Evening summary
Good evening. It is now approaching 9pm in Kyiv. Here is a roundup of the main stories from today.
US Gen Mark Milley said in the Pentagon briefing that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is far from a failure but the fight ahead will be long. He said: “I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It’s going be hard. It’s going to be bloody.”
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen Mark Milley spoke at a Pentagon briefing in Washington, where they praised Ukrainian people for their courage and reaffirmed their support. Austin said: “We’re following on the heels of a highly successful Nato summit in Vilnius last week, where many of our closest allies announced significant security packages for Ukraine’s defence.”
Ben Wallace, the outgoing UK defence secretary, said the war in Ukraine is “winnable”, arguing the Nato alliance “does function” as a deterrent against Russia at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change conference in London.
Arresting Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, would amount to a declaration of war on Russia, the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, wrote in court papers released on Tuesday as the country wrangles over hosting the Russian leader.
Russia’s parliament has extended the eligibility for military call-up by at least five years – in the case of the highest-ranking officers, up to the age of 70.
The head of USAid, Samantha Power, has accused Vladimir Putin of making a “life and death decision” affecting millions of the world’s poorest people by withdrawing from the year-old UN-brokered deal that let Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea, Jamie Wilson, Nick Hopkins and Shaun Walker report from Odesa for the Guardian.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday it plans to invest £2.5bn ($3.3bn) in army stockpiles and munitions “to improve fighting readiness”, as it “takes learnings from the war in Ukraine”.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, discussed with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, ways of exporting Russian grain via routes “that would not be susceptible to Kyiv and the west’s sabotage”, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said on Tuesday that every missile fired by Russia at the Ukrainian port of Odesa was also the equivalent of firing a missile at people who are starving in the world.
A summit between European, Latin American and Caribbean leaders on Tuesday highlighted their differences over how to tackle Russia’s war in Ukraine. A handful of Latin American countries – diplomats cited Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela as the most adamant – were opposed to agreeing a text holding Moscow responsible for the conflict.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had carried out overnight strikes on two Ukrainian port cities in what it called “a mass revenge strike” a day after an attack on the Kursk Bridge, which it blamed on Kyiv. The ministry claiming thats it hit “facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using crewless boats, as well as at the place of their manufacture at a shipyard near the city of Odesa”, and fuel depots in Mykolayiv.
Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal on Monday, brokered by the UN and Turkey a year ago to alleviate a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported safely. Moscow said the decision was final. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Russia’s decision was “unconscionable”, while the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he did not accept its explanations for why it had terminated the agreement, including the loss of Russian food markets.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the grain deal must continue and could operate without Russian participation. “Africa has the right to stability. Asia has the right to stability,” he said in his nightly video address.
Continuing to ship grain out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports without security guarantees from Russia would carry risks, because Ukraine uses those waters for military activities, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in his regular daily briefing that Moscow rejected US criticism of its withdrawal from the grain deal, and would continue supplying grain to poor countries.
Poland’s agriculture minister, Robert Telus, said Russia is using grain as ammunition.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak commented on Russia’s overnight attacks, saying: “The Russian night attack on Odesa and Mykolaiv with the use of rockets and kamikaze drones is more proof that the terrorist country wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports.”
Kyiv reported a “complicated” situation in fighting in eastern Ukraine and success in parts of the south on Tuesday as it pressed on with its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces. “The situation is complicated but under control [in the east],” Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, said on Telegram. He said Russia had concentrated forces in the direction of Kupiansk in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv, but Ukrainian troops were holding them back.
Both sides have achieved “marginal advances” in different areas over the past week, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.
Russian air defences and electronic countermeasure systems downed 28 Ukrainian drones over Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday, the RIA news agency has cited the Russian defence ministry as saying. The drone attacks caused no casualties or damages, the ministry said.
Russian state-owned media is reporting that Russian Federation security services claim to have detained a woman on suspicion of preparing “a terrorist attack” in the Yaroslavl region, to the north of Moscow.
