A summary of today's developments
- Ukrainian officials have denounced a call by Russia’s embassy in Britain for fighters from the Azov regiment to face a “humiliating” execution, AFP has reported. Twitter said the embassy had violated its rules on “hateful conduct” but put a warning on the tweet rather than ban the post about the Azov, a Ukrainian battalion that retains some far-right affiliations. Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, responded on Telegram on Saturday: “Russia is a terrorist state. In the 21st century, only savages and terrorists can talk at the diplomatic level about the fact that people deserve to be executed by hanging. Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism. What more evidence is needed?”
- Russia announced it was banning 32 New Zealand officials and journalists from entering its territory, in response to similar measures taken by Wellington against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported. Among those subjected to sanctions are the mayor of Wellington, Andrew Foster; the mayor of Auckland, Philip Goff; the commander of New Zealand’s navy, Commodore Garin Golding; and the journalists Kate Green and Josie Pagani, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
- Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said. The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight, Agence France-Presse reported. In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility, local authorities said.
- The Ukrainian military said it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines. Reuters reported the military’s southern command as saying rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
- The US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intended to dismantle Ukraine, Reuters reported. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN security council that the United States was seeing growing signs of Russia laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
- Gazprom has suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the west over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping sanctions against Russia, AFP reports. The company drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20% of its capacity. EU states have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Russia is “running out of steam” in its war on Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday. Moore made the remark above an earlier tweet by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that said the Kremlin was “growing desperate”.
- Russia and Ukraine have both launched criminal investigations into strikes that have reportedly killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held at a pre-trial detention centre in the village of Olenivka, after both countries blamed the other side for the attack. The United Nations is prepared to send a group of experts to Olenivka to investigate the incident, if it gets consent from both parties.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of a “petrifying war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognise Russia as a terrorist state”.
- Ukraine has said it is ready for grain exports to leave its ports again but is waiting for the go-ahead from the United Nations.
- Video footage has emerged that appears to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner, who other reports suggest was subsequently murdered. The footage, reviewed by the Guardian, was originally posted on pro-Russian Telegram channels. Aric Toler, at the investigative outlet Bellingcat, suggested that the video – which shows a Russian soldier, wearing a distinctive black wide-brimmed hat, approaching another figure who has his hands bound and is lying face down with the back of his trousers cut away – appeared to be authentic.
Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations over a missile strike or explosion that appeared to have killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in the eastern Donetsk region.
The incident took place early on Friday in the frontline town of Olenivka, which is held by Moscow-backed separatists.
Russia’s defence ministry published a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war who it said were killed and wounded in what it said was a missile strike by the Ukrainian military.
It said the strike by US-made Himars rockets had killed 50 prisoners and injured another 73, Reuters reports.
Ukraine’s armed forces denied responsibility, saying Russian artillery had targeted the prison to hide the mistreatment of those held there.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, expressed his condolences over the deaths in a phone call with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, according to a state department statement.
The United States is committed to “hold Russia accountable for atrocities committed by its forces against the people of Ukraine,” Blinken told Kuleba.
The United Nations is prepared to send a group of experts to Olenivka to investigate the incident, if it gets consent from both parties, said UN spokesperson Farhan Haq.
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An interesting dispatch on the impact of the conflict in the town of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Some six months into Russia's war in Ukraine, CNN's Jason Carroll visits the town of Irpin, approximately 45 minutes northwest of Kyiv. This is what some residents have to say after their apartments were left in ruins by Russian missile strikes during the early stages of the war. pic.twitter.com/i9Ozc8aYBR
— CNN International (@cnni) July 30, 2022
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Summary
Here is a summary of the latest developments:
- Ukrainian officials have denounced a call by Russia’s embassy in Britain for fighters from the Azov regiment to face a “humiliating” execution, AFP has reported. Twitter said the embassy had violated its rules on “hateful conduct” but put a warning on the tweet rather than ban the post about the Azov, a Ukrainian battalion that retains some far-right affiliations. Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, responded on Telegram on Saturday: “Russia is a terrorist state. In the 21st century, only savages and terrorists can talk at the diplomatic level about the fact that people deserve to be executed by hanging. Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism. What more evidence is needed?”
