Summary
A “farewell ceremony” for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, took place behind closed doors, his spokespeople said on Tuesday in a statement on social media.
Russian mercenaries gathered today for the funeral of Valery Chekalov, one of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s deputies who was killed with his boss in a plane crash last week, as the Kremlin said Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend Prigozhin’s funeral.
Russian shelling killed a 45-year-old civilian man in the town of Kupiansk, according to local officials, as Moscow’s forces try to advance in north-eastern Ukraine.
An FSB security services helicopter crashed Tuesday in central Russia, leaving three people dead, regional officials said.
More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, Unicef has said.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, a day after claiming control over the village on the southern front.
Vladimir Putin will skip the G20 summit in India next month and will send his foreign minister instead, prime minister Narendra Modi’s office said.
The US has accused Moscow of attempting to intimidate and harass US employees after Russian state media reported that a former US consulate worker had been charged with collecting information on the war in Ukraine and other issues for Washington.
Russian air defences reportedly downed Ukrainian drones over the Tula and Belgorod regions, Moscow’s defence ministry said on Tuesday, without indicating if there had been damage or casualties.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has announced a new package of military assistance to aid Ukraine.
The package includes additional mine clearing equipment, missiles for air defence, ammunition for artillery and high bar systems, and over 3m rounds of small arms ammunition, Blinken said in a statement.
Updated
Reuters reports that Russian shelling killed a 45-year-old civilian man in the town of Kupiansk, according to local officials, as Moscow’s forces try to advance in north-eastern Ukraine.
Reuters reports:
Russia seized Kupiansk in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv soon after its invasion in February 2022, but Ukrainian forces recaptured the town last September and it is now under daily fire.Some residents remain in the town, but regional authorities have ordered a mandatory evacuation of civilians from near the Kupiansk front because of the difficult situation.
Regional governor Oleh Synehubov said the man killed on Tuesday was a guard at a meat processing plant that was hit in the latest shelling. The prosecutor general’s office said a 67-year-old man had also been hurt during the shelling.
Kupiansk was home to about 27,000 people before the war and is a rail hub about 100km (62 miles) east of the regional capital, Kharkiv. Losing the town a second time would be a considerable blow to Kyiv’s battlefield momentum.
Reuters could not verify the situation in the town, or reports of fighting elsewhere.Ukrainian troops began a counteroffensive in the east and south in early June but have made slow progress through Russian minefields and trenches blocking their southern push, intended to reach the Sea of Azov and split Russian forces.
A military spokesperson said Ukrainian forces were pushing on southwards in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia after recapturing Robotyne, the latest of a cluster of settlements and villages it say it has taken back in recent weeks.
Kyiv also said its troops had had some “success” in the direction of the village of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region, but gave no details.But officials said over 50 children, plus family members and people with limited mobility, were being evacuated from five settlements in the region because of “the difficult security situation and enemy shelling.”
The Ukrainian deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said fighting was heavy in the country but that Ukrainian forces were making progress around the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut in the east.
Russian officials had said Moscow’s forces were holding their ground in Bakhmut, and have not confirmed the loss of Robotyne.
Updated
PA reports that Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, is expected to brief his counterparts on recent developments in his country in an informal meeting that will also be attended by representatives of the UN and Nato.
Michéal Martin, Ireland’s minister for foreign affairs, will also attend a gathering of EU foreign affairs and defence ministers in the Spanish city of Toledo.
The defence ministers will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, and ministers for foreign affairs will hold discussions on Wednesday and Thursday.
Updated
Reuters has provided some analysis of the contrasting funerals between Progozhin and his deputy Valery Chekalov.
Reuters reports:
The private ceremony, if confirmed, was in stark contrast to Prigozhin’s aggressive, self-publicising style.
A Russian news outlet, MSK1.RU, quoted cemetery staff as saying that was the family’s wish.
For the Kremlin, it meant that the event could not be turned into a large-scale public show of support for Prigozhin, a ruthless figure who was nevertheless admired by some in Russia for throwing his mercenary force into the fiercest battles of the war in Ukraine and speaking openly about the shortcomings of the Russian military and its leadership.
Two other top Wagner figures, four Prigozhin bodyguards and three crew members were also killed when his Embraer Legacy 600 private jet crashed north of Moscow.
Earlier on Tuesday, Valery Chekalov, the head of Wagner logistics, was buried at another St Petersburg cemetery.
The family of Chekalov was joined by dozens of people, some of whom Reuters identified as Wagner mercenaries and employees from Prigozhin’s business empire, at the Severnoye cemetery.