Germany’s military has ordered several hundred thousand artillery shells in a deal with the manufacturer Rheinmetall as it works to replenish stocks dented by the war in Ukraine.
Thank you for following along. Come back tomorrow to read more of our live coverage.
Updated
Ukraine’s counteroffensive is far from a failure but the fight ahead will be long, hard and bloody, US Gen Mark Milley said in the Pentagon briefing.
He told reporters:
It is far from a failure … I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call.
I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It’s going be hard. It’s going to be bloody.
Updated
Washington determined to support Ukraine 'for as long as it takes', says top US general
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen Mark Milley spoke at a Pentagon briefing in Washington, where they praised Ukrainian people for their courage and reaffirmed their support.
Austin said:
We’re following on the heels of a highly successful Nato summit in Vilnius last week, where many of our closest allies announced significant security packages for Ukraine’s defence. And Ukraine is continuing its critical counteroffensive to regain its sovereign territory.
We’re seeing Ukraine make progress and Russia’s losses continue to mount. The Ukrainian people have shown outstanding courage as they fight for their county.
As we saw again today, this contact group stands united behind them.
Gen Milley said the US “are determined to support Ukraine’s fight for freedom for as long as it takes” in what he said is Russia’s “unnecessary, unjust, illegal war of aggression for more than 500 days”.
They discussed the F-16 training coalition, where Ukrainian pilots learn to fly fourth generation aircrafts.
More information to come …
Updated
There are a “number of ideas being floated” to help get Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertiliser to global markets after Moscow quit a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
More information to come …
Some more images have been sent to us over the news wires from the Donetsk region, showing life continuing amid the invasion.
UK's defence secretary says Ukraine's war against Russia is 'winnable' and says Nato is effective deterrent
Ben Wallace, the outgoing UK defence secretary, said the war in Ukraine is “winnable”, arguing the Nato alliance “does function” as a deterrent against Russia at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change conference in London.
Speaking on Vladimir Putin’s response to Nato, Wallace said:
An ever more aggressive President Putin, with constant threatening red lines that then usually melt away, he hasn’t dared go near Nato.
Russia has been very very cautious of respecting Nato’s territory. We have not seen lashings out into areas like Estonia or Latvia. They have been absolutely considerate of Nato. They have been really really cautious to make sure that they don’t provoke.
You could argue that the alliance in itself does function. The deterrent of Article 45 functions.
Wallace added that the war in Ukraine has seen a “reinvigoration” of Nato, having “stagnated” years ago. He also said Russia is weaker than it lets on.
Post-1991, Nato had just stagnated … Many populations in Europe would have been surprised that Nato was a nuclear alliance. They’d just forgotten to talk about it. So, it didn’t have plans to do ‘what happens if’. They had just died.
We’ve seen a reinvigoration of what Nato needs and the supreme allied commander needs to do it’s job and new domains.
I think [the war] is winnable. I think Russia is much more fragile than the Russians want to admit … The splinter in the hierarchy of the Russian army is very real, the casualty rates are atrocious.
Updated
The movement of cargo vessels through the Kerch Strait, connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, has been suspended by Russian authorities since 16 July after drone attacks on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, two industry sources told Reuters.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had prevented Ukraine from attacking Sevastopol on Sunday, destroying seven aerial and two maritime drones, Reuters reports.
One source, who did not want to be named, said:
Navigation is already idle for the third day. They stopped it on 16 July, around 5pm local time, when there was a [drone] attack on Sevastopol.
Security in the area also worsened on Monday after an apparent attack on the Kursk Bridge spanning the Kerch Strait.
Updated
Russia is 'weaponising hunger' by pulling out of Black Sea grain deal, Canada says
Russia’s decision to pull out from a UN-backed Black Sea grain export deal is an “escalation of the weaponisation of hunger,” Canada said on Tuesday, condemning Moscow’s withdrawal from the pact.
