Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Tuesday that Ukraine had launched a drone attack on the Russian capital and its region, temporarily disrupting flight operations at the Vnukovo airport. “At this moment, the attacks have been repelled by air defence forces,” Sobyanin said on Telegram. “All detected drones have been eliminated”. There were no casualties or injured reported.
Landings and takeoffs at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport were restricted “for technical reasons beyond the control of the airport,” Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said. A number of flights were diverted to other airports.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Tuesday that Ukraine attempted to strike civil infrastructure, including the airport, which amounted to an “act of terrorism”. Over 18,000 civilians have been recorded as casualties inside Ukraine by the UN since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country began in February 2022.
Nato members have agreed to extend the term of secretary general Jens Stoltenberg for a further year. The former prime minister of Norway has been in the role since 2014. In a statement on social media he said he was “honoured” and that “in a more dangerous world, our alliance is more important than ever”. US president, Joe Biden, welcomed the decision, saying “his steady leadership, experience, and judgment has brought our alliance through the most significant challenges in European security since the second world war.”
Hungary’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that he had been in touch with his Turkish counterpart about a ratification of Sweden’s Nato membership, and if there is a shift in Turkey’s stance then Hungary will not delay the process.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told a virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that the world faces an increasing risk of conflict due to economic and financial instability, and thanked the leaders of China and India for their support during the recent Wagner mutiny in the country.
Russia sees no basis for renewing the Black Sea grain initiative, the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday, less than two weeks before the expiration of the agreement. A proposal by the UN to set up a special communications channel between JP Morgan and Russia’s state agricultural bank is not a valid alternative to reconnecting the bank to the international Swift payments system, the foreign ministry said
Suspilne reports that a man and a woman were killed Tuesday morning in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson. Additionally, three people have been injured by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv oblast.
Oleksiy Danilov has described recent days of battle as “fruitful” for Ukraine in terms of destroying the resources of the Russian forces. In a post to social media, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council described Ukraine as acting “calmly” and “wisely’ in its counteroffensive.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass has reported that the Ukrainian power line connected to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been cut off. It cited Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of the Rosenergoatom.
A funeral service has taken place in Kyiv for the celebrated writer Victoria Amelina. A Ukrainian novelist, poet and public intellectual, she was killed by injuries sustained when a Russian missile attack struck a pizza restaurant in the eastern town of Kramatorsk. 12 people were killed in the attack, including children. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of her country in 2022, Amelina set aside most of her writing to document and research war crimes.
A prominent Russian journalist and a lawyer were attacked and suffered serious injuries after several masked men in the Russian region of Chechnya forced their car to stop on Tuesday. Journalist Elena Milashina had her head shaved, several fingers broken, and was covered with green dye in the attack, according to human rights group Memorial. The well-known journalist for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper was travelling to the Chechen capital Grozny from the local airport with lawyer Alexander Nemov, when they were attacked. Reports said Nemov had been stabbed in the leg, and that their attackers had made it clear the duo were being punished for their activism and reporting.
Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-imposed mayor of the occupied city of Donetsk has cast doubt on holding elections in September, saying “First of all, the question is about the safety of our voters, we have no right to risk the lives of people.”
At least three people were killed and 19 injured in a Russian drone attack on Monday on the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy. A five-year-old boy was among the injured. An official building and two residential buildings were damaged in an attack carried out with four drones, the regional administration said on Telegram.
Ukraine said on Monday its troops had regained more ground along eastern and southern fronts in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described as progress in a “difficult” week for Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The US ambassador to Russia met with jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Moscow. Lynne Tracy met with Gershkovich on Monday after being granted access, her second visit since his detention in March. She has accused Russia of conducting “hostage diplomacy.” On Thursday, Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, told reporters that the country has tried to get consular access to Gershkovich “virtually every day.”
Zelenskiy and German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, called on Monday for the extension of the Black Sea Grain deal, which allows the safe export of grain and fertilisers from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports, an official said. After a call between the two leaders, Zelenskiy said he and Scholz focused on defence cooperation and on the forthcoming Nato summit in Lithuania, where Ukraine wants to secure an indication of future membership in the Alliance.
Russia has brought 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday, writing on his Telegram channel that the children had “found refuge” in Russia.
Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.An international office to investigate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine opened on Monday in The Hague, in the first step towards a possible tribunal for Moscow’s leadership. It will investigate and gather evidence in a move seen as an interim step before the creation of a special tribunal that could bring Kremlin officials to justice for starting the Ukraine war.
