Closing summary
The blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
The Ukrainian security service has claimed responsibly for the Crimea Bridge blast that happened last October. Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said his agency was behind the attack, speaking in comments shown on television as he presented a commemorative postage stamp marking wartime special forces operations.
The EU announced a ban on battlefield equipment and aviation part exports to Belarus. Spain, the current holder of the EU’s rotating chair, said in a post on social media that the new sanctions were a response to “the situation in Belarus and the involvement of Belarus in the Russian aggression against Ukraine”.
A criminal case was opened against a Ukrainian lawmaker suspected of taking a luxury Maldives holiday. Private trips abroad by officials have been banned since January. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to allude directly to the case in his nightly speech on Tuesday, in which he railed against corruption and officials who shirk their responsibilities during the war.
Ukraine will spend $1bn on domestic drone manufacturing this year. Prime minister, Denys Shmyhal announced 40bn hryvnia ($1.08b) would be invested into domestic drone manufacturing.
Russian lawmakers on Tuesday backed legislation increasing the maximum age limit to 30 for compulsory military service, over a year into the Kremlin’s Ukraine offensive. The bill comes as Moscow seeks to replenish its forces on the frontline in Ukraine without resorting to another mobilisation – a step the Kremlin took last September that proved unpopular.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russian invaders.
Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light – the arrests of a military recruitment official accused of mass embezzlement and of a parliamentarian accused of collaborating with Russia.The Kremlin said it was impossible for Russia to return to the Black Sea grain export deal for now, as an agreement related to Russian interests was “not being implemented”. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, however, that Vladimir Putin had made it clear the deal could be revived if its Russia-focused part was honoured.
Interfax in Russia is reporting that overnight Russian armed forces claim to have struck at a Ukrainian fuel warehouse and training centre in Donetsk.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that “during the night and morning of 26 July, the Russian army shelled six communities of Sumy oblast”
A decade-long failure by the British government has allowed the Wagner network to grow, spread its tentacles deep into Africa and exploit vulnerable countries, according to a highly critical report from the UK’s foreign affairs select committee. It called on the government to proscribe the Wagner group in the UK and to make a far more concerted effort to stop it using the City of London as a financial centre.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that Moldova has announced it will reduce the number of diplomatic staff Russia has in the country. The head of the Russian diplomatic mission in Moldova said the decision undermines the possibility of dialogue between the countries. Moldova summoned Russian diplomats on Tuesday after media reports that the Russian embassy in Chișinău had installed a large amount of satellite equipment on its roof which reports said could be used for espionage.
President Vladimir Putin is planning to visit China in October, the Kremlin has said. “It is known that we have received an invitation and that we intend to go to China when the Belt and Road Forum is held in October,” Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian president on international affairs, said in comments carried by Russian news agencies.
Russia attacked the Ukrainian regions of Kyiv, Khmelnytskiy and Kyrovohrad with missiles on Wednesday, Ukraine’s air force spokesperson said in televised comments after air raid sirens were sounded across the country, Reuters reports.
“We have registered high-speed targets, probably also ballistic missiles, the enemy is using different weapons types,” Yuriy Ihnat said.
Updated
The UK’s ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, said three air raid sirens have been let off in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Third air raid siren today for #Kyiv and most of 🇺🇦It’s exhausting for everyone and everyone is still carrying on.
— Dame Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) July 26, 2023
Nato said on Wednesday it was stepping up surveillance of the Black Sea region as it condemned Russia’s exit from a deal assuring the safe passage of ships carrying Ukrainian grain, Reuters reports.
The announcement came after a meeting of the Nato-Ukraine Council, a body established earlier this month to coordinate cooperation between the western military alliance and Kyiv.
“Allies and Ukraine strongly condemned Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Black Sea grain deal and its deliberate attempts to stop Ukraine’s agricultural exports on which hundreds of millions of people worldwide depend,” Nato said in a statement.
“Nato and allies are stepping up surveillance and reconnaissance in the Black Sea region, including with maritime patrol aircraft and drones,” the statement said.
The deal that has allowed the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine’s grain for the past year expired on 17 July after Russia quit, a move the UN said would “strike a blow to people in need everywhere”.
Moscow suggested it would consider reviving the deal if demands to improve exports of its own grain and fertiliser were met. The Nato statement criticised a Russian warning that parts of the Black Sea’s international waters were temporarily unsafe for navigation.