In a statement, the Canadian government said:
This is a grave escalation of the weaponisation of hunger by the Russian Federation, which previously obstructed the operations of the Black Sea grain initiative (BSGI).
Canada calls on the Russian Federation to immediately renew its participation in the agreement to avoid any further shocks to global food systems already strained by its war of aggression against Ukraine.
Updated
Arresting Vladimir Putin on visit would amount to ‘declaration of war’, South African president says
Arresting Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, would amount to a declaration of war on Russia, the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, wrote in court papers released on Tuesday as the country wrangles over hosting the Russian leader.
Putin has been invited to a Brics summit in Johannesburg next month but is the target of an international criminal court arrest warrant – a provision that South Africa as an ICC member would be expected to implement were he to attend, AFP reports.
South Africa’s diplomatic dilemma is playing out in court, where the leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), is trying to force the government’s hand and ensure the Kremlin leader is held and handed over to the ICC if he steps foot in the country.
But in a responding affidavit, Ramaphosa described the DA’s application as “irresponsible” and said national security was at stake.
Ramaphosa said:
Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war.
It would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia.
Signed in June and initially marked as “confidential”, Ramaphosa’s affidavit was published on Tuesday, after the court ruled related papers be made public.
Updated
Russia’s parliament has extended the eligibility for military call-up by at least five years – in the case of the highest-ranking officers, up to the age of 70.
Last September, Russia announced its first mobilisation since the second world war, calling up more than 300,000 former soldiers in an often-chaotic emergency draft to support its war in Ukraine, a campaign that has been much longer and more attritional than Moscow had expected, and shows no sign of ending.
It is already raising the upper age limit for men to be called up for compulsory military service from 27 to 30, and has made it much harder for young men to avoid the draft by dodging recruiters handing out call-up papers.
The law passed on Tuesday allows men who have completed their compulsory service without any further commitment to be mobilised up to the age of 40, 50 or 55, depending on their category, the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said on its website. In all cases the age limit was raised by five years.
The new law means that those from this reserve with the highest ranks can now be called back into service up to the age of 70 rather than 65, other senior ranks up to 65, junior officers up to 60 – and all others up to the age of 55 rather than 45.
The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has said he plans to increase the basic number of combat personnel in service – professional contract soldiers and conscripts – to 1.5 million from 1.15 million.
Updated
Nato has announced that on Wednesday secretary general Jens Stoltenberg will meet with Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, in Brussels. They will make joint statements.
Updated
USAid chief accuses Putin of making ‘reckless’ decision over grain deal
Jamie Wilson, Nick Hopkins and Shaun Walker report from Odesa for the Guardian:
The head of USAid, Samantha Power, has accused Vladimir Putin of making a “life and death decision” affecting millions of the world’s poorest people by withdrawing from the year-old UN-brokered deal that let Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea.
Speaking in the shadow of several giant grain silos in the key trading port of Odesa, the head of the US agency for international development pledged a further $250m (£191m) to create and expand alternative routes for Ukrainian grain to leave the country, but admitted nothing would compensate for the loss of the Black Sea ports.
Her visit came after Russia carried out a series of missile and drone strikes on southern and eastern Ukraine overnight. Most of the missiles were shot down but falling debris damaged some infrastructure in Odesa port.
Russia had vowed to retaliate after a blast on a bridge linking Russia to the Crimean peninsula on Monday. Moscow accused Ukraine of attacking the Kerch Bridge, which is used to transport military supplies to Crimea, seized and annexed by Russia in 2014.
“In recent weeks Russia began blocking ships from entering this port, and yesterday Putin made the reckless and dangerous decision to end Russian participation in the Black Sea grain initiative,” Power said. “Putin decided to cut off a vital lifeline to the rest of the world, and overnight and this morning Russian forces fired drones and cruise missiles not far from where we are standing right now.”
