Closing summary
This blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Friday the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is responsible for mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death.
The UK government announced British military and security services will monitor the Black Sea in a bid to deter Russia from striking cargo ships that are transporting grain from Ukraine to developing countries.
The first 10 Leopard 1 tanks donated by Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands have arrived in Ukraine and more are on their way, Denmark’s armed forces said on Friday.
A Russian airstrike killed three civilians and injured four other people in a village in Kherson on Friday, interior minister Ihor Klymenko said.
A Russian missile slammed into a police building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, killing a policeman and injuring many more people, Klymenko said.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry condemned “sham elections” being staged by Russia in occupied Ukrainian territories on Friday, saying they were “worthless” and would have no legal standing. Russia is holding regional elections, including in four Ukrainian regions that it does not fully control – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also described the voting in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine as “sham elections” and said they were “illegitimate”.
Officials said air defences shot down 16 of the 20 drones fired by Russia overnight – the southern military command said 14 drones had been brought down over Odesa region and two more over the southern region of Mykolaiv.
Russia “must stop” its blockade of Ukrainian seaports after pulling out of a UN and Turkey-mediated deal to ensure grain shipments, the president of the European Council Charles Michel said on Friday.
Ukraine’s former defence minister has warned his western counterparts that negotiations with Moscow will not bring peace, and that Vladimir Putin remains determined to destroy Ukraine entirely and to “assimilate” its citizens into the Russian Federation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that his country’s allies had eased up on sanctions imposed on Russia and called for a renewed drive to impose further punitive measures on Moscow, Reuters reports.
“At this time, we see too long a pause by our partners in terms of sanctions,” he said in his nightly video address. “And very active Russian attempts to evade sanctions.”