As part of that warning, Russia also said any ships travelling to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports would be seen as possibly carrying military cargo.
“Allies noted that Russia’s new warning area in the Black Sea, within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, has created new risks for miscalculation and escalation, as well as serious impediments to freedom of navigation,” the Nato statement said.
Bulgaria is a member of Nato.
Updated
Ukrainian security service claims responsibly for Crimea bridge blast in October
Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency claimed responsibility for the first time on Wednesday for a sabotage operation that badly damaged the Russian-made Kerch Bridge linking occupied Crimea with Russia last October, Reuters reports.
Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said his agency was behind the attack, speaking in comments shown on television as he presented a commemorative postage stamp marking wartime special forces operations.
“There were many different operations, special operations. We’ll be able to speak about some of them publicly and aloud after the victory, we will not talk at all about others,” Malyuk said.
“It is one of our actions, namely the destruction of the Crimean bridge on Oct. 8 last year.”
The bridge was badly damaged in October in a powerful blast, with Russian officials saying the explosion was caused by a truck that blew up while crossing the bridge, killing three people.
The bridge was hit by a fresh attack this month, but Malyuk made no mention of who was behind that one.
The 19km (12 mile) Crimean Bridge over the Kerch Strait is the only direct link between the transport network of Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine and occupied in 2014.
The bridge was a flagship project for Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who opened it for road traffic with great fanfare by driving a truck across in 2018.
It served as a crucial supply route for Russian forces after Moscow invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, sending forces from Crimea to seize parts of southern Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Updated
Reuters reports that Ukrainian troops are gradually advancing in the south and the military is about to receive a consignment of 1,700 strike and reconnaissance drones to help with the counteroffensive, officials said on Wednesday.
Hanna Maliar, the deputy defence minister, reported advances towards the southern, occupied cities of Melitopol and Berdiansk which is on the Sea of Azov and said Kyiv’s troops were also successfully attacking in the east on the flanks of occupied Bakhmut.
Russia holds swathes of territory in the south and east. Ukraine launched a big push to recapture land this summer, but progress has been slow against entrenched Russian positions.
Maliar reported Ukrainian “successes” in the south-east, including near Staromayorske, a village near a cluster of hamlets that Ukraine recaptured in the Donetsk region this summer.
“Battles continue near Staromayorske, our defenders have successes, they were gaining a foothold on the reached frontiers,” she said.
In the east, Maliar said Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian advances in the direction of Kupiansk and Lyman, which Ukraine liberated last year.
Fierce fighting raged, she said, near the villages of Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka and Andriivka on the southern flank of Bakhmut, a small city reduced to ruins in a bloody, months-long battle that gave Russian forces control of the area for now.
Despite steady western military aid, Ukrainian military officials have said Russia still has an advantage in artillery, tanks and manpower.
Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister, said 1,700 drones were on their way to the frontlines to help the offensive.
“All of them are now going to the front to protect the lives of our soldiers, to make our artillery even more accurate, to destroy the enemy,” Fedorov said in a video that showed hundreds of drones laid out in rows on a field.
Ukrainian producers have sharply increased domestic drone production and more than 10,000 drone operators have been already trained with another 10,000 currently receiving training, Fedorov said.
Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia, has said Russian and Belarussian athletes should be banned from all international sporting events while Russia’s aggression against Ukraine continues.
Important to keep ban on Russian and Belarussian athletes from international sports events – not even under the pretext of a neutral flag at #Paris2024. Such ban must last until Russia's aggression against Ukraine continues. https://t.co/hoilmIvCjv
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) July 26, 2023
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget A. Brink, has met the Ukrainian energy minister, German Galushchenko.
In a tweet, Brink said private investment and investment through US support could help Ukraine build “a more resilient energy grid”.
We continue our work helping Ukraine prepare for the next heating season — my team and I met with Minister of Energy @G_Galushchenko. We look forward to exploring all options for building a more resilient energy grid, including by taking steps to enable private investment and… pic.twitter.com/wd0qdKw49o
— Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) July 26, 2023
Updated
Interfax in Russia reports that residents in Belgorod will be exempt from paying taxes on land and property lost as a result of the cross-border shelling of the armed forces of Ukraine.
Ukraine is still considering whether to stick with its decision to bar its athletes from competing against Russians or Belarusians, the sports minister said on Wednesday, a year before the start of the Paris Olympics.