She said Putin’s justification for pulling out of the agreement was full of “falsehood and lies” and the decision would have a huge impact on the least developed countries including Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia. “This is a life and death decision that Putin has made … Vladimir Putin might be willing to inflict this humanitarian pain on innocents but the US is not,” she said.
You can read more of their joint report from Odesa here: USAid chief accuses Putin of making ‘reckless’ decision over grain deal
Updated
Some images have been sent to us over the news wires from Avdiivka in Donetsk region, showing Ukrainian service personnel in action near the front line.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-imposed head of occupied Zaporizhzhia, has posted on Telegram that he visited a damaged school in Stulneve in the region.
He stated it was “significantly damaged as a result of a missile strike by the armed forces of Ukraine on 14 July. The school buildings were practically destroyed, the roof, load-bearing structures, windows were broken.”
He said the authorities were assessing how best to prepare an educational environment for children in the region by September, adding that “there is a lot of work, work in difficult conditions, but our settlements, despite the aggression of Ukraine, must and will be restored”.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and in September 2022 the Russian Federation claimed to have annexed the territory of Zaporizhzhia.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv oblast, said the port was ready to continue with the grain deal but “the Russian side is not interested in regulating food security in the world, and continues blackmail”.
Updated
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday it plans to invest £2.5bn in army stockpiles and munitions “to improve fighting readiness”, as it “takes learnings from the war in Ukraine”.
It also announced the creation of a “global response force”, combining its deployed and high-readiness service personnel and drawing on “capabilities from all domains”.
It identified the threat posed by Russia to European security as the most pressing short- to medium-term priority but also called China an “epoch-defining challenge”, AFP reports.
The ministry said its latest plans – detailed in a so-called defence command paper – aim to deliver “a credible warfighting force that will keep us on track to act as a global heavyweight both now and in the future”.
The outgoing defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said in a statement:
We must adapt and modernise to meet the threats we face, taking in the lessons from [Russian] President Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
This defence command paper will sharpen our strategic approach – ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of military capability, and a leading power in Nato.
The armed forces minister, James Heappey, said the ministry recognised the UK needed “to do things differently, responding to rapidly evolving geopolitical, technological and economic threats, learning lessons from Ukraine, and championing closer integration with our allies and partners”.
Updated
On the risks of continuing to ship grain out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports without security guarantees from Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:
Without appropriate security guarantees, certain risks arise here.
[Until an arrangement to allow for exports to be] formalised without Russia, then these risks should be taken into account.
But Peskov put Moscow’s position in starker terms when he said Ukraine was using the Black Sea export corridor “for combat purposes”, Reuters reports.
Updated
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, discussed with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, ways of exporting Russian grain via routes “that would not be susceptible to Kyiv and the west’s sabotage”, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
A year-old deal to permit Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports despite Russia’s war in Ukraine lapsed on Tuesday after Russia suspended its participation.
Russia says the west failed to meet its obligations under a parallel agreement to facilitate exports of Russian grain and fertiliser in the face of western economic sanctions, Reuters reports.
Updated
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said on Tuesday that every missile fired by Russia at the Ukrainian port of Odesa was also the equivalent of firing a missile at people who are starving in the world.
The comment piled criticism on Moscow as Russia fired at Ukrainian ports a day after pulling out of a UN-backed deal to let Kyiv export grain, Reuters reports.
Russia described its wave of missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian ports as revenge for attacks they say are launched by Kyiv. Moscow’s decision to withdraw from the grain deal prompted the UN to warn it risked creating hunger around the world.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said grain exports by sea and port security were top of the agenda on Tuesday’s staff meeting.
The number one issue on the agenda of today's Staff meeting is grain exports by sea and port security. Deputy Prime Minister Kubrakov and Naval Forces Commander Neizhpapa reported on supply logistics and the protection of the coastal region.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 18, 2023
There were reports by Minister…
A summit between European, Latin American and Caribbean leaders on Tuesday highlighted their differences over how to tackle Russia’s war in Ukraine.
