Here is the situation on Thursday, August 3, 2023.
Fighting
- Russian drones struck port and grain storage facilities in and around the Danube River port of Izmail. Ukraine’s infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the attacks damaged about 40,000 tonnes of grains expected by countries in Africa. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of waging an attack on “global food security”.
- The Ukrainian governor of Kherson said two people were injured following a Russian attack on a residential area.
- More than 10 Russian drones were downed during an attack on Kyiv at about 3am (00:00 GMT), Ukrainian officials said.
- Local militia groups in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine were provided with weapons to ward off Ukrainian attacks, local officials said. The militias were originally created in the Kursk and Belgorod regions last December to assist the armed forces, National Guard and police.
- A large number of prisoners held in makeshift detention centres in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine were tortured and sexually violated, the Mobile Justice Team group of international experts said in a summary of their latest findings.
Diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is ready to return to the Black Sea grain deal as soon as the West meets its obligations to Russia’s grain exports, the Kremlin said.
- Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that his country is working to end the war in Ukraine but neither Moscow nor Kyiv are ready to talk. “Neither Putin nor Zelenskyy are ready for peace,” Lula told reporters in a news conference.
- Ukraine and Poland called in their respective ambassadors as tensions escalated after a foreign policy adviser to Poland’s president said Kyiv should show more appreciation for Warsaw’s support.
- Pope Francis 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 Catholic youth festival.
- The British foreign office announced the appointment of Nigel Casey as the new ambassador to Russia amid rising tensions between Moscow and London. Casey succeeds Deborah Bronnert, who held the post since 2020 and will take up the role in November.
Law
- Russian defence reporter Ivan Safronov lost his final appeal against a 22-year jail sentence on treason charges. Safronov was arrested in 2020 after being accused of disclosing classified information.
- A Russian court will deliver its verdict on Friday in the trial of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who is facing extremism charges that could keep him behind bars for decades. Prosecutors have requested a jail term of 20 years on charges that include the financing of extremist activity.
