol, across the river from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, was shelled three times, the governor, Serhiy Lysak, said.
Updated
Confusion over reported agreement for Putin to visit Turkey
After the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spoke on the phone today, Erdoğan’s office issued a statement which said Putin would at some point visit Turkey, a Nato member.
But not long after, Russian state media agency Tass overwrote its brief news article and said that Putin and Erdoğan had only “agreed to prepare for a possible meeting”, citing the Kremlin.
Putin and Erdoğan agreed to continue contacts at various levels, including in the context of preparations for a possible meeting of the two leaders
The updated Tass story concluded: “Earlier, the office of the Turkish leader reported that Erdoğan and Putin agreed on the visit of the Russian president to Turkey.”
Erdoğan’s office also said his Russian counterpart was told the Turkish ruler would continue to engage in diplomacy to reinstate the Black Sea grain initiative.
President Erdoğan expressed the importance of refraining from steps that could escalate tensions during the Russia-Ukraine war, emphasizing the significance of the Black Sea initiative, which he described as a bridge of peace.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke by phone with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
— Republic of Türkiye Directorate of Communications (@Communications) August 2, 2023
During the call, the two leaders agreed on Mr. Putin’s visit to Türkiye.
Extending his thanks to his counterpart for the 2 amphibious firefighting aircraft dispatched by Russia for Türkiye’s…
It comes as the Kremlin today restated its position on the Black Sea grain deal, saying it was ready to return to it “immediately” once the part that concerns Russia was implemented. It has claimed Russia faced barriers to the free export of its grain and fertiliser through restrictions on payments and other logistical facets.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:
Russia - and president Putin has said this 100 times already - is ready to immediately return to the deal itself... just the deal must be implemented in the part that concerns the Russian Federation. So far this has not been done, as you know.
The west imposed sanctions against Russia without taking into account the needs of the world community for food, the UN general secretariat is well aware of this.
Yesterday, the US envoy to the UN said there were “indications” that Russia might be interested in returning to discussions about the deal, which had allowed Ukraine to export grain by sea.
Updated
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has condemned the Russian attack on the Odesa region.
BBC Russia reports that he has criticised how the Russian military was “again hitting ports, grain, global food security,” and called on the world community to respond.
The world must respond. When civilian ports are targeted, when terrorists deliberately destroy even elevators, this is a threat to everyone on all continents. Russia can and should be stopped.
Updated
The Guardian’s world affairs editor Julian Borger has this analysis of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The occupying forces held firm and have mostly kept their discipline in the first seven weeks, absorbing one attack after another, often counterattacking to recover lost ground, and mounting offensives of their own in Luhansk and other spots on the frontline where they sensed weakness.
Initial Ukrainian assaults got mired in dense, overlapping minefields. For all the focus on the delivery of Leopards and other western tanks in the run-up to the launch of the offensive on 4 June, Ukrainian armour failed to provide the clenched fist needed to breach the lines.
Tanks, as the military experts had warned, were not a solution on their own. Without air superiority in the skies above and overwhelming artillery support, they were vulnerable to Russian anti-tank missiles fired from the trenches and from gunships able to strike them over the horizon.
Operations have now been suspended at Ukraine’s Izmail port on the Danube after the Russian drone strike, two industry sources have told Reuters.
The port, across the river from Nato-member Romania, has served as the main alternative route out of Ukraine for grain exports since Russia reintroduced its de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in mid-July.
Summary of the day so far …
Russia has attacked Ukraine’s grain port of Izmail, an inland port across the Danube River from Romania. Ukraine’s defence ministry said a grain silo was damaged. There were no reports of casualties, Odesa region governor Oleh Kiper wrote in a post on Telegram. Kiper posted several photos showing firefighting crews trying to put out a fire in a high-rise building next to a river. The port, across the river from Nato-member Romania, has served as the main alternative route out of Ukraine for grain exports since Russia reimposed its de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in mid-July.