Updated
'Farewell ceremony' for Yevgeny Prigozhin takes place in St Petersburg, his spokespeople say
A “farewell ceremony” for Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash last week, took place behind closed doors, his spokespeople said on Tuesday in a statement on social media.
“Those who wish to bid their farewell” to the mercenary leader should go to the Porokhovskoye cemetery in St Petersburg, his home town, the statement said.
Previous media reports about the funeral mentioned other cemeteries in the city as likely sites for the burial, which has been shrouded in secrecy.
Earlier it was reported that Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend the funeral, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
He told reporters the Kremlin did not know about the planned funeral arrangements, saying this was a matter for the family, according to Reuters.
Russia’s investigative committee on Sunday confirmed Prigozhin was among the people killed in a plane crash last Wednesday. The committee said in a statement that after forensic testing, all 10 bodies recovered at the site had been identified, and their identities “conform to the manifest”.
The Kremlin has denied it killed the Wagner chief, calling western intelligence assessments of Putin’s potential involvement “an absolute lie”.
Prigozhin had refused to submit his mercenaries to direct state control, despite a request from Putin during a meeting at the Kremlin in June. His armed uprising that month came days before a deadline that would have forced the group to sign military contracts.
Updated
Three dead after FSB helicopter crash in Russia
An FSB security services helicopter crashed Tuesday in central Russia, leaving three people dead, regional officials said.
The Mi-8 helicopter went down near the village of Krasnoe Pole in the Chelyabinsk region, the governor said without indicating a cause for the incident, AFP reports.
“According to preliminary information, three people died,” the governor Aleksei Teksler posted on social media.
There was no damage to buildings or individuals on the ground, he added in the statement.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has provided details about what was discussed during his phone call with Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida (see post at 11.04).
Had a phone call with Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida @kishida230.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 29, 2023
Thanked for comprehensive assistance, in particular, support for Ukraine's #PeaceFormula.
Invited Japan to participate in the preparation of the Global Peace Summit.
We appreciate the G7 declaration on…
Updated
Russian mercenaries gathered today for the funeral of Valery Chekalov, one of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s deputies who was killed with his boss in a plane crash last week, as the Kremlin said Vladimir Putin had no plans to attend Prigozhin’s funeral.
Reuters reports that the family of Chekalov, the head of Wagner logistics, was joined by dozens of people, some of whom Reuters identified as Wagner mercenaries, at the Severnoe cemetery in St Petersburg, Russia’s former imperial capital.
A Russian Orthodox priest said prayers and swung a censer before Chekalov’s coffin as family, friends and former colleagues, some holding bunches of flowers, bade farewell, Reuters video showed.
Some, including women and children in sunglasses, came forward to kiss his coffin. Unidentified mourners at the funeral ordered a Reuters videographer and photographer to stop filming.
The private Embraer Legacy 600 private jet on which Prigozhin was travelling to St Petersburg from Moscow crashed in the Tver region north of Moscow on Aug. 23 with the loss of all 10 people on board, including Chekalov, Dmitry Utkin – another top Wagner leader – and four men reported to be Prigozhin’s bodyguards.
The day after the crash, Putin sent his condolences to the families of those killed and said he had known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the chaotic years of the early 1990s.
“He was a man with a difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life,” Putin said, while describing him as a talented businessman.
The crash came two months to the day after Prigozhin and his mercenaries staged a mutiny against Putin’s top military commanders in which they took control of the southern city of Rostov and advanced towards Moscow before turning back 200km (125 miles) from the capital.
The mutiny posed the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule since he took power on the last day of 1999. The Kremlin has rejected as an “absolute lie” the suggestion by some Western politicians and commentators – for which they have not provided evidence – that Putin ordered Prigozhin to be killed in revenge.
Updated
St Petersburg’s Fontanka news outlet and some other media said the Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, could be laid to rest as early as Tuesday at the city’s Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has been used for high-profile military burials.
Heavy police cordons encircled the cemetery, where Putin’s parents are also buried, but no service was immediately held and increased police patrols were seen at some other city cemeteries, the Associated Press reports.
Russia’s investigative committee on Sunday confirmed Prigozhin was among the people killed in a plane crash last Wednesday. The committee said in a statement that after forensic testing, all 10 bodies recovered at the site had been identified, and their identities “conform to the manifest”.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, Unicef has said.
Vladimir Putin has no plans to attend the funeral of the Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed when his plane crashed last week, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, a day after claiming control over the village on the southern front.
Vladimir Putin will skip the G20 summit in India next month and will send his foreign minister instead, prime minister Narendra Modi’s office said.
