Closing summary
This blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
Russia says all ships travelling to Ukrainian ports on Black Sea to be considered carriers of military equipment from Thursday. Russia’s defence ministry said it would “flag countries of such ships … considered parties to the Ukrainian conflict”. The ministry did not say what actions it might take.
Prigozhin says Wagner mercenaries will no longer fight in Ukraine war and will head to Africa. Prigozhin was shown in a video welcoming his Wagner fighters to Belarus and telling them they would for now take no further part in the Ukraine war, He also ordered his men to train the Belarusian army and collect their strength for a “new journey to Africa.”
Russian media sources reported that Vladimir Putin will be attending the BRICS summit in South Africa next month via videoconferencing instead of in person. Earlier in the day it was announced that Putin would not attend the summit in South Africa “by mutual agreement” with the hosts. The international criminal court (ICC) has a warrant out for Putin’s arrest and South Africa is an ICC member, meaning they would have been obliged to arrest Putin if he entered the country.
US announces $1.3b in additional security assistance for Ukraine. The package is set to include air defence capabilities and munitions. “This announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s air force said on Wednesday it downed 37 out of 63 targets in an Russian overnight missile and drone attack. The air force said critical infrastructure and military facilities had been attacked in the nighttime strikes, and that the main target was Ukraine’s southern Odesa region.
The Guardian’s Shaun Walker described it as “a second noisy night for residents of Odesa, with numerous explosions audible from the centre of the city and officials telling residents to take cover in bomb shelters. Since Russia pulled out of the grain deal on Monday it has been targeting Ukraine’s main port city relentlessly.”
“A difficult night of air attacks for all of Ukraine, especially in the south, in Odesa,” Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv’s city military administration, said on the Telegram channel.
A fire broke out at the military training grounds in the Kirovske district on the Crimean Peninsula, the Moscow-backed governor of Crimea said on Wednesday. The fire forced the closure of the nearby Tavrida Highway, Sergei Aksyonov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration in Ukraine, posted two videos which purport to show fire in an uninhabited area of Crimea, saying, “Enemy ammunition depot. Staryi Krym”. Staryi Krym is a small historical town in the Kirovske district of Crimea, the peninsula that Russia unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The fire comes two days after a blast damaged a bridge linking Russia to Crimea that Moscow blamed on Ukraine.
Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak has criticised the west for not tightening loopholes in sanctions which are allowing Russia to re-stock its military supplies.
The Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday its forces destroyed a stray Ukrainian mine drifting in the south-western part of the Black Sea. It said the mine was detected by Russia’s Black Sea fleet, floating about 111 miles (180 km) north-east of the Bosporus Strait. Ukraine defensively mined its coast to prevent the closer approach of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, which has been repeatedly used to launch cruise missile attacks at targets within Ukraine.
Vitaliy Kim, governor of Mykolaiv, reports on Telegram that overnight, after a Russian attack, “recreational infrastructure facilities in a coastal zone were destroyed and set on fire. Detailed information is being clarified. Two people were injured, one of them was hospitalised.”
The head of Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service Richard Moore has said the Wagner group’s mutiny attempt in June showed Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was under pressure, adding he was optimistic about Ukraine’s counteroffensive. In a rare public address Moore said Iran’s decision to supply Moscow with suicide drones for the Ukraine conflict was “unconscionable”, and appealed to Russians appalled by the war in Ukraine to “join hands” with his intelligence service and bring the bloodshed to an end.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has blamed western countries who he said have “completely distorted” the expired Black Sea grain deal, but said Russia would “immediately” return to the deal if all its conditions for doing so were met, Reuters reports.
