Closing summary
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has confirmed he is ready to visit the Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia at the end of August, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday. Russia’s defence ministry last week accused Ukraine of planning to attack the Kursk plant as part of its ongoing incursion into the Russian region, an assertion Kyiv denied.
The juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have written to the UN security council to denounce Ukraine’s alleged support of rebel groups in West Africa’s Sahel region, a copy of their letter showed. Mali cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine at the start of the month over comments by a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency about fighting in Mali’s north that killed Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner mercenaries in late July.
A Hungarian programme easing visa restrictions for Russians and Belarusians will involve the same security screening as other residence permits, the interior minister said in a letter published on Wednesday, amid European Union concerns over espionage. Budapest last month extended its “national card” immigration programme to include Russians and Belarusians, triggering alarm among EU officials who feared that Russia could use it to send saboteurs and spies into the EU’s border-free Schengen zone, Reuters reported.
Hungary’s energy supply is not in danger, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding that the state’s gas supply is not threatened by the ongoing fighting in Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region, as other pipelines transport sufficient amounts of gas. “Hungary’s energy supply is secured,” Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook.
Russia’s state telecommunications monitoring service said on Wednesday it has recorded mass disruptions in the popular Telegram and WhatsApp messaging apps, Reuters reports. It did not say what could have caused the disruptions.
Joe Biden has approved a US nuclear strategy to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea, according to a New York Times reported on Tuesday. On Tuesday, the White House said the plan was approved by the US president earlier this year and was not a response to a single country or threat. Spokesperson Sean Savett said that while “the specific text of the guidance is classified, its existence is in no way secret. The guidance issued earlier this year is not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat.”
Russian air defences shot down 11 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, “one of the largest” such strikes ever against the capital, officials said on Wednesday. “Eleven drones were destroyed” over Moscow and its surrounding region, the defence ministry said. “This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin added. Sobyanin said in an earlier post that no damage or casualties had been reported.
Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Zhelanne, in the Pokrovsk district of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region means that there will be no talks between Moscow and Kyiv until Ukraine is completely defeated, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council, said on Wednesday. “The empty chatter of intermediaries that no one had appointed about the wonderful peace is over. Everyone understands everything now, even though they do not say it out loud,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “There will be NO MORE NEGOTIATIONS UNTIL THE COMPLETE DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY!”
Ukraine’s parliament voted on Wednesday to ratify the Rome Statute, a senior lawmaker said, paving the way for Kyiv to join the international criminal court. In a Telegram post, Yaroslav Zhelezniak said 281 deputies had voted for the measure, a key requirement for Ukraine to eventually join the European Union.
Switzerland’s government said on Wednesday it has decided to join further European Union measures in the bloc’s 14th sanctions package against Russia. The measures contain a clarification of the bans on Russian diamonds, which are thus being internationally harmonised, the Swiss Federal Council said in a statement.
Ukraine’s military said it struck an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system based in Russia’s southern Rostov region overnight. Kyiv’s general staff said the attack took place near the settlement of Novoshakhtinsk, and that S-300s had been used to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
One person was killed and two wounded in Russia’s Kursk region after a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive device on their car on Wednesday, acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, says the United States and its western allies risk triggering a global war if Washington continues to “provoke” the conflict in Ukraine and allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory. His remarks to Reuters offer a rare insight into thinking in Putin’s inner circle after a surprise Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, to which the president has promised a “worthy” response but has not yet said what that will entail, Reuters reported.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov inspected Chechen troops and volunteers readying to fight Ukraine on Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in what was Putin’s first trip in 13 years to the North Caucasus republic. The previously unannounced trip to the mostly Muslim republic that is part of Russia comes as Moscow fights to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region two weeks after they smashed through the border in the largest invasion of Russia since the second world war, Reuters reported.
Russia’s air defence units destroyed 45 drones that Ukraine launched overnight targeting Moscow and several other regions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday. Eleven of the drones were destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 over the border Bryansk region, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
India prime minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday he will “share perspectives” on the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia during his visit to Kyiv this week. Modi departed for Poland on Wednesday and will visit Kyiv on Friday, a first visit to Ukraine by an Indian prime minister since diplomatic relations were established 30 years ago, Reuters reported.
Moscow airports were back to normal operations on Wednesday after temporary restrictions were in place overnight at three airports in the Russian capital after a drone attack, the aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said Wednesday. Ukraine launched one of the largest ever drone attacks on Moscow on Wednesday, the city’s mayor said, with Russian air defence units destroying 11 drones flying towards the capital.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine-Russia war live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Switzerland’s government said on Wednesday it has decided to join further European Union measures in the bloc’s 14th sanctions package against Russia.
The measures contain a clarification of the bans on Russian diamonds, which are thus being internationally harmonised, the Swiss Federal Council said in a statement.