As leaders from the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) met for a second day, diplomats were struggling to agree the language of a final communique, according to AFP.
A handful of Latin American countries – diplomats cited Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela as the most adamant – were opposed to agreeing a text holding Moscow responsible for the conflict.
Other leaders from the region were ready to sign up in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty, but put more emphasis on the need for a negotiated peace, rather than a victory for Kyiv, in their public declaration.
Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, said:
It would be a shame that we are not able to say that there is Russian aggression in Ukraine.
It’s a fact, and I’m not here to rewrite history.
The Irish leader, Leo Varadkar, said talks had gone late into the night on Monday and the debate was a valid one, even if the conclusion should be clear.
He told reporters:
A lot of countries will point out that there are other conflicts in the world, and I hear that.
And they will say that other conflicts in the world perhaps haven’t got the same amount of attention as Ukraine.
In the opening session on Monday, CELAC president Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, cited the crisis in Haiti, the Palestinian struggle for statehood and various wars in Africa as deserving of European attention.
And he warned that “sanctions and blockades” triggered by the war in Ukraine would only serve “to penalise the most vulnerable populations”.
Updated
This satellite image from the wires gives some perspective of the damage to the Kursk Bridge, connecting Crimea to Russia. Russian officials said on Telegram that partial road traffic opened on one lane of the bridge late on Monday.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had carried out overnight strikes on two Ukrainian port cities in what it called “a mass revenge strike” a day after an attack on the Crimean bridge, which it blamed on Kyiv. The ministry claims it hit “facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using crewless boats, as well as at the place of their manufacture at a shipyard near the city of Odesa”, and fuel depots in Mykolayiv.
Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal on Monday, brokered by the UN and Turkey a year ago to alleviate a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported safely. Moscow said the decision was final. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Russia’s decision was “unconscionable”, while the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he did not accept its explanations for terminating the agreement, including the loss of Russian food markets.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the grain deal must continue and could operate without Russian participation. “Africa has the right to stability. Asia has the right to stability,” he said in his nightly video address.
Continuing to ship grain out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports without security guarantees from Russia would carry risks, because Ukraine uses those waters for military activities, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in his regular daily briefing that Moscow rejected US criticism of its withdrawal from the grain deal, and would continue supplying grain to poor countries.
Poland’s agriculture minister, Robert Telus, said Russia is using grain as ammunition.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak commented on Russia’s overnight attacks, saying: “The Russian night attack on Odesa and Mykolaiv with the use of rockets and kamikaze drones is more proof that the terrorist country wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports.”
Kyiv reported a “complicated” situation in fighting in eastern Ukraine and success in parts of the south on Tuesday as it pressed on with its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces. “The situation is complicated but under control [in the east],” Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, said on Telegram. He said Russia had concentrated forces in the direction of Kupiansk in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv, but Ukrainian troops were holding them back.
Both sides have achieved “marginal advances” in different areas over the past week, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.
Russian air defences and electronic countermeasure systems downed 28 Ukrainian drones over Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday, the RIA news agency has cited the Russian defence ministry as saying. The drone attacks caused no casualties or damages, the ministry said
Russian state-owned media is reporting that Russian Federation security services claim to have detained a woman on suspicion of preparing “a terrorist attack” in the Yaroslavl region, to the north of Moscow.
Germany’s military has ordered several hundred thousand artillery shells in a deal with the manufacturer Rheinmetall as it works to replenish stocks dented by the war in Ukraine.
Updated
Continuing to ship grain out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports without security guarantees from Russia would carry risks, because Ukraine uses those waters for military activities, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in his regular daily briefing that Moscow rejected US criticism of its withdrawal from the grain deal, and would continue supplying grain to poor countries.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had carried out overnight strikes on two Ukrainian port cities in what it called “a mass revenge strike” a day after an attack on the Crimean bridge, which it blamed on Kyiv.
