Summary
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, visited Ukrainian troops on Tuesday in Avdiivka, Donetsk region, his office have said. Zelenskiy listened to commanders’ reports on the battlefield situation and gave awards to soldiers, it said.
A Russian judge has rejected an appeal by the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich against the decision to hold him in detention before his trial on charges of espionage.
Ukraine’s government has criticised Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for his efforts to broker a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, and invited the Brazilian leader to visit the war-torn country and see for himself the consequences of the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, has said that the Black Sea grain deal faced the threat of being halted.
“It is under threat of being halted and Russia has again blocked the inspection of ships,” Svyrydenko told a news conference in Warsaw.
Poland has said that it has reached an agreement on restarting transit of Ukrainian grains through its territory as of Friday, according to Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus.
The maker of Sweden’s Absolut vodka has said it is ceasing all exports to Russia after calls to boycott the brand flared up in Sweden and on social media, Agence France-Presse reported.
Security concerns have prompted Russian authorities this year to cancel traditional nationwide victory day processions where people carry portraits of relatives who fought against Nazi Germany in the second world war, Reuters has reported a lawmaker as saying on Tuesday.
Russia is “not yet” planning to block Wikipedia, its minister of digital affairs said on Tuesday as a Moscow court handed the online encyclopaedia another fine for failing to remove content Russia deems illegal.
Reuters reports that the US Justice Department on Tuesday announced new charges against four Americans in Florida and three Russians for allegedly working on behalf of the Russian government “to conduct a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States.”
The superseding indictment from a federal grand jury in Tampa adds charges to Moscow resident Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov and Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov, the department said.
Additionally, a separate unsealed case in Washington charges Russian national Natalia Burlinova “with conspiring with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia in the United States.”