It said it had also extended deadlines for granting exemptions regarding the withdrawal of investments from Russia, Reuters reported.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has confirmed he is ready to visit the Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia at the end of August, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
Russia’s defence ministry last week accused Ukraine of planning to attack the Kursk plant as part of its ongoing incursion into the Russian region, an assertion Kyiv denied.
“We expect that an understanding of the danger that Ukrainian provocations against Russian nuclear power plants represent will prompt the IAEA’s management to take concrete action to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants in Zaporizhzhia and Kursk,” Zakharova said at a weekly news briefing.
Kyiv was supposed to fall in three days. That’s what talking heads and pundits in media were saying, rather dismissively, before the February 2022 Russian invasion on Ukraine. They suggested the fight would be swift and decisive but instead the Ukrainian resistance persisted. Never mind, three days. The war is now pushing towards three years.
“What is this nation?” asks David Gutnik, a Brooklyn-born film-maker of Ukrainian descent. “What is this people? What is this identity?”
He’s posing rhetorical questions prompted by the war and describing the surprise when a country and its people, who were so quickly dismissed, held its ground. If the world believed that Ukraine would fall so soon, it’s probably because they had no idea who the Ukrainian people are. Gutnik’s profoundly resonant documentary, Rule of Two Walls, is here to remedy that.
The film is about Ukrainians on the frontlines; not the soldiers, mind you, but the artists who are standing firm on their homeland against the ash and rubble. They are painters and singers, hosting exhibits and shows, despite the constant gunfire and shelling that inevitably becomes part of the art. They’re fighting to create and protect culture, and by extension their Ukrainian identity, as a response to Vladimir Putin’s repeated insistence that they have none.
A Hungarian programme easing visa restrictions for Russians and Belarusians will involve the same security screening as other residence permits, the interior minister said in a letter published on Wednesday, amid European Union concerns over espionage.
Budapest last month extended its “national card” immigration programme to include Russians and Belarusians, triggering alarm among EU officials who feared that Russia could use it to send saboteurs and spies into the EU’s border-free Schengen zone, Reuters reported.
The concerns partly reflect broader tensions between EU leaders and the government of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has maintained close ties with Moscow despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The holder of such a card is allowed to work in Hungary without any special security clearance and can bring their family to the country.
“The National Card will be issued in accordance with the relevant EU framework and with due consideration of the possible security risks involved,” Sandor Pinter wrote in a letter addressed to the European Union’s internal affairs chief.
“In this respect, the Hungarian legislation and practice, which the Commission has not objected to so far, has not changed,” Pinter wrote in the letter published on X by EU affairs minister Janos Boka.
Joe Biden has approved a US nuclear strategy to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea, according to a New York Times reported on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the White House said the plan was approved by the US president earlier this year and was not a response to a single country or threat.
Spokesperson Sean Savett said that while “the specific text of the guidance is classified, its existence is in no way secret. The guidance issued earlier this year is not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat.”
The Times reported that the deterrent policy takes into account a rapid buildup of China’s nuclear arsenal, which will rival the size and diversity of the US and Russian stockpiles over the next decade, and comes as Russian president Vladimir Putin of Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Hungary’s energy supply is not in danger, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding that the state’s gas supply is not threatened by the ongoing fighting in Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region, as other pipelines transport sufficient amounts of gas.
“Hungary’s energy supply is secured,” Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook.
Telegram and WhatsApp hit by mass disruptions in Russia
Russia’s state telecommunications monitoring service said on Wednesday it has recorded mass disruptions in the popular Telegram and WhatsApp messaging apps, Reuters reports.
It did not say what could have caused the disruptions.
Ukraine's parliament votes to join the ICC
Agence France-Presse has more details about the Ukrainian parliamentary vote to join the International criminal court (see earlier post).
The ICC prosecutes grave offences like genocide and crimes against humanity, and has the power to issue arrest warrants that its 124 members are obliged to execute.
Ukraine signed the Rome Statute that founded the court in 2000, but had not ratified it, as some political and military figures expressed fears Ukrainian soldiers could face prosecution.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba called Wednesday’s move “historic” after parliament adopted the ratification of the statute.
“This has been a long journey full of challenges, myths, and fears. None of them have been true. And today, we are finally there,” he said in a post on X.
The ratification controversially included a reference to Article 124 of the statute, which would exempt Ukrainian citizens from being prosecuted for war crimes for seven years, ruling party lawmaker Yevgeniya Kravchuk said on Facebook.
“The ratification of the Rome Statute will simultaneously facilitate greater opportunities for punishing Russians and increase the isolation of Russia,” she said.
Last year, the court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-controlled territory.
Kyiv had long faced pressure from rights groups to ratify the treaty and it is a key requirement to join the European Union.
The juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have written to the UN security council to denounce Ukraine’s alleged support of rebel groups in West Africa’s Sahel region, a copy of their letter showed.
