Summary
It is now approaching 9pm in Kyiv. Here are the main stories of the day:
At least seven people, including five civilians, have been killed in an attack on the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk. After the attack early on Monday evening, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Moscow had struck an “ordinary residential building”. A nearby hotel and a pizzeria used by correspondents were also damaged in the strike although it is understood that few would have been staying at the time of the strike as concerns about the potential risk of a strike on the city, which is close to the frontline, had been circulating.
Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko put the number of wounded at 81, including 39 civilians, 31 policemen, seven employees of the state emergency service and four military personnel. Two children were among those injured. Donetsk is one of the regions of Ukraine which Russia partially occupies and claimed to unilaterally annex late in 2022.
Ukrainian special services have foiled an attempt by Russian hackers to penetrate the Ukrainian armed forces’ combat information system, the SBU security service said on Tuesday. “As a result of complex measures, SBU exposed and blocked the illegal actions of Russian hackers who tried to penetrate Ukrainian military networks and organise intelligence gathering,” Reuters reports the SBU said on the Telegram messaging app.
Roman Starovoyt, governor of Kursk in Russia, has claimed that a Ukraine “kamikaze” drone has fallen at the Gornalsky St Nicholas monastery in the region, injuring a child.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a video published on Tuesday that Ukraine would fight back against Russia in the Black Sea to ensure its waters were not blockaded and it could import and export grain and other goods. The comments, published on the president’s website, come days after Ukrainian maritime drones packed with explosives damaged a Russian warship near a major Russian port and struck a Russian tanker.
Reuters reports that dozens of ships are backed up around critical Danube arteries close to Ukraine’s river gateways days after Russian drone attacks on the country’s ports. Shipping data showed at least 30 ships had dropped anchor around Musura Bay in the Black Sea, which leads into a channel that links up with Izmail further along the waterway.
Britain has said it is targeting Vladimir Putin’s access to foreign military supplies by imposing 25 new sanctions on individuals and businesses. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said: “Today’s landmark sanctions will further diminish Russia’s arsenal and close the net on supply chains propping up Putin’s now-struggling defence industry. There is nowhere for those sustaining Russia’s military machine to hide.” Individuals and businesses in Iran, Turkey, Belarus, Slovakia, Switzerland and the UAE, as well as Russia face sanctions.
Russia’s defence ministry on Tuesday said Russian forces had hit a Ukrainian command post in the eastern Ukrainian region of Pokrovsk, known in Russia as Krasnoarmeysk, the Interfax news agency reported.
Russia on Tuesday again aligned itself with its ally Iran in rejecting western attempts to maintain curbs on Iran despite the collapse of a 2015 deal intended to restrain Tehran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions, Reuters reports.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has warned against Russia’s Wagner mercenaries taking advantage of instability in coup-hit Niger, whose neighbor Mali has become a partner of Moscow, according to AFP.
The Georgian prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, labelled Russia an “aggressor” as he marked 15 years since the two countries fought a war over a breakaway region. Garibashvili told AFP reporters: “We have known for a long time that Russia was an aggressor, we know that and the whole world knows that.”
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree suspending Russia’s double taxation agreements with what it calls “unfriendly countries” – those that have imposed sanctions on Moscow – the state news agency RIA reports.
Finnish and Norwegian regulators said on Tuesday they had banned the Russian tech group Yandex and its the Netherlands-based partner Ridetech International from transferring to Russia any personal data of customers of Yandex’s Yango ride-hailing app.
Two men were injured and hospitalised after Russian shelling in Kozacha Lopan in Kharkiv region, Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of the region, reported.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass reports that in the last 24 hours air defence in Russia’s Belgorod region has claimed to shoot down two drones. It reports that fragments from the drones damaged three households and power lines.
Interfax reports that the tanker hit in the Kerch strait by Ukrainian drones has had a metal patch welded to its hull to repair the damage, and is now ready to be towed to a shipyard.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has warned against Russia’s Wagner mercenaries taking advantage of instability in coup-hit Niger, whose neighbor Mali has become a partner of Moscow, according to AFP.
In an interview with the BBC released Tuesday, Blinken doubted that Wagner – which in June staged a shadowy rebellion against president Vladimir Putin – plotted the Nigerien military’s 26 July ouster of the elected president, western ally Mohamed Bazoum.
In the interview Monday, Blinken said:
I think what happened and what continues to happen in Niger was not instigated by Russia or by Wagner.
But to the extent that they try to take advantage of it – and we see a repeat of what’s happened in other countries, where they’ve brought nothing but bad things in their wake – that wouldn’t be good.
Every single place that this group, Wagner group, has gone, death, destruction and exploitation have followed.
Wagner has partnered with African nations including Mali and Central African Republic, leading to wide accusations of abuses by rights groups and western governments.
Military-run Mali has become the rare country to shift toward Russia diplomatically during the Ukraine war, in which Wagner has fought ruthlessly.
Mali and Burkina Faso, whose military leaders have also been accused of ties with Wagner, have sent envoys to Niger in solidarity with the coup leaders.