The US has accused Moscow of attempting to intimidate and harass US employees, after Russian state media reported that a former US consulate worker had been charged with collecting information on the war in Ukraine and other issues for Washington.
Russian air defences reportedly downed Ukrainian drones over the Tula and Belgorod regions, Moscow’s defence ministry said on Tuesday, without indicating if there had been damage or casualties.
Updated
The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, will challenge Chinese officials in Beijing on Wednesday over their growing military support for Russia, but is intent that his meetings will be seen as the revival of a political dialogue that eventually revives UK trade with China.
Ahead of the meetings, he said that no major international issue could be solved without China but added that the country had to live up to its international commitments and obligations.
No significant global problem – from climate change to pandemic prevention, from economic instability to nuclear proliferation – could be solved without China, he said.
“China’s size, history and global significance means they cannot be ignored, but that comes with a responsibility on the global stage. That responsibility means China fulfilling its international commitments and obligations”.
It is the first visit by a senior British government member to China in five years, and reflects a general post-pandemic desire in the west to see if the relationship can be better managed.
You can read the full story by the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, here:
Updated
A German-Russian national is under arrest on suspicion of exporting components used by Russia in the production of military hardware, Germany’s prosecutor general said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports:
The defendant, named only as Waldemar W, is accused of violating sanctions imposed in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the prosecutor said in a statement. W has been in pre-trial detention since 9 March.
Between January 2020 and March 2023, he allegedly exported electronic components on 26 occasions to a Russian company involved in the production of military hardware, including the Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone.
The prosecutor general stepped in “because of the special importance of the case”, it said in a statement. Its arrest warrant supersedes another issued by a Mannheim regional court on 8 March.
German authorities have been increasingly cracking down on those suspected of circumventing sanctions. Earlier this month, a businessman was arrested on suspicion of providing machine tools used by the Russian company in the production of sniper rifles.
Updated
The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said he told Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday that Japan planned to keep on supporting Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Kishida told reporters he had also condemned Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine, during his phone call with Ukraine’s president.
Kishida has previously indicated he wants to help Ukraine because his administration fears a Russian victory would embolden China to attack Taiwan and embroil his country in a regional war.
Updated
A Russian military jet destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said without providing any other details. We will update you with more information as it comes in.
Updated
More than 1,300 schools destroyed in Ukraine since war began, Unicef says
More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, Unicef has said.
Reuters reports:
Persistent attacks mean that only about a third of school-age children there are attending classes fully in person and many are forgetting what they have already learned, it said.
Beyond Ukraine, more than half of the children whose families have fled the conflict to seven countries are not enrolled in national education, Unicef said, citing language barriers and overstretched education systems.
Some schools have suffered direct hits and others have closed down as a precaution in 18 months of missile and artillery attacks on residential areas across the country.
“Inside Ukraine, attacks on schools have continued unabated, leaving children deeply distressed and without safe spaces to learn,” it said.
The war followed Covid disruptions, meaning some Ukrainian children were facing a fourth consecutive school year of disruptions as they return to classes this week after the summer break, Unicef said.
“Not only has this left Ukraine’s children struggling to progress in their education, but they are also struggling to retain what they learned when their schools were fully functioning,” said Regina De Dominicis, Unicef regional director for Europe and Central Asia.
Around half of Ukraine’s teachers have reported a deterioration in students’ abilities in language, reading and mathematics, it said.
Updated
Ukraine’s combined grain and oilseed exportable surplus could total 50m metric tons, Denys Marchuk, the deputy head of the Agrarian Council, Ukraine’s largest agribusiness group, said on Tuesday.
He said Ukraine can harvest 76m metric tons of grain and oilseeds in 2023, Reuters reports.
Russia has blockaded Ukrainian ports since it invaded its neighbour in February 2022, and threatened to treat all vessels as potential military targets after pulling out of a UN backed safe-passage deal for Black Sea grain exports last month.
Updated
Vladimir Putin won't attend Yevgeny Prigozhin's funeral, Kremlin says
Vladimir Putin has no plans to attend the funeral of Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
He told reporters the Kremlin did not know about the planned funeral arrangements, saying this was a matter for the family, according to Reuters.
Russia’s investigative committee on Sunday confirmed Prigozhin was among the people killed in a plane crash last Wednesday. The committee said in a statement that after forensic testing, all 10 bodies recovered at the site had been identified, and their identities “conform to the manifest”.
The Kremlin has denied it killed the Wagner chief, calling western intelligence assessments of Putin’s potential involvement “an absolute lie”.