Mali cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine at the start of the month over comments by a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency about fighting in Mali’s north that killed Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner mercenaries in late July.
The military government of Niger followed suit days later in solidarity with its neighbour.
The dispute broke out after the Ukrainian military intelligence agency spokesperson said Malian rebels had received “necessary” information to conduct the July attack.
The day so far
Russian air defences shot down 11 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, “one of the largest” such strikes ever against the capital, officials said on Wednesday. “Eleven drones were destroyed” over Moscow and its surrounding region, the defence ministry said. “This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin added. Sobyanin said in an earlier post that no damage or casualties had been reported.
Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Zhelanne, in the Pokrovsk district of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region means that there will be no talks between Moscow and Kyiv until Ukraine is completely defeated, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council, said on Wednesday. “The empty chatter of intermediaries that no one had appointed about the wonderful peace is over. Everyone understands everything now, even though they do not say it out loud,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “There will be NO MORE NEGOTIATIONS UNTIL THE COMPLETE DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY!”
Ukraine’s parliament voted on Wednesday to ratify the Rome Statute, a senior lawmaker said, paving the way for Kyiv to join the international criminal court. In a Telegram post, Yaroslav Zhelezniak said 281 deputies had voted for the measure, a key requirement for Ukraine to eventually join the European Union.
Ukraine’s military said it struck an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system based in Russia’s southern Rostov region overnight. Kyiv’s general staff said the attack took place near the settlement of Novoshakhtinsk, and that S-300s had been used to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
One person was killed and two wounded in Russia’s Kursk region after a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive device on their car on Wednesday, acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, says the United States and its western allies risk triggering a global war if Washington continues to “provoke” the conflict in Ukraine and allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory. His remarks to Reuters offer a rare insight into thinking in Putin’s inner circle after a surprise Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, to which the president has promised a “worthy” response but has not yet said what that will entail, Reuters reported.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov inspected Chechen troops and volunteers readying to fight Ukraine on Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in what was Putin’s first trip in 13 years to the North Caucasus republic. The previously unannounced trip to the mostly Muslim republic that is part of Russia comes as Moscow fights to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region two weeks after they smashed through the border in the largest invasion of Russia since the second world war, Reuters reported.
Russia’s air defence units destroyed 45 drones that Ukraine launched overnight targeting Moscow and several other regions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday. Eleven of the drones were destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 over the border Bryansk region, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
India prime minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday he will “share perspectives” on the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia during his visit to Kyiv this week. Modi departed for Poland on Wednesday and will visit Kyiv on Friday, a first visit to Ukraine by an Indian prime minister since diplomatic relations were established 30 years ago, Reuters reported.
Moscow airports were back to normal operations on Wednesday after temporary restrictions were in place overnight at three airports in the Russian capital after a drone attack, the aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said Wednesday. Ukraine launched one of the largest ever drone attacks on Moscow on Wednesday, the city’s mayor said, with Russian air defence units destroying 11 drones flying towards the capital.
Ukrainian forces destroyed 50 out of 69 attack drones launched by Russia during an overnight strike, Kyiv’s military said on Wednesday.
The air force said another 16 drones were likely downed by electronic warfare during the attack, which also included two ballistic and one cruise missiles. It said it shot down only the latter.
The military added that one drone had entered Ukraine from Belarus and another had returned to Russia.
Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Zhelanne, in the Pokrovsk district of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s parliament voted on Wednesday to ratify the Rome Statute, a senior lawmaker said, paving the way for Kyiv to join the International Criminal Court.
In a Telegram post, Yaroslav Zhelezniak said 281 deputies had voted for the measure, a key requirement for Ukraine to eventually join the European Union.
One person was killed and two wounded in Russia’s Kursk region after a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive device on their car on Wednesday, acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, says the United States and its western allies risk triggering a global war if Washington continues to “provoke” the conflict in Ukraine and allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory.
His remarks to Reuters offer a rare insight into thinking in Putin’s inner circle after a surprise Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, to which the president has promised a “worthy” response but has not yet said what that will entail, Reuters reported.
Chemezov, CEO of the Rostec corporation which supplies many of Russia’s arms for the war, said Russia felt confident and had enough weapons more than two years into what the Kremlin calls its special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine.
He reiterated the Kremlin’s position that the conflict is a battle between the West and Russia.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov inspected Chechen troops and volunteers readying to fight Ukraine on Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in what was Putin’s first trip in 13 years to the North Caucasus republic.
The previously unannounced trip to the mostly Muslim republic that is part of Russia comes as Moscow fights to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region two weeks after they smashed through the border in the largest invasion of Russia since the second world war, Reuters reported.
“As long as we have men like you, we are absolutely, absolutely invincible,” Putin told troops at the Russian Special Forces University, a training school in Chechnya’s Gudermes, according to a transcript on the Kremlin’s website.