Ukraine claims its air defences forces shot down 23 “Shahed” drones. The majority were destroyed in Kyiv oblast and Odesa oblast. In Kyiv, fragments of a downed drone fell on an administration building in Solomianskyi district. According to the city authority, debris also fell in two other districts, but no one was injured. In the Kyiv region, due to falling debris, a private house caught fire in the Bucha raion. A garage and a car were damaged. In another settlement of the region, the roof of a shop was damaged by debris.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has again called for a tightening of sanctions against Russia in order to inhibit weapon production following the overnight strikes. He hailed “heroic work by the air defence tonight,” saying “It is possible to stop this with tougher sanctions, which will constantly increase and affect the military industry of the Russian Federation. Also, everyone can do more if they block the chains through which Russia receives sanctioned components. Every country can do more.”
Ukrinform reports that five settlements in the Sumy region have been shelled. It cites the local authority stating no civilian casualties or destruction of civilian infrastructure was recorded.
Kherson was also reportedly under fire. Houses, offices and cars were damaged in the city and two people were injured.
Here is another view of the building in Kyiv damaged overnight when it was hit by a downed drone.
The Russian navy has started scheduled drills in the Baltic Sea involving over 30 ships and boats along with 20 support vessels and 30 aircraft, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Some 6,000 navy personnel are involved in the exercise, Reuters reports it said in a statement.
Interfax in Russia is reporting that police in Moldova have arrested a man who drove a car into the gates of the Russian embassy in Chişinău earlier this morning.
Reuters has a quick snap that the Kremlin has confirmed that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is having a phone call this morning with his counterpart from Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Updated
Daniel Boffey is in Kyiv for the Guardian, and reports on the latest Russian attacks on the country’s grain infrastructure:
Russia failed to hit its targets in Kyiv but successfully struck ports in the Odesa region with suicide drones in the latest night-time strikes to follow the Kremlin decision’s to pull out of a UN-backed deal safeguarding the world’s food supply.
Fires were said to be raging at the sites of key Ukrainian infrastructure at undisclosed locations in the southern region while the country’s defence ministry said a grain silo in Izmail, an inland port across the Danube River from Romania, was badly damaged.
The shooting down of a total of 23 Iranian-Shahed drones on Tuesday night, including ten fired at Ukraine’s capital, highlighted the high value of Ukraine’s air defences, particularly the patriot systems donated by the US, but the gaps elsewhere in the country become clearer every day.
Russia has offered free grain to African countries while targeting Ukraine’s capacity to store and export foodstuffs since pulling out a deal brokered by Turkey and the UN to ensure that food and fertiliser from Ukraine, one of the major breadbaskets of the world, could leave its southern ports.
The latest attacks on the ports and industrial infrastructure, seemingly designed to kill off the possibility of any future deal with Kyiv on grain supply, was condemned by the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, who said Russia’s leadership had no empathy for those around the world reliant on Ukrainian products.
The outgoing UK ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, has visited the Motherland monument in Kyiv, where authorities are currently in the process of replacing the Soviet-era symbol on the shield with the national symbol of Ukraine. Simmons noted on social media that Ukraine’s capital has just experienced its seventh air raid warning in a 24 hour period.
Felt the urge to come and see this after the 7th air raid siren in 24 hours. It’s the closest I could get but still pretty fabulous to see the transformation underway. Maybe she could also be turned 180 degrees to face Kyiv city centre? 😊 pic.twitter.com/BuNbnyYFFO
— Dame Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) August 2, 2023
The work to replace the symbol began a couple of days ago.
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, has condemned Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine’s port and grain export infrastructure, saying on social media:
Homes. Ports. Grain silos. Historic buildings. Men. Women. Children. Round-the-clock and intensifying Russian strikes on Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Kherson make it clear once again Russia has no desire for peace, no thought for civilian safety, and no regard for people around the world who rely on food from Ukraine.
Updated
Turkmenistan Airlines suspends Moscow flights, citing drone attack concerns
Turkmenistan’s flagship airline has suspended flights to Moscow, it said on Wednesday, citing safety concerns after Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian capital.
“Due to the situation in the Moscow air zone, and based on a risk assessment in order to ensure flight safety, all Turkmenistan Airlines flights on the Ashgabat-Moscow-Ashgabat route will be suspended,” the airline said in a statement.
Reuters reports Turkmenistan Airlines said it would now fly instead to Kazan.
Russia attacks Ukraine's Danube port of Izmail
Russia has attacked Ukraine’s grain port of Izmail, an inland port across the Danube River from Romania. Ukraine’s defence ministry said a grain silo was damaged. There were no reports of casualties, Odesa’s region governor, Oleh Kiper, wrote in a post on Telegram.