- Russia announced on Saturday it was banning 32 New Zealand officials and journalists from entering its territory, in response to similar measures taken by Wellington against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported. Among those subjected to sanctions are the mayor of Wellington, Andrew Foster; the mayor of Auckland, Philip Goff; the commander of New Zealand’s navy, Commodore Garin Golding; and the journalists Kate Green and Josie Pagani, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
- Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said on Saturday. The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight, Agence France-Presse reported. In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility, local authorities said.
- The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines. Reuters reported the military’s southern command as saying rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
- The US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intended to dismantle Ukraine, Reuters reported. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN security council that the United States was seeing growing signs of Russia laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
- Gazprom on Saturday suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the west over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping sanctions against Russia, AFP reports. The company drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20% of its capacity. EU states have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Russia is “running out of steam” in its war on Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday. Moore made the remark above an earlier tweet by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that said the Kremlin was “growing desperate”.
- Russia and Ukraine have both launched criminal investigations into strikes that have reportedly killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held at a pre-trial detention centre in the village of Olenivka, after both countries blamed the other side for the attack.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of a “petrifying war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognise Russia as a terrorist state”.
- Ukraine has said it is ready for grain exports to leave its ports again but is waiting for the go-ahead from the United Nations.
- Horrific video has emerged that appears to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner, who other reports suggest was subsequently murdered. The footage, reviewed by the Guardian, was originally posted on pro-Russian Telegram channels. Aric Toler, at the investigative outlet Bellingcat, suggested that the video – which shows a Russian soldier, wearing a distinctive black wide-brimmed hat, approaching another figure who has his hands bound and is lying face down with the back of his trousers cut away – appeared to be authentic.
Updated
A fan who travelled to the Ukrainian border to help fleeing refugees following Russia’s invasion of the country was invited on to the pitch to take a penalty during Everton’s pre-season game against Dynamo Kyiv.
The team and the Goodison Park crowd gave a warm welcome to Paul Stratton, who calmly slotted the penalty into the bottom corner, adding an unofficial fourth goal to the hosts’ 3-0 win over the Ukrainian side.
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Ukraine hits back at Russian calls to 'hang' Azov fighters
Ukrainian officials on Saturday denounced a call by Russia’s embassy in Britain for fighters from the Azov regiment to face a “humiliating” execution, AFP has reported.
The Russian embassy’s tweet said:
Azov militants deserve execution, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they’re not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death.
Twitter said the embassy had violated its rules on “hateful conduct” but put a warning on the tweet rather than ban the post about the Azov, a Ukrainian battalion that retains some far-right affiliations.
Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, responded on Telegram:
Russia is a terrorist state. In the 21st century, only savages and terrorists can talk at the diplomatic level about the fact that people deserve to be executed by hanging. Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism. What more evidence is needed?
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Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and argues that western sanctions against Russia are not working:
Western sanctions against Russia are the most ill-conceived and counterproductive policy in recent international history. Military aid to Ukraine is justified, but the economic war is ineffective against the regime in Moscow, and devastating for its unintended targets.
World energy prices are rocketing, inflation is soaring, supply chains are chaotic and millions are being starved of gas, grain and fertiliser. Yet Vladimir Putin’s barbarity only escalates – as does his hold over his own people. To criticise western sanctions is close to anathema. Defence analysts are dumb on the subject. Strategy thinktanks are silent.
Britain’s putative leaders, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, compete in belligerent rhetoric, promising ever tougher sanctions without a word of purpose. Yet, hint at scepticism on the subject and you will be excoriated as “pro-Putin” and anti-Ukraine. Sanctions are the war cry of the west’s crusade.
Read more here: The rouble is soaring and Putin is stronger than ever – our sanctions have backfired
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Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Kyiv’s ministry of internal affairs, has shared a video of a protest in the capital city that was calling to recognise Russia as state sponsors of terrorism.
