Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments here:
Russia’s defence ministry on Tuesday released footage showing Viktor Sokolov, the commander of the Black Sea fleet, attending a defence board meeting via video call, a day after Ukraine claimed that Sokolov was killed in an attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, has reported that Ukraine’s special forces are “currently clarifying information regarding the possible death” of Adm Viktor Sokolov. The Kremlin on Tuesday said it did not “receive any information” about Sokolov’s alleged death from the defence ministry.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government urged the speaker of the House of Commons to resign on Tuesday for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during the second world war to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president. Just after Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered an address in the Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when the speaker, Anthony Rota, drew attention to him.
Turkey’s parliament will keep its promise to ratify Sweden’s Nato bid if US president Joe Biden’s administration paves the way for F-16 jet sales to Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday, according to Turkish media.
An overnight Russian air strike on the key Ukrainian grain exporting port of Izmail injured two people and damaged infrastructure, the governor of the Odesa region said on Tuesday. A port building, storage facilities and more than 30 trucks and cars were damaged in the attack, which lasted more than two hours, Oleh Kiper said.
The Ukrainian military reported shooting down 26 of the 38 Iranian-made attack drones it said were launched by Russia. Separately on Tuesday, a Russian missile strike also damaged a local enterprise in the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, its mayor, Oleksandr Vilkul, said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s military in the south, has said that the Orlivka-Isaccea border crossing point between Ukraine and Romania is closed due to the overnight Russian drone attack. She told Radio Svoboda that drones did not cross into Romania.
Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik has called for an urgent upgrade in the air defence around Odesa, after repeated Russian attacks.
Regional authorities have stated that two people were injured in a Russian attack on Kherson earlier this morning. Ukraine’s emergency services in Kherson have reported that in the last 24 hours they have had to deal with 22 separate fires that have broken out after Russian shelling.
Tass reports that seven settlements in the Kursk region have lost power after a Ukrainian drone dropped explosives on to an electricity substation.
A cargo vessel left a Ukrainian Black Sea port on Tuesday after loading, an industry source has told Reuters, without giving any further details. Kyiv has tried to establish a temporary “humanitarian corridor” hugging the coastline, and two bulk carriers left the port of Chornomorsk last week using it. In July the UN and Turkey-brokered deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain collapsed after Russia withdrew.
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Updated
The Everton Football Club owner, Farhad Moshiri, received more than £400m from Alisher Usmanov companies in the run-up to the Russian billionaire being placed under sanctions, documents suggest, raising fresh questions about the financial ties between the two men.
Records seen by the Guardian appear to show that Moshiri borrowed £145m from a company wholly owned by the Russian-Uzbek tycoon from about 2020.
The papers also set out how, between 2018 and 2022, Moshiri sold about £270m of shares in a company whose largest shareholder was Usmanov. Moshiri did not pay for those shares, public accounts imply, which accounting experts suggested could mean the share sales were a gift.
Usmanov is one of the world’s richest people and is said to be close to Vladimir Putin. He has long had business ties with Moshiri and the pair jointly owned a stake in Arsenal Football Club. Moshiri sold his Arsenal shares back to Usmanov in 2016 in order to fund his initial investment in Everton.
The discovery of the previously unreported financial records raises fresh questions about the relationship between the men – as well as the true wealth of Moshiri, just days after the British businessman disclosed a provisional deal to sell Everton to the US investment firm 777 Partners.
The papers also appear to misalign with Moshiri’s previous statements about how he could continue to fund the Premier League club himself, as well as his promise to provide ongoing financial backing that was crucial in Everton’s auditors signing off its 2022 accounts this year.
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