The comment by Vadym Huttsait in an interview with Reuters suggests Kyiv could be open to reversing a controversial policy that would likely rule Ukrainian athletes out of competing at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Ukraine in April barred its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events that have competitors from Russia and Belarus regardless of whether they are competing under a neutral flag.
“We have started discussions with the presidents of federations, the federations themselves, the sportspeople: if this will happen, will we participate or not? The decision has not been made yet, and therefore there is no softening yet,” Reuters reports Huttsait said.
Updated
EU announces ban on battlefield equipment and aviation part exports to Belarus
The EU on Wednesday agreed to ban exports of battlefield equipment and aviation parts to Belarus, expanding sanctions on the Russian ally for its involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Spain, the current holder of the EU’s rotating chair, said in a post on social media that the new sanctions were a response to “the situation in Belarus and the involvement of Belarus in the Russian aggression against Ukraine”.
Lithuania’s EU ambassador, Arnoldas Pranckevicius, posted that the embargo covered “dual use battlefield and aviation goods”, as well as a blacklist of individuals.
Reuters reports the decision must still be finalised and will take effect if none of the bloc’s 27 member states raise last-minute objections by Friday.
Updated
Tass is reporting that Russian forces are claiming to have made an advance near Serhiivka in Luhansk oblast, which is close to the border with Kharkiv oblast.
It quotes Lt Gen Igor Konashenkov claiming “The advance amounted to 3 km along the front and 2.7km in the depth of the enemy’s defence”.
Surrogacy clinics continue to operate in Ukraine, with foreign nationals travelling to Kyiv to use their services despite the war, Lorenzo Tondo and Artem Mazhulin report.
In March last year, just weeks after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Remo and Amalia received an unexpected phone call from Kyiv. One of the largest surrogacy clinics in Europe was responding to the Italian couple by inviting them to the war-ravaged country for medical checks to begin the procedure to have a baby.
At the time, Moscow’s troops were withdrawing from the territories north of the capital oblast that they had occupied for more than a month. A few days later, the mass graves of Bucha would reveal the true horror of the invasion as Russian missiles continued to fall by the dozens into Ukraine’s oblasts. Yet, the continuing conflict was not going to stop the couple.
“We’ve been trying to make the dream of having our own child come true for 10 years,” said Remo, 55, for whom the surrogacy process is continuing. “It won’t be the bombs or the war that will stop us.”
Surrogacy clinics, which have thrived in Ukraine thanks to a liberal legal framework, are still doing brisk business, with hundreds of foreigners coming to Kyiv despite the war, mostly from Italy, Romania, Germany and Britain.
Couples who wish to have a child have to undergo a series of clinical examinations. Once these have been done, and if a doctor has diagnosed infertility, the couple starts the surrogacy process. After choosing a surrogate mother, appropriate agreements are reached between the parties.
Reuters reports that a military court in Moscow has sentenced a dual Russian-Ukrainian citizen to 22 years in jail for blowing up rail track in Russia’s Bryansk region last summer at the behest of Ukraine, citing a report from the state Tass news agency on Wednesday.
It said Sergei Belavin, who it said had confessed to his crimes, had been convicted of terrorism and other charges.
State prosecutors said Belavin, whom they accused of working for Ukrainian military intelligence, had entered Russia last summer and placed an explosive device on a stretch of railway near Russia’s border with Ukraine and Belarus.
He had detonated the device on 9 July last year, damaging a passing freight train and the track below, according to investigators. Nobody was injured, but service on the line was disrupted for 10 hours.
There was no immediate reaction to the verdict from Ukraine, which rarely comments on attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory but makes no secret of its desire to disrupt or destroy infrastructure used by the Russian military.
Updated
Olena Zelenska, the Ukrainian first lady, has shared photos from her visit to the west-central city of Vinnytsia, where 29 people died from shelling in a single day last July.
Begun my visit to Vinnytsia with the Memorial to the victims of a shelling that happened on 14.07.2022. Among the memorials to 29 victims — a small dove and a sakura of 4-year-old Liza who I knew personally. Like every person killed by ru-aggression, she is forever in our hearts. pic.twitter.com/m4NtlUebTd
— Олена Зеленська (@ZelenskaUA) July 26, 2023
Criminal case opened against Ukrainian lawmaker suspected of taking luxury Maldives holiday
Reuters reports that Ukrainian prosecutors have opened a criminal case into a lawmaker suspected of taking a luxury holiday in the Maldives in breach of a wartime ban on private travel abroad, the general prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
Private trips abroad by officials have been banned since January, while most Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are also barred from leaving Ukraine martial law that was brought in when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The investigation found the lawmaker had travelled to Poland for three days on a business trip and later taken sick leave, during which he was in the Maldives with his family, the general prosecutor’s office said.
