Summary
Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning.
In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below.
- Ukraine says it hopes to start exporting grain from its ports this week with the first ships potentially moving from its Black Sea ports within a few days. Details of the procedures will soon be published by a joint coordination centre that is liaising with the shipping industry, deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said. Turkey’s President, Tayyip Erdogan, said that Turkey expects Kyiv and Moscow to keep to their responsibilities under the recently signed grain export deal.
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Russia’s Gazprom is set to cut gas supplies further after announcing a drastic cut to gas deliveries through its main pipeline to Europe from Wednesday. The company said it was halting the operation of one of the last two operating turbines due to the “technical condition of the engine”, cutting daily gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s capacity.
- The German group Siemens Energy is disputing Gazprom’s reasoning, saying it saw “no link between the turbine and the gas cuts that have been implemented or announced” in a statement to Agence France-Presse. Siemens energy is charged with maintaining the turbine.
- Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Europe to hit back against Russia’s “gas war”. “This is an overt gas war that Russia is waging against a united Europe … And that’s why it is necessary to hit back,” the Ukrainian president said, adding Europe should boost its sanctions against Moscow.
- Russia’s top diplomat has said Moscow’s overarching goal is to topple the government of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Speaking to envoys at an Arab League summit in Cairo on Sunday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow is determined to help Ukrainians “liberate themselves from the burden of this absolutely unacceptable regime”.
- Ukraine said it destroyed 50 Russian ammunition depots using the US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars) on Monday. The systems, delivered late last month, have turned the war in Ukraine’s favour by dismantling Russia’s logistics and slowing down its offensive, say Ukrainian authorities. “This cuts [Russian] logistical chains and takes away their ability to conduct active fighting and hit our armed forces with heavy shelling,” Ukraine’s minister of defence, Oleksii Reznikov, said.
- Russia’s attack on the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa at the weekend casts doubt on the grain deal struck the day before, the White House said. The US will continue to explore options to increase Ukraine exports through overland routes, Washington added. “We are going to be watching this closely to see if Russia meets their commitments under this arrangement since this attack casts serious doubt on Russia’s credibility,” a National Security Council spokesperson said.
- The appeal of Ukraine’s first war crimes conviction was adjourned on Monday, as prosecutors keep pushing to hold Russia legally accountable for atrocities. Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old captured Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a civilian and was sentenced in May by a Ukrainian court to life in prison, sat in a glass box in the courtroom as he faced news cameras.
- Russia’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, has arrived in Uganda on the third stop of a four-day tour of African countries. According to the Russian Tass news agency, Lavrov is due to hold talks on Tuesday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
- Two Americans who were killed while defending Ukraine earlier this month have now been identified. Luke Lucyszyn, 31, and Bryan Young were the US citizens killed during an ambush by a Russian tank on 18 July, their Ukrainian commander said on Facebook. Lucyszyn was reportedly knocked unconscious by an artillery strike and fatally shot by a Russian tank, Miroshnichenko said.
- Russian authorities briefly detained a 72-year-old liberal politician and Kremlin critic who recently returned to Moscow from abroad on Monday. Leonid Gozman was detained after the Russian interior ministry issued a warrant for his arrest alleging he failed to notify authorities about his Israeli citizenship within the required time, according to the Associated Press.
- The Eurovision song contest will be hosted in the UK next year after Ukraine’s public broadcaster dropped its objections and agreed to work with the BBC on the event. Ukraine won this year’s Eurovision with the song Stefania by Kalush Orchestra, earning the right to host the 2023 edition. However, organisers concluded this could not be done safely while the country was at war. The UK will produce a programme that – in the words of the BBC – has “glorious Ukraine at its heart”.
Updated
Russian authorities briefly detained a 72-year-old liberal politician who recently returned to Moscow from abroad on Monday.
Leonid Gozman was detained after the Russian Interior Ministry issued a warrant for his arrest while investigating a criminal case against him, according to the Associated Press.
Gozman has been accused of breaching the law that requires Russian citizens to notify authorities about a foreign citizenship or a residency permit. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to a fine or community work.
Gozman notified the authorities about his Israeli citizenship but they claimed that he failed to do so within required time.
Gozman, a vocal critic of the Kremlin’s campaign in Ukraine, left Russia when it started but returned in June in what he has described as a “moral” choice.
Immediately after meeting with investigators Monday, Gozman was detained on the Moscow subway by police who told him he was on the federal arrest warrant. The politician was later released, but the criminal case against him is still pending.
Speaking after being released Monday, Gozman said the authorities issued a warrant for his arrest after he hadn’t responded to summons that have been sent to his old address. He added that he fears being handed a prison term.
I’m 72. Russian prison is not for my age. I won’t survive it.
Our country is conducting horrible foreign and domestic policies.
But it’s our country, we have been born and brought up here. My wife and I, we have done a lot for the country, and we don’t want to leave.”
