End of day summary
Here is the latest from our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
- Eight people have been killed and four have been wounded in Russian artillery shelling in the eastern Ukrainian town of Toretsk in Donetsk oblast on Thursday, the regional governor has said. The shelling hit a public transport stop where people had gathered, the governor for the area, Pavlo Kyrylenko, wrote on Telegram. Three children were among the wounded, he said.
- The UN is conducting a fact-finding mission in response to requests from Russia and Ukraine after 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in an explosion at a barracks in separatist-controlled Olenivka. The warring nations have accused each other of carrying out the attack. Ukraine claims it was a special operation plotted in advance by the Kremlin, and carried out by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group. Russia’s defence ministry, however, claims the Ukrainian military used US-supplied rockets to strike the prison.
- A US official accused Moscow of preparing to plant fake evidence to make it look like the recent mass killing of Ukrainian prisoners in an attack on a Russian-controlled prison was caused by Ukraine. Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame over the strikes on the prison in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka, in eastern Ukraine, which Russia said took place overnight on 29 July.
- Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wants to talk directly to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in the hope China can use its influence with Russia to bring the war to an end. According to a report in the South China Morning Post, Zelenskiy said: “It’s a very powerful state. It’s a powerful economy. So [it] can politically, economically influence Russia. And China is [also a] permanent member of the UN security council.” So far, China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion and Xi Jinping told Putin it would support Russia’s “sovereignty and security”.
- Amnesty International has said the Ukrainian army is endangering the life of civilians by basing itself in residential areas, in a report rejected by Ukrainian government representatives as placing blame on it for Russia’s invasion. The human rights group’s researchers found that Ukrainian forces were using some schools and hospitals as bases, firing near houses and sometimes living in residential flats. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, accused Amnesty of “distorting the real picture”.
- A Moscow court has convicted the US basketball player Brittney Griner on drug charges, sentencing her to nine years in prison and a 1m rouble fine in a politically charged verdict that could lead to a prisoner swap with the United States. Griner, a basketball talent who played in Russia during off-seasons from the Phoenix Mercury, was arrested for cannabis possession in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in February.
- The US Senate has ratified Finland and Sweden’s accession to Nato, voting 95-1 in support. The US is the 23rd member state to ratify what would be the most significant expansion of the 30-member alliance since the 1990s as it responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This historic vote sends an important signal of the sustained, bipartisan US commitment to Nato, and to ensuring our alliance is prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” the president, Joe Biden, said in a statement. All 30 Nato members must ratify the accession before Finland and Sweden can become members.
- Ukraine is pulling out its 40 peacekeepers from the Nato-led mission in Kosovo, which totals 3,800 members, according to Ukrainian news. In March, Zelenskiy issued a decree for all missions to return to Ukraine to support the war.
- The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has again appealed for access to a Ukrainian nuclear power plant now controlled by Russian forces to determine whether it was a source of danger. Contact with the Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which is at Zaporizhzhia and is being operated by Ukrainian technicians under occupation, was “fragile” and communications did not function every day, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head, Rafael Grossi, told a Swiss newspaper.
- The first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine under a deal to ease Russia’s naval blockade has reached Turkey. The Sierra Leone-registered ship Razoni set sail from Odesa port for Lebanon on Monday under an accord brokered by Turkey and the UN. The ship has been inspected by members of the joint coordination centre, and is now expected to move through the Bosphorus Strait “shortly”.
- Ukraine failed to stop a Syrian-flagged vessel claimed to be carrying stolen Ukrainian grain from leaving Lebanon. The Lebanese government reported on Thursday that the Syrian-flagged Laodicea had left its territorial waters, despite appeals from Kyiv to reverse a court decision allowing its departure. Russia has denied stealing the grain on the ship, which was reported to be sailing to its ally, Syria.
- The Kremlin said on Thursday that the Turkish-brokered deal to unblock Ukraine’s grain exports from the Black Sea was not a “one-off mechanism”, and that it hoped it would continue to work effectively. The deal, which allows for Ukrainian grain to be shipped to world markets via Turkey, must be renewed every 120 days by agreement of the parties.
- The first shipment of Ukrainian grain to the UK since the war began is expected to arrive in 10 days, western officials said. Millions of tonnes of grain have been stuck in Ukraine since Russia invaded just over six months ago.
- The UN has said that there have been more than 10m border crossings into and out of Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country on 24 February. Data gathered by the UNHCR states that 6,180,345 individual refugees from Ukraine are now recorded across Europe. Ukraine’s neighbours have taken the largest individual numbers. Poland has 1.25 million refugees.
- Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called the behaviour of the ex German chancellor Gerhard Schröder “disgusting”. The former German leader has come under fire after he went on holiday to Moscow and had a private meeting with Vladimir Putin. Schröder told German media in a lengthy interview he had nothing to apologise for over his friendship with the Russian president.
- Nato members are working closely with defence companies to ensure Ukraine gets more supplies of weapons and equipment to be prepared for the long haul in its war with Russia, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Thursday. Stoltenberg told Reuters in an interview: “We are providing a lot of support but we need to do even more and be prepared for the long haul.”
We’re closing this liveblog now. Thanks so much for joining us. Our blog on the situation in Taiwan is still live:
Updated
Russia may launch an offensive in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson to try to wrest back momentum from Kyiv and has been visibly building up forces, the Ukrainian general Oleksiy Hromov said on Thursday.
Russia holds swathes of Ukraine’s south that it captured in the early phases of its 24 February invasion, but Kyiv has vowed to mount a major counter-offensive and used sophisticated western weapons to hit Russian supply lines and ammo dumps, Reuters reports.
Hromov said Russia had brought in a large amount of weapons and hardware to the north-east of the strategically important southern region of Kherson, much of which is occupied by Russia.
He told a news conference:
It’s possible the enemy may or will try to carry out offensive operations deep into our territory in order to seize the initiative and threaten the development of our success in order to force the [Ukrainian army] to stop expanding bridgeheads and go on the defensive.
In the east, he said Ukraine had improved its tactical position around the eastern city of Sloviansk, recapturing two villages, but that Russian forces had been trying to take the eastern city of Avdiivka and village of Pisky.
Ukrainian forces had been forced to concede territory there, switching to defending south of the city of Avdiivka and leaving the Butivka coal mine, he said.
Updated