The lawmaker stayed in a hotel on the private island of Ithaafushi in Maldives in mid-July, said the State Bureau of Investigation, which is running the investigation with the Security Service of Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to allude directly to the case in his nightly speech on Tuesday, in which he railed against corruption and officials who shirk their responsibilities during the war.
“Any internal betrayal, any ‘beach’ (holiday) or any personal enrichment instead of Ukraine’s interests triggers fury at the very least. Fury. Remember that,” he said.
Neither he, nor the prosecutors, named the lawmaker.
No charges have yet been brought in the case, which is investigating the possibility of forgery in official documents about the duration, purpose and destination of a business trip. Such forgery is punishable by up to three years in jail.
Updated
Ukraine to spend $1bn on domestic drone manufacturing this year
The Ukrainian government plans to invest 40bn hryvnia ($1.08bn) this year into domestic drone manufacturing, the prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has announced.
On Tuesday, Shmyhal met Ukrainian drone manufacturers and said: “A year ago, through President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s UNITED24 initiative, we raised more than 4b hryvnia to invest in Ukrainian drone manufacturers. At that time, there were less than a dozen of them. Today, there are more than 40 companies that have contracts with the state, and the production of UAVs has increased tenfold.”
He added: “The video of Ukrainian drones destroying Russian weaponry is the best result and evidence of our joint efforts with Ukrainian manufacturers. I thank everyone who brings our victory closer.”
Updated
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, visited Liberia on Wednesday, the first visit to the country in Ukrainian diplomatic history according to the foreign ministry, in an effort to “ensure” the export of Ukrainian grain to Africa after the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said this week: “Against the backdrop of Russia’s food blackmail, Ukraine is maximising its consolidation of support from African countries to continue exporting Ukrainian grain to the Black Sea.”
This is Kuleba’s third wartime visit to the African continent. Kuleba travelled to Equatorial Guinea for two days this week where he said he had discussed food security.
It comes as Russia prepares to host a summit in St Petersburg with leaders from the continent on Thursday and Friday after the demise of the Black Sea grain deal. The Kremlin has said that 17 African heads of state will speak at the event.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Russian lawmakers on Tuesday backed legislation increasing the maximum age limit to 30 for compulsory military service, over a year into the Kremlin’s Ukraine offensive. The bill comes as Moscow seeks to replenish its forces on the frontline in Ukraine without resorting to another mobilisation – a step the Kremlin took last September that proved unpopular.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russian invaders.
Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light – the arrests of a military recruitment official accused of mass embezzlement and of a parliamentarian accused of collaborating with Russia.The Kremlin said it was impossible for Russia to return to the Black Sea grain export deal for now, as an agreement related to Russian interests was “not being implemented”. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, however, that Vladimir Putin had made it clear the deal could be revived if its Russia-focused part was honoured.
Interfax in Russia is reporting that overnight Russian armed forces claim to have struck at a Ukrainian fuel warehouse and training centre in Donetsk.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that “during the night and morning of 26 July, the Russian army shelled six communities of Sumy oblast”
A decade-long failure by the British government has allowed the Wagner network to grow, spread its tentacles deep into Africa and exploit vulnerable countries, according to a highly critical report from the UK’s foreign affairs select committee. It called on the government to proscribe the Wagner group in the UK and to make a far more concerted effort to stop it using the City of London as a financial centre.
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that Moldova has announced it will reduce the number of diplomatic staff Russia has in the country. The head of the Russian diplomatic mission in Moldova said the decision undermines the possibility of dialogue between the countries. Moldova summoned Russian diplomats on Tuesday after media reports that the Russian embassy in Chișinău had installed a large amount of satellite equipment on its roof which reports said could be used for espionage.
President Vladimir Putin is planning to visit China in October, the Kremlin has said. “It is known that we have received an invitation and that we intend to go to China when the Belt and Road Forum is held in October,” Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian president on international affairs, said in comments carried by Russian news agencies.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in Russia, has given his daily operational update on the situation in the area that borders Ukraine. He listed several settlements that he claimed had been shelled by Ukraine, but said there had been no injuries. He stated that the settlement of Murom had been briefly without power after one incident.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry’s spokesperson, has said that “ in an attempt to curry favour with its western sponsors, Chișinău has redoubled its Russophobic efforts”, in response to Moldova’s decision to reduce Russia’s diplomatic presence there. [See 8.51am]
Russia and North Korea plan to strengthen defence cooperation, the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Wednesday after talks in Pyongyang with his North Korean counterpart.