Prigozhin had refused to submit his mercenaries to direct state control, despite a direct request from Putin during a meeting at the Kremlin in June. His armed uprising that month came days before a deadline that would have forced the group to sign military contracts.
Updated
Between 24 February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and 27 August 2023, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) estimates, 9,511 people have been killed and 17,206 injured in Ukraine.
The UN’s Ukraine civilian casualty update explains:
OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.
This concerns, for example, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Sievierodonetsk (Luhansk region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties.
Updated
Ukraine says its forces are pushing deeper into Russian defensive lines near Robotyne
Ukraine said on Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into Russian defensive lines near the village of Robotyne, a day after claiming control over the village on the southern front.
The military spokesperson Andriy Kovalyov said Ukrainian forces were edging further in the Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims is part of Russia, Agence France-Presse reports.
“Ukrainian forces had successes in the direction of Novodanylivka to Verbove,” he told state media on Tuesday, naming two hamlets in the region.
He added that the troops were holding captured territory and attacking Russian artillery. These claims are yet to be independently verified.
Ukrainian troops have also been trying to surround the eastern town of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May.
The head of the Donetsk region, where Bakhmut is located, on Tuesday played down the Ukrainian push, after Kyiv claimed successes.
“The flanks are being held. The situation there is already stabilising,” Denis Pushilin reportedly told Russian state media.
Updated
EU funding to shore up Ukraine is being held up by disagreements among some member states, the Financial Times reports.
The FT writes:
Brussels’ requests for a total of €86bn in additional funding, aimed at easing strains on the EU budget while locking in four years of support to Ukraine, have divided member states and led to calls for reductions and a longer approval timetable, according to people involved in talks…
So far, funding negotiations have been complicated by the European Commission bundling together financial support for Ukraine with top-up requirements for the EU budget, including provisions to cover debt interest costs and a salary increase for EU officials.
Many member states have said that while the extra financial support for Ukraine is reasonable, the other elements of the package are the result of an internal EU budget management issue that does not merit additional funds.
Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands have led the resistance, arguing that national budgetary belt-tightening owing to rising interest rates and wage demands should also be reflected in Brussels.
Updated
My colleague Dan Sabbagh has a special dispatch from Kupiansk, a town in the Kharkiv region where some residents have abandoned their homes because of renewed shelling.
Updated
In its latest intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said military service in the Russian armed forces has become increasingly lucrative since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
The MoD tweeted:
On 4 February 2022 Russian president Vladimir Putin noted that a lieutenant received 81,200 rubles per month. By October 2022, he announced that even mobilised private soldiers would receive 195,000 rubles per month.
Many junior ranks serving in Ukraine are now on over 200,000 rubles per month. This is over 2.7 times the Russian national average salary of 72,851 rubles. By way of comparison, 2.7 times the average UK salary would equate to over £90,000 a year.
It is highly likely that the salary and additional benefits are a strong incentive for personnel to join up, especially to those from the poorer areas of Russia. However, Russia is still unlikely to meet its targets for recruiting volunteers to the ranks.
Updated
Ireland’s deputy prime minister is to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine and the coup in Niger with EU ministers in Spain this week.
Micheál Martin will attend a gathering of EU foreign affairs and defence ministers in the city of Toledo.
The defence ministers will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, and ministers for foreign affairs will hold discussions on Wednesday and Thursday, PA Media reports.
Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov is expected to brief his counterparts on recent developments in his country in an informal meeting that will also be attended by representatives of the UN and Nato.
Foreign affairs ministers from Ukraine and Niger will also join their EU counterparts during the discussions.
Martin, who is Ireland’s minister for foreign affairs and for defence, said the diplomatic trip would give the EU a chance to “practically coordinate”.
Updated
Alexei Volkov, president of the National Union of Hospitality Industries, said tourist numbers in Crimea were expected to be down 20-30% this year to between 6 and 6.5 million people.
Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion of the country.
Fewer visitors to Crimea have meant more for Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and Dagestan in Russia’s north Caucasus region, Reuters quoted Volkov as saying.
Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until 3pm (UK time). Please do feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
Putin to miss G20 summit, India says
AFP: Russian president Vladimir Putin will skip the G20 summit in India next month and will send his foreign minister instead, prime minister Narendra Modi’s office said Monday.
Modi’s office said he spoke to Putin by telephone, “expressing an understanding” for his decision not to attend the 9-10 September summit, which foreign minister Sergei Lavrov will attend.