Reuters reports the ministry said in a statement it had struck Odesa and Mykolayiv and hit all targets.
Tass quotes the ministry claiming that it hit “facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using crewless boats, as well as at the place of their manufacture at a shipyard near the city of Odesa”.
Updated
Russia is using grain as ammunition, Poland’s agriculture minister, Robert Telus, has told Reuters, commenting on the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal. Telus urged the EU to help improve grain logistics, as more Ukraine grain will start flowing through borders after the harvest.
Updated
Explosion reported in occupied Melitopol
Vladimir Rogov, one of the Russian-imposed leaders in occupied Zaporizhzhia, has reported a loud explosion in occupied Melitopol. On his Telegram channel he stated “Loud in Melitopol! The sound of an explosion sounded in the city. Details later.”
An air alert has been declared in Kharkiv region in north-east Ukraine.
Updated
Ukraine's Gen Syrskyi: situation 'complicated but under control'
Kyiv reported a “complicated” situation in fighting in eastern Ukraine and success in parts of the south on Tuesday as it pressed on with its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces.
“The situation is complicated but under control [in the east],” Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, said on Telegram.
He said Russia had concentrated forces in the direction of Kupiansk in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv, but Ukrainian troops were holding them back.
Reuters reports that Ukrainian officials have increasingly pointed to an intensification of Russian military activity near Kupiansk and Lyman in the north-east. Both cities were retaken by Ukraine late last year.
On Monday, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern forces said the Russian military had amassed more than 100,000 troops and more than 900 tanks in the area.
Updated
Germany’s military has ordered several hundred thousand artillery shells in a deal with Rheinmetall as it works to replenish stocks dented by the war in Ukraine, the defence company said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports Rheinmetall said it had been awarded a new framework contract for the supply of 155mm artillery ammunition, representing a potential order volume of about €1.2bn (£1bn).
Updated
Russian state-owned media is reporting that Russian Federation security services claim to have detained a woman on suspicion of preparing “a terrorist attack” in the Yaroslavl region, to the north of Moscow.
It quotes the FSB saying “a Russian citizen born in 1987 was detained, who, on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services, collected and transmitted information about a critical infrastructure object in the Yaroslavl region.”
The report says a criminal case has been instigated, which could result in a 10-year jail term.
Updated
Oleksandr Senkevich, the mayor of Mykolaiv, has posted some additional information about the fire that broke out there overnight after a Russian drone attack. He said on Telegram:
In Mykolaiv, at around 1.50am an industrial facility was hit. There was a fire with an area of 500 sq metres. The state emergency service attended and at around 5.30am, the fire was extinguished.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak has commented on Russia’s overnight attacks. He posted to Telegram to say:
The Russian night attack on Odesa and Mykolaiv with the use of rockets and kamikaze drones is more proof that the terrorist country wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports.
Thanks to our air force for their efficient work.
The world must understand that the goal of the Russian Federation is hunger and killing people. They need waves of refugees. With this, they want to weaken the west.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Both sides have achieved “marginal advances” in different areas over the past week, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.
In the north-east, Ukraine continues to put “significant” resources into the area around Bakhmut, which fell to Russia after months of bloody fighting in May, the MoD said. Russian forces there were “likely fragile” but “holding for now”, it said.
Russian forces are also attempting to push west through forests west of Kremina, the MoD said.
“In the south, Ukraine continues to attack on at least two axes, but is unlikely to have yet broken into Russia’s primary defensive lines,” it continued.
Russia was likely to have implemented a “shell-rationing regime” for its artillery there, it said, while its commanders in Kherson were also probably concerned by a small Ukrainian bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro River, which could leave their south-western flank vulnerable.
(4/6)
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 18, 2023
In the south, Ukraine continues to attack on at least two axes, but is unlikely to have yet broken into Russia’s primary defensive lines.
Updated
Britain’s top military official has said the UK is picking apart Russian military vehicles captured in Russia to see what can be learned from them.
