Closing Summary
Russia is discussing holding joint exercises with North Korea, defence minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted as saying on Monday. When asked about the possibility of joint exercises between the two countries, he reportedly said they were “of course” being discussed.
Gen Sergei Surovikin, who had not been publicly seen since Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny in June, has apparently resurfaced. Ostorozhno Media published a picture of the former aerospace commander alongside his wife, reportedly taken on Monday in Moscow.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said after talks with Vladimir Putin that it would soon be possible to revive the grain deal the UN says helped to ease a food crisis by getting Ukrainian grain to market.
Vladimir Putin said the grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain safely through the Black Sea won’t be restored until the West meets its obligations to facilitate Russian agricultural exports.
Ukraine said its troops had regained more territory on the eastern front and were advancing further south in their counteroffensive against Russian forces, Reuters reports.
US, British and EU officials are planning to jointly press the United Arab Emirates to halt shipments of goods to Russia that could help Moscow in its war against Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Russia’s overnight attack on Ukrainian port infrastructure on the Danube River on Monday did not generate direct military threats to neighbouring Nato state Romania’s territory, Romania’s defence ministry said in a statement.
Rustem Umerov is poised to become Ukraine’s new defence minister, after Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s decision to replace Oleksii Reznikov.
Nobel prize-winning Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov will mount a legal challenge to try to overturn his designation as a “foreign agent” by the authorities in Russia, Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper he edits, said.
Reuters reports:
Russia’s justice ministry on Friday added Muratov, a veteran editor and co-laureate of the 2021 Nobel peace prize, to the growing list of people it has formally labelled “foreign agents” – a designation used to stigmatise and complicate the life of people it deems to be working against Russian state interests.
It said Muratov, who sold his Nobel medal at auction to help Ukrainian child refugees, had “created and disseminated material (produced by) foreign agents and used it to spread negative opinions of Russia’s foreign and domestic policies on international platforms”.
Novaya Gazeta, which is famous for its investigations which have sometimes taken aim at the Kremlin, government policy and top officials, said on Monday Muratov would temporarily step aside from his role as editor-in-chief in order to challenge his designation through the courts.
“Muratov categorically disagrees with the decision of the Ministry of Justice and is filing a lawsuit,” Novaya Gazeta said in a statement.
“At his own request, the editorial board is suspending Dmitry Muratov as editor-in-chief for the duration of the legal proceedings. Sergei Sokolov has been appointed acting editor-in-chief.”
It said Muratov had been targeted by the authorities for his opinions and beliefs, something it said ran counter to constitutional guarantees about freedom of thought and speech.
Updated