New Delhi and Moscow have ties dating back to the cold war, and Russia remains by far India’s biggest arms supplier.
India has shied away from explicit condemnations of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, despite pursuing greater security ties with the United States.
Modi and Putin also spoke on “issues of mutual concern”, including on recently concluded Brics summit in South Africa, which Putin opted to address via video link.
In March, the international criminal court announced an arrest warrant for Putin over the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children. India is not a signatory of the ICC.
The Kremlin denies the accusations, insisting the warrant against Putin is “void”.
Updated
South Korea increases financial aid for Ukraine
Reuters: South Korea unveiled on Tuesday financial aid of ₩52bn (US$394m) for Ukraine next year, an eightfold increase from this year.
The aid package includes ₩130bn for reconstruction, ₩260bn in humanitarian aid and another ₩130bn through international organisations, according to South Korea’s 2024 budget.
In July, President Yoon Suk Yeol announced his country would provide a “large scale of military supplies” this year without giving more details.
US says Russia intimidating consulate staff
The United States has accused Moscow of attempting to intimidate and harass US employees, after Russian state media reported that a former US consulate worker had been charged with collecting information on the war in Ukraine and other issues for Washington.
The FSB Security Service has accused Robert Shonov, a Russian national, of relaying to US embassy staffers in Moscow information on how Russia’s conscription campaign was affecting political discontent ahead of the 2024 presidential election in Russia, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
The news emerged as Paul Whelan, a former US marine jailed in Russia over espionage charges that the US says are bogus, was seen in a rare video broadcast on Monday by a Kremlin-backed news channel:
Drones downed in Tula and Belgorod, says Moscow
AFP: Russian air defences downed Ukrainian drones over the Tula and Belgorod regions, Moscow’s defence ministry said on Tuesday, without indicating if there had been damage or casualties.
Two drones “were destroyed” by air defences over the Tula region south of Moscow, Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
Another drone was “destroyed by air defence forces” over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, at about 11 pm Moscow time (2000 GMT) on Monday, the ministry said in a separate statement.
The ministry did not say whether there had been damage or casualties as a result of either incident.
The capital and other Russian regions have been targeted by a barrage of Ukrainian drone attacks in recent days after Kyiv vowed earlier this summer to “return” the conflict to Russia.
The attacks have caused little serious damage.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top story this morning: Russian air defences downed Ukrainian drones over the Tula and Belgorod regions, Moscow’s defence ministry said on Tuesday, without indicating if there had been damage or casualties.
And the United States has accused Moscow of attempting to intimidate and harass US employees, after Russian state media reported that a former US consulate worker had been charged with collecting information on the war in Ukraine and other issues for Washington.
Elsewhere:
The European Union should get ready to admit new members from eastern Europe and the Balkans by 2030, EU chief Charles Michel argued Monday. With Russia’s war in Ukraine continuing and Moldova’s pro-western government scrambling to reform, senior officials have previously been reluctant to offer precise timetables. “To be credible, I believe we must talk about timing and homework,” Michel said, addressing the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia. “As we prepare the EU’s next strategic agenda, we must set ourselves a clear goal. I believe we must be ready, on both sides, by 2030 to enlarge.”
Pope Francis came under criticism on Monday for telling Russian youths to remember that they are the heirs of past tsars such as Peter the Great, who President Vladimir Putin has held up as an example to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine said the comments, which Francis made on Friday in a live video address to Catholic youths gathered in St. Petersburg, were “deeply regrettable”.
Poland and the Baltic states will close their borders with Belarus entirely if a “critical incident” involving Wagner mercenaries takes place, the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kamiński, said on Monday.
Three people were killed in an overnight Russian missile strike in central Ukraine, and two died in shelling later on Monday in the east and south, Ukrainian officials said. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the three people were killed at an industrial plant in central Poltava region. Five were wounded and another person was unaccounted for, he said.
A Russian-born Swedish citizen has reportedly been charged with collecting information for the Russian military intelligence service GRU for almost a decade.
Russian air defences downed two Ukrainian drones over Russian-annexed Crimea on Monday, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of the region, wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine said on Monday its troops had liberated the south-eastern settlement of Robotyne and were trying to advance farther south in their counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The Ukrainian defence minister rejected new graft allegations concerning military supplies on Monday, amid media reports of uniforms being bought for inflated prices during the war with Russia. Several media outlets have reported that the ministry signed a contract late last year with a Turkish company to supply winter combat fatigues, but the price tripled after the inking of the deal. Ukrainian journalists have also determined that the winter gear can be bought in Turkey at considerably lower prices.
Updated