Kiper posted several photos showing firefighting crews trying to put out a fire in a high-rise building next to a river.
An industrial source also confirmed to Reuters that Izmail was the main target of the attack, describing the level of damage as “serious”.
Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office released pictures showing a war crimes investigator outside a ruined building, and at least two damaged silos with wheat tumbling out.
The port, across the river from Nato-member Romania, has served as the main alternative route out of Ukraine for grain exports since Russia reimposed its de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in mid-July.
Russia has now relentlessly attacked Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure for more than two weeks.
“The enemy … is trying to destroy Ukrainian grain, attacking industrial and port infrastructure. Unfortunately, there are hits, unfortunately the silo was damaged, and fires broke out at the site,” Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian volunteer army south, part of Ukraine’s armed forces, said in a video statement.
“Russia is trying to cut Ukraine out of the future grain agreement and, most importantly, to strategically displace our country from the global food market,” he said.
Ukraine’s Danube River ports accounted for around a quarter of grain exports before Russia pulled out of the Black Sea deal and have since become main route out.
Updated
Ukrinform reports that five settlements in the Sumy region have been shelled. It cites the local authority stating no civilian casualties or destruction of civilian infrastructure was recorded.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Wednesday a grain silo was damaged in the latest Russian attack on the Ukrainian port of Izmail on the Danube River.
“Another elevator in the port of Izmail, Odesa region, was damaged by Russians. Ukrainian grain has the potential to feed millions of people worldwide,” Reuters reports the ministry wrote on social media.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this round-up of overnight news to subscribers of its Telegram channel, writing:
Air defence forces shot down 23 “Shahed” drones. The majority were destroyed in Kyiv oblast and Odesa oblast.
As a result of a drone attack in the Odesa region, fires broke out at port and industrial infrastructure facilities, and a grain elevator was damaged.
In Kyiv, fragments of a downed drone fell on the administration building in Solomianskyi district. the facade from the 9th to the 11th floor was damaged. According to the city authority, debris also fell in two other districts, but no one was injured.
In the Kyiv region, due to falling debris, a private house caught fire in the Bucha raion. A garage and a car were damaged. In another settlement of the region, the roof of a shop was damaged by debris.
Kherson also came under artillery fire at night – two people were injured. Houses, offices and cars were damaged in the city.
Reuters has a quick snap that a Russian drone strike caused “serious” damage at Ukraine’s Danube port of Izmail.
Ukraine’s emergency services have issued some photographs showing overnight damage to buildings in Kyiv region.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has again called for a tightening of sanctions against Russia in order to inhibit weapon production following the overnight strikes. On the Telegram messaging app he posted:
Heroic work by the air defence tonight. The Russians again tried to attack civilians, our ports, [grain] elevators. They do everything to circumvent sanctions and obtain components for the production of weapons.
They want to increase its quantity in order to kill people, destroy infrastructure, and cause famine in the countries of the global South.
It is possible to stop this with tougher sanctions, which will constantly increase and affect the military industry of the Russian Federation. Also, everyone can do more if they block the chains through which Russia receives sanctioned components. Every country can do mor.
We also need more air defence/anti-missile defence.
It is necessary to unite against Russian evil, to deprive the Russian Federation of opportunities to carry out attacks from the air.
Here are some images sent to us over the news wires of the explosions seen over the sky in Kyiv during the overnight attack. Ukrainian officials claim to have downed more than 10 Russian drones during the course of the night.
In its daily public intelligence briefing on the war, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has claimed that Russia has “has likely started forming up major new formations to add depth to its ground forces”.
It writes that “Since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has mainly deployed mobilised reservists to back-fill established formations” and suggests that “without a major new wave of mandatory mobilisation, Russia is unlikely to find enough new troops to resource even one new army.”
Russia recently increased the age range of those eligible for conscription, although to date it has rarely sent conscripts into battle in Ukraine.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 2 August 2023.
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This is Martin Belam in London, and I will be with you for the next few hours. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
A Russian court will deliver its verdict on Friday in the trial of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is facing extremism charges that could keep him behind bars for decades, AFP reports.
In his closing statement to the court, the 47-year-old criticised Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, which was followed by an unprecedented crackdown on critics of President Vladimir Putin’s government.
Russia was “floundering in a pool of either mud or blood,” Navalny said.