“It’s really important because we’re in a club of nations that when we get hold of Russian kit or other nations’ kit that might be a danger to us in the future, we share that knowledge,” Admiral Sir Tony Radakin told Sky News.
But we also have the scientists that unpick the detail that another nation might have to a really forensic level, and that helps us to understand: how does their equipment work? How can we defeat it? How can we have even better armour? How can we disrupt their communications? How can we ensure that we can penetrate their defences?
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin also said that the war in Ukraine had been a “wake-up call” for his forces.
He said it required them to be “faster with our acquisition, to be more bold with the kit that we introduce – particularly when we’re in a technological race – to be more aggressive in terms of how we look after our own nation and to strengthen our resilience”.
Russia aimed several waves of Shahed drones and six Kalibr cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa overnight, Ukraine’s Operational Command “South” has said, with all shot down by air defences.
However debris from the rockets and drones injured an elderly man and damaged “port infrastructure facilities” and several private homes, it said in a Facebook post.
In Mykolaiv, four Shahed drones were shot down but an industrial facility caught fire, it said. There were no casualties.
The attack on the southern port cities came hours after Moscow said it was withdrawing from a UN-brokered deal that allowed Ukraine to safely export its grain via its Black Sea ports.
The wires have sent through a series of images by photographer Genya Savilov from Lyman in Donetsk. The town, a key railway hub, was occupied by Russia last year before being recaptured by Ukrainian forces in October.
Once a town of 27,000, the remaining residents are fearful about Russian attempts to retake it. Ukrainian officials said on Monday that large groups of Russian personnel are trying to break through Ukrainian defence lines in the area.
Updated
Monday’s attack on the Kerch Bridge and Moscow’s continued promotion of Crimea as a tourist destination will have “significant impacts” on Russian logistics in southern Ukraine amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
The bridge is along one of only two ground links to Russia’s southern force grouping but Moscow has urged Russian civilians “to drive through and to a warzone rather than advising them to avoid it as a responsible government would”, the US-based thinktank said.
“Russian occupation authorities recently struggled to mitigate traffic issues just from increased Russian tourism across the Kerch Strait Bridge,” it wrote.
It also noted that shortages of supplies was one of the complaints brought up by Maj Gen Ivan Popov, who commanded the 58th Combined Arms army and who said he was recently fired for complaining about the dire situation of Russian forces on the frontlines.
Many of Popov’s complaints indicated that the 58th Combined Arms Army, and likely other Russian formations deployed in Zaporizhia Oblast, suffer from supply shortages that will further worsen if tourist and other civilian traffic slow down logistics routes supporting Russian forces in southern Ukraine.
Russian air defences and electronic countermeasure systems downed 28 Ukrainian drones over Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday, the RIA news agency has cited the Russian defence ministry as saying.
The drone attacks caused no casualties or damages, the ministry said according to Reuters.
The raid followed an attack by Ukrainian sea drones on the Crimea Bridge on Monday which damaged it and disrupted car traffic.
Road traffic partially reopens on Crimean bridge struck by explosion
Partial road traffic opened on one lane of the Crimean Bridge late on Monday, Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin said on his Telegram channel, almost 24 hours after it was struck by two explosions.
“Motor transport on the Crimean Bridge has been restored in reverse mode on the most outer right lane,” Khusnullin wrote on Monday according to Reuters.
However, ferry operations were suspended early on Tuesday, due to bad weather, Russian agencies reported, citing the Moscow-backed emergency situations ministry of Crimea.
Early on Monday two explosions damaged the bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge or Kerch Strait Bridge, connecting Crimea to mainland Russia, killing two people and closing the main conduit for Russian road traffic to the occupied peninsula.
Moscow called it a “terrorist” strike by Ukrainian sea drones though Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Russia launches strikes across Ukraine, 'quite serious' fire reported at Black Sea port
Russia has launched a series of air strikes across Ukraine, including on the southern port cities of Odesa and Mykolaiv, hours after it said it was pulling out of a UN-brokered grain deal which allowed Ukrainian produce to be exported via the Black Sea.