“It is one thing to shoot at a shooting range here, and another thing to put your life and health at risk. But you have an inner need to defend the fatherland and the courage to make such a decision.”
Russia’s air defence units destroyed 45 drones that Ukraine launched overnight targeting Moscow and several other regions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Eleven of the drones were destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 over the border Bryansk region, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
India prime minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday he will “share perspectives” on the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia during his visit to Kyiv this week.
Modi departed for Poland on Wednesday and will visit Kyiv on Friday, a first visit to Ukraine by an Indian prime minister since diplomatic relations were established 30 years ago, Reuters reported.
Modi’s trip to Ukraine comes weeks after his visit to Moscow during which he rebuked Russian president Vladimir Putin over the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.
Modi also met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Italy last month.
“As a friend and partner, we hope for an early return of peace and stability in the region,” Modi said in a statement before his departure.
Moscow airports were back to normal operations on Wednesday after temporary restrictions were in place overnight at three airports in the Russian capital after a drone attack, the aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said Wednesday.
Ukraine launched one of the largest ever drone attacks on Moscow on Wednesday, the city’s mayor said, with Russian air defence units destroying 11 drones flying towards the capital.
Temporary restrictions were in place at the Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports from 2.31am Moscow time (23.31 GMT) to 6.30am, Rosaviatsia said on the Telegram messaging app. There were no restrictions at the major Sheremetevo airport.
Medvedev: There will no talks with Ukraine after Kursk incursion
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region means that there will be no talks between Moscow and Kyiv until Ukraine is completely defeated, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council, said on Wednesday.
“The empty chatter of intermediaries that no one had appointed about the wonderful peace is over. Everyone understands everything now, even though they do not say it out loud,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“There will be NO MORE NEGOTIATIONS UNTIL THE COMPLETE DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY!”
Ukraine’s military said it struck an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system based in Russia’s southern Rostov region overnight.
Kyiv’s general staff said the attack took place near the settlement of Novoshakhtinsk, and that S-300s had been used to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
“Explosions were observed at specified targeting points,” the General Staff said in a statement. “The accuracy of the strike is being assessed.”
Rostov governor Vasily Golubev said air defence forces had destroyed a Ukraine-launched missile over his region, but Russia’s defence ministry made no mention of the incident in its daily statement on destroyed air weapons.
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. I’m Tom Ambrose.
Russian air defences shot down 11 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, “one of the largest” such strikes ever against the capital, officials said on Wednesday.
“Eleven drones were destroyed” over Moscow and its surrounding region, the defence ministry said.
“This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin added. Sobyanin said in an earlier post that no damage or casualties had been reported.
Drone attacks on Moscow are rare, with Russia saying in May it had downed a drone outside the capital, forcing restrictions to be imposed at two major airports in the city for under an hour.
Kyiv has repeatedly targeted oil and gas facilities in Russia since the conflict began in 2022, some hundreds of kilometres from its borders, in what it has called “fair” retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia’s southern Rostov region on Sunday, causing a large fire, the local governor said.
The blaze in the city of Proletarsk was still raging on Tuesday, with about 500 Russian firefighters working to put it out.
In other news:
Ukraine has said large numbers of Russian servicemen – reportedly in the hundreds – gave themselves up during the Kursk offensive that began on 6 August. Agence France-Presse has visited a detention centre just across the border in Ukraine’s Sumy region.
One 22-year-old Russian PoW – a conscript – said he and others were “simply abandoned by our command” when Ukrainian troops appeared and now he hoped “to be exchanged and go back home … to my family”. The deputy head of the detention facility, who gave his name as Volodymyr, told AFP that the PoWs were initially afraid but “came to life” after realising they were being well treated.
Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said its forces had reached 28-35km (17-22 miles) into Russia’s Kursk region, while Moscow was moving some of its troops from other directions to strengthen positions there. Russia has formed three new military groupings to bolster security in regions bordering Ukraine, the Russian defence minister, Andrei Belousov, has said.
The internationally sanctioned, Kremlin-linked newspaper Izvestia has quoted Russian intelligence as saying US, British and Polish intelligence were involved in preparing the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk. Voldymyr Zelenskiy has insisted Ukraine’s allies were not informed as they would have ruled out the plan as “unrealistic”; while other officials and analysts have said telling the US and others would have made it impossible to keep the operation secret, based on past leaks.
Russia hit energy infrastructure in northern Ukraine in a missile and drone attack and caused a huge fire that released chlorine into the air, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday. The fumes came from an industrial facility that was attacked in the western region of Ternopil.
Ukrainian forces shot down three ballistic missiles and 25 of the 26 drones launched in Tuesday morning’s attack on nine regions, Ukraine’s air force commander said. It included Russia’s fifth missile attack this month on Kyiv, the capital.