“I am convinced that today’s talks will contribute to strengthening cooperation between our defence departments,” Reuters reports Shoigu said in remarks published by Russia’s defence ministry.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Ukrane.
Updated
Interfax reports that the number of tourists visiting Crimea, which the Russian Federation annexed in 2014, has fallen.
It quotes Russia’s tourism minister, Dmitry Chernyshenko, saying that 2.4 million tourists stayed in Crimea in the past year, fewer than a year earlier, but that state support will help the Crimean tourism industry to survive what it describes as “the difficult period”.
Updated
Overnight my colleague Patrick Wintour reported on a UK parliament report which said a decade-long failure by the British government had allowed the Wagner network to grow, spread its tentacles deep into Africa and exploit vulnerable countries, and called on the government to proscribe the Wagner group in the UK and to make a far more concerted effort to stop it using the City of London as a financial centre.
Tory MP Alicia Kearns, who is chair of the foreign affairs select committee in the House of Commons in London, has appeared on Sky TV in the UK to speak more about the report, during which she described the Wagner group as “a very complex proxy for the Kremlin” and “they essentially operate like a criminal mafia”.
She reiterated the call to proscribe the group, saying “that will act as a deterrent around the world and stop countries from partnering with it. It will also allow us to take them through British courts and not see British nationals like Eliot Higgins taken to court by the Wagner group in our courts.”
She also called for sanctions on “those who are enabling them”, and claimed “there are financiers and others based here in London who are helping them and that helps Russia evade sanctions.”
Read more of Patrick Wintour’s report here: UK inaction let Wagner group flourish and grow, say MPs
Updated
Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that Moldova has announced it will reduce the number of diplomatic staff Russia has in the country.
Yesterday Moldova summoned Russian diplomats over media reports that the Russian embassy in Chișinău had installed a large amount of satellite equipment on its roof which reports said could be used for espionage.
Relations between Russia and Moldova have been tense since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia has troops stationed in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, which directly borders Ukraine.
Tass quotes the head of the Russian diplomatic mission in Moldova saying that the decision undermines the possibility of dialogue between the countries.
The south of Ukraine is under an air alert again. Suspilne reports it is “due to the activity of Russian aviation in the Black Sea.”
The all clear has sounded across southern Ukraine.
Interfax in Russia is reporting that overnight Russian armed forces claim to have struck at a fuel warehouse and training centre in Donetsk.
It quoted spokesperson Vadim Astafyev saying: “The group’s missile units delivered three strikes with volleys of Tornado-S multiple launch rocket systems at the accumulation of manpower and firepower of the 3rd separate assault brigade, the fuel depot of the 77th separate assault brigade in Druzhkivka and the personnel training centre of the 93rd Separate mechanised brigade of the armed forces of Ukraine in Kostyantynivka.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
An air alert has been declared in southern Ukraine, including in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Citing the local regional authority, Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that “during the night and morning of 26 July, the Russian army shelled six communities of Sumy oblast”. It reported no casualties.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
$244 million announced for demining
Ukraine’s allies have committed to allocate $244 million in addition to special equipment for the country’s humanitarian demining needs, First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Tuesday.
“Our task is not only to demine the entire territory in order to save people’s lives, but also to speed up this process,” Svyrydenko, who is also economy minister, said in a statement on the government’s website.
“This is a question of economic recovery, because the sooner we return potentially mined lands to circulation, the faster business will develop on them.”
Russia left large areas of land filled with mines after it halted its initial full-scale invasion in Ukraine in the first half of last year and moved its forces to the east.
The US State Department estimated in early December that some 160,000 square km (62,000 square miles) of Ukrainian land needed to be checked for explosives hazards. That is nearly half the size of Germany.
US announces new weapons for Ukraine, including Black Hornet drones
The US Department of Defence announced $400m in additional security assistance for Ukraine on Tuesday, Reuters reports, including air defence missiles, armoured vehicles and small drones.
The new aid package will include for the first time U.S. furnished Black Hornet surveillance drones made by Teledyne FLIR Defence, part of Teledyne Technologies.