“Around it lie tens of thousands of people killed in the most stupid and senseless war of the 21st century,” he told the court.
Prosecutors have requested a jail term of 20 years on charges that include the financing of extremist activity, publicly inciting extremist activities and “rehabilitating Nazi ideology”.
Navalny is serving a nine-year prison sentence on embezzlement charges that his supporters see as punishment for his political work.
Ukraine’s birth rate plummets
Ukraine’s birthrate has fallen by 28% since the start of the war, according to new data, with 38,324 fewer babies born in the country in the first six months of this year compared with 2021, before Russia invaded.
While birthrates have been declining by 7% per yer since 2015, according to Ukrainian data analytics company OpenDataBot, the drop from 2021 to 2023 is the largest since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. The next steepest drop was in 2015, in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
This year, the website reports, an average of 16,000 babies were born a month, compared to as many as 23,000 babies born monthly before Russia’s full-scale invasion:
Russian strikes cause fire at grain store in Odesa
Russian drones attacked port and grain storage facilities in the south of Ukraine’s coastal Odesa region in the early hours of Wednesday, setting some of them on fire, regional governor Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
There have been no reports of casualties, he said. Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure after refusing to extend the Black Sea grain deal which had allowed for exports of Ukrainian grain.
Updated
More than 10 drones shot down over Kyiv
AFP: More than 10 Russian drones were downed during an overnight attack on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said early on Wednesday.
“Groups of drones entered Kyiv simultaneously from several directions. However, all air targets - more than 10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - were detected and destroyed in time by the forces and means of air defense,” said Sergiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration.
He said Russia had used a barrage of Iranian-made Shahed drones, with debris hitting several areas.
Kyiv’s mayor said previously on Wednesday that the attack on the capital had caused damage in multiple districts, including the busy Solomyansky, which hosts an international airport.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that no one was killed or wounded in the attack.
In Golosiivsky district, “parts of a drone fell on the playground” and a fire broke out in a non-residential building, the Kyiv city military administration said, adding that emergency services were on the scene.
The administration had earlier issued an alert for drone attacks and warned residents to stay in shelters.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
More than 10 Russian drones were downed during an overnight attack on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said early on Wednesday, as Russian drones also attacked port and grain storage facilities in Odesa region in the early hours of Wednesday, setting some of them on fire.
Elsewhere:
Russian air defences shot down several drones targeting the Moscow region on Tuesday, the mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with one hitting a tower that had also been struck on Sunday. The Russian defence ministry said two drones had been destroyed in the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts near Moscow, and that a third was jammed and had crashed in the capital. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv. No injuries were reported. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was also temporarily shut and flights redirected.
Russia also downed a drone in the Sevastopol district of Crimea, according to the local governor. Mikhail Razvozhaev wrote on Telegram: “A UAV was shot down in the Kara-Koba area. An explosion occurred on the ground. Grass and bushes caught fire. Fire brigades are already on site and have begun to put out the blaze.”
The United States has been told that Russia is prepared to return to talks on a deal that had allowed the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, but “we haven’t seen any evidence of that yet,” the US envoy to the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Poland said on Tuesday it was rushing troops to its eastern border after accusing Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, of violating its airspace with military helicopters. The Belarusian military denied any such violation and accused Nato member Poland, one of Ukraine’s most fervent backers in its conflict with Russia, of making up the accusation to justify a buildup of its troops.
Ukraine and Poland meanwhile called in the ambassadors from each other’s countries on Tuesday as a dispute escalated after a foreign policy adviser to Poland’s president said Kyiv should show more appreciation for Warsaw’s support in its war with Russia. The adviser, Marcin Przydacz, also said the Polish government must defend the interests of the country’s farmers – a reference to a ban on imports of Ukrainian commodities which will expire next month.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said at least three drones had hit populated areas, one destroying two floors of a dormitory. Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram early on Tuesday: “A fire broke out and emergency services are attending. Details on casualties are being clarified.”
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has visited troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, part of which is occupied by Russia and which it claims to have annexed. Gerasimov was one of the military figures repeatedly criticised by Yevgeny Prigozhin before the Wagner group’s aborted uprising.
Ukraine thwarted an overnight attempt by a Russian saboteur group to cross its northern border, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said. Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said four armed people attempted to cross the border but were repelled by Ukrainian fire.