A “quite serious” fire broke out at one of the “facilities” in Mykolaiv, mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said on Telegram, adding that he would provide further details in the morning.
Air defences were also activated in Odesa, where Oleh Kiper, head of the region’s military administration, said air defence systems repelled several waves of Russian drone attacks.
The Ukrainian air force also warned of drone attacks in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Dnipropetrovsk regions and of the threat of ballistic missile attacks in Poltava, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine, with me Helen Livingstone.
Russia launched a series of drone strikes across Ukraine overnight to Tuesday, causing a “quite serious” fire at one of the “facilities” in the southern port of Mykolaiv, according to the mayor, Oleksandr Senkevich.
Air defences were also activated in the nearby Black Sea city of Odesa and air raid alerts sounded across Ukraine including in Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Cherkasy. The raids come hours after Moscow said it had pulled out of a deal allowing Ukrainian grain to be shipped from Black Sea ports.
Meanwhile Russian authorities said road traffic had been partially restored on the Crimea bridge, the only direct link between the occupied peninsula and mainland Russia and which was damaged by an explosion 24 hours earlier.
“Motor transport on the Crimean Bridge has been restored in reverse mode on the most outer right lane,” Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin said on his Telegram channel.
In other developments:
Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey a year ago to alleviate a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported safely. Moscow said the decision was final and warned it could not guarantee the safety of ships.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Russia’s decision was “unconscionable” while UN secretary general António Guterres said he did not accept its explanations for why it had terminated the agreement, including the loss of Russian food markets.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the grain deal must continue and could operate without Russian participation. “Africa has the right to stability. Asia has the right to stability,” he said in his nightly video address.
A deadly attack on the Kerch Bridge closed the only land link between the occupied Crimean peninsula and the Russian mainland. A span carrying road traffic in one direction was completely destroyed though the parallel rail bridge was not affected.
Vladimir Putin said the defence ministry in Moscow was preparing a response to the attack, in which a Russian couple was killed and their daughter injured. The Russian president called it a “terrorist attack” by Ukraine and claimed the bridge had “not been used for military transportation for a long time”.
Kyiv did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, but Ukrainian media said Ukrainian security services had deployed maritime drones against the bridge. In what also appeared to be a tacit acknowledgment, Ukrainian security service spokesperson Artem Degtyarenko said in a statement that his agency would reveal details of how the “bang” was organised after Kyiv had won the war.
The mayor of Kharkiv said the bridge was a legitimate military target and that the attack would cause “a lot of logistical problems for Russia”. In an interview with the Guardian, Ihor Terekhov dismissed Russia’s claim that it was an act of Ukrainian terrorism, saying that the Kremlin had brought death and destruction to his city on an epic scale.
Britain introduced new sanctions, including against Russian education minister Sergey Kravtsov, related to what it described as Moscow’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
French dairy group Danone is reviewing its legal options after the Russian state took control of its subsidiary in the country, a source close to the matter told Reuters. According to a decree signed by Putin on Sunday, foreign-owned stakes in Danone Russia, along with beer company Carlsberg’s stake in a local brewer have been put under the “temporary management” of government property agency Rosimushchestvo.
More mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner military contractor arrived in Belarus on Monday, a monitoring group said, continuing their relocation to the ex-Soviet nation after last month’s short-lived mutiny. Belaruski Hajun, a Belarusian activist group, said a convoy of more than 100 vehicles carrying Russian flags and Wagner insignia entered the country, heading toward a field camp that Belarusian authorities have offered to the company.
US president Joe Biden will meet with Pope Francis’ peace envoy on Tuesday as part of the Holy See’s peace and humanitarian initiatives for Ukraine. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s two-day visit to Washington follows his recent mission to Moscow and an earlier stop in Kyiv, where he met with Zelenskiy.