The Norwegian-built Hornet is being used in Ukraine through donations by the British and Norwegian governments, the company said. FLIR Unmanned Aerial Systems was awarded a $93m contract in April to provide the small reconnaissance drones to the US Army.
In addition, the weapons aid package includes munitions for Patriot air defence systems and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASMS), Stinger anti-aircraft systems, more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Stryker Armoured Personnel Carriers and a variety of other missiles and rockets.
Russia raises conscription age limit
Russia’s parliament has voted to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 from 27, increasing the number of young men liable for a year of compulsory military service.
The bill comes as Moscow seeks to replenish its forces on the frontline in Ukraine without resorting to another mobilisation – a step the Kremlin took last September which proved unpopular.
“From January 1, 2024, citizens aged 18 to 30 will be called up for military service,” the lower house of parliament said after the bill was passed in a second and third reading.
The law also prohibits conscripts from leaving the country once the enlistment office has sent them their draft notice.
The bill still has to be approved by the upper chamber and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, steps that are considered a formality:
Zelenskiy issues fresh corruption warning
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russian invaders.
Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light – the arrests of a military recruitment official accused of mass embezzlement and of a parliamentarian accused of collaborating with Russia.
The president last month announced plans to audit military draft offices to try to eliminate corruption.
“Let me warn all members of parliament, officials and everyone working as a civil servant,” he said.
“When you spend days on end looking for weapons for the country, when everyone’s attention is fixed on whether there is artillery, missiles and drones, you feel the moral strength our soldiers have given Ukraine.
Zelenskiy, addressing members of parliament, said he would no longer tolerate those who “because of some sort of personal gain” refuse to back legislation needed for Ukraine to begin its long campaign to secure EU membership.
“I no longer want to see any such refusals,” he said. “No one wants to see that. Ukraine has no more time for that.”
Opening summary
Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top stories this morning: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russia.
Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light – the arrests of a military recruitment official accused of mass embezzlement and of a parliamentarian accused of collaborating with Russia.
And Russia’s lower house of parliament voted on Tuesday to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 from 27, increasing the number of men liable for a year of compulsory military service at any one time.
Elsewhere:
The Russian ministry of defence has claimed that it destroyed two unmanned Ukrainian boats that were engaged in an attack on one of its Black Sea fleet patrol ships. In a statement, the ministry said: “In the course of repulsing the attack, both enemy remote-controlled boats were destroyed by fire from the standard weapons of the Russian ship at a distance of 1,000m and 800m. There were no casualties. The Sergey Kotov continues to fulfill its tasks.”
The UK’s ambassador to the UN has said that prime minister Rishi Sunak has shared with Ukraine intelligence that Russia has laid additional mines in the Black Sea and may attack civilian shipping in the region. Barbara Woodward said the UK had information indicating “the Russian military may expand their targeting of Ukrainian grain facilities further, to include attacks against civilian shipping in the Black Sea. Our information also indicates that Russia has laid additional sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports. We agree with the US assessment that this is a coordinated effort to justify and lay blame on Ukraine for any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea.”
The Ukrainian military on Tuesday reported making small advances against Russian forces in parts of southern Ukraine. Andriy Kovaliov, spokesperson for the armed forces general staff, said Ukrainian troops had moved forward in the direction of the south-eastern village of Staromayorske, near settlements recaptured by Ukraine last month in the Donetsk region. He said the Ukrainian troops were reinforcing the positions they had taken, and Russian forces were mounting strong resistance.
The UN human rights chief on Tuesday called for accountability for the deaths of at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war last year in an explosion in a Donetsk region detention facility, rejecting Moscow’s claim that they were killed by a rocket. “The prisoners of war who were injured or died at Olenivka, and their family members, deserve the truth to be known, and for those responsible for breaches of international law to be held accountable,” the high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said in a statement to journalists.
The UN’s atomic watchdog said it saw anti-personnel mines at the site of Ukraine‘s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces. On 23 July, International Atomic Energy Agency experts “saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers”, agency chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Monday. The statement did not say how many mines the team had seen. The devices were in “restricted areas” that operating plant personnel cannot access, Grossi said, adding the IAEA’s initial assessment was that any detonation “should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems”.
AP reports, citing US officials, that the Biden administration is sending up to $400m in additional military aid to Ukraine, including a variety of munitions for advanced air defence systems and a number of small, surveillance Hornet drones.