Families and loved ones of Azovstal Defenders held a demonstration in Kyiv calling to recognize Russia as state sponsor of terrorism.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 30, 2022
They reminded that when Azovstal Warriors surrendered as POWs, UN and Red Cross International Committee assured that they would be safe. pic.twitter.com/RnfWgzEPZI
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These are some of the latest images to be sent to us over the newswires from Ukraine
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Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has shared these pictures of a journalist standing in burning crops.
“These photos are reminders of not only burnt harvest that was supposed to feed the world, but also of the inhuman circumstances, in which journalists and photographers are working to tell the world truth about Russia’s atrocities,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.
🔥 These photos are reminders of not only burnt harvest that was supposed to feed the world, but also of the inhuman circumstances, in which journalists and photographers are working to tell the world truth about #Russia’s atrocities.
— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) July 30, 2022
📸 mstyslav.chernov evgenymaloletka pic.twitter.com/Q9SHt1byOv
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An Everton fan who has been helping Ukrainian refugees was brought on to take a penalty during the Premier League team’s pre-season match against Dynamo Kyiv, AP has reported.
Paul Stratton, 44, has travelled to Poland to deliver supplies to refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Stratton came on as a substitute towards the end of Everton and Dynamo Kyiv’s “match for peace” at Goodison Park on Friday night.
Everton’s manager, Frank Lampard, gave him instructions on the touchline before Stratton tucked away his penalty.
This was the first “match for peace” in Britain. Dynamo Kyiv has played similar games in other European countries since the start of the war.
The crowd included 2,000 Ukrainian refugees who have been resettled in Merseyside communities. They were given free tickets.
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Russia announced on Saturday it was banning 32 New Zealand officials and journalists from entering its territory, in response to similar measures taken by Wellington against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported.
Among those subjected to sanctions are the mayor of Wellington, Andrew Foster; the mayor of Auckland, Philip Goff; the commander of New Zealand’s navy, Commodore Garin Golding; and the journalists Kate Green and Josie Pagani, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The decision was taken “in response to the government of New Zealand’s sanctions, which increasingly affect Russian citizens”, the statement said.
In April, Russia banned New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and a host of other politicians from entering its territory.
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the country is ready to begin exporting grain from its Black Sea ports but is waiting for the go-ahead from the UN and Turkey, which brokered a deal with Russia to allow Ukrainian ships safe passage.
Shipments from the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi will be overseen by an Istanbul-based joint coordination centre, which will involve Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN officials.
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Summary
Here is a summary of the latest developments:
- Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said on Saturday. The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight, Agence France-Presse reported. In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility, local authorities said.
- The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines. Reuters reported the military’s southern command as saying rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
- The US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intended to dismantle Ukraine, Reuters reports. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN security council that the United States was seeing growing signs of Russia laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
- Gazprom on Saturday suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the west over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping sanctions against Russia, AFP reports. The company drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20% of its capacity. EU states have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Russia is “running out of steam” in its war on Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday. Moore made the remark above an earlier tweet by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that said the Kremlin was “growing desperate”.
- Russia and Ukraine have both launched criminal investigations into strikes that have reportedly killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held at a pre-trial detention centre in the village of Olenivka, after both countries blamed the other side for the attack.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of a “petrifying war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognise Russia as a terrorist state”.
- Ukraine has said it is ready for grain exports to leave its ports again but is waiting for the go-ahead from the United Nations.
- Horrific video has emerged that appears to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner, who other reports suggest was subsequently murdered. The footage, reviewed by the Guardian, was originally posted on pro-Russian Telegram channels. Aric Toler, at the investigative outlet Bellingcat, suggested that the video – which shows a Russian soldier, wearing a distinctive black wide-brimmed hat, approaching another figure who has his hands bound and is lying face down with the back of his trousers cut away – appeared to be authentic.
- At least five people have been killed and seven injured in a strike on a bus stop in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim. Graphic images from the scene showed the street littered with bodies.
- Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that Russia staunchly supported China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, warned the US president, Joe Biden, against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a phone call on Thursday.
- Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said on Friday that putting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into operation was not an option as that would only play into Putin’s hands. There is growing anger in Germany over soaring energy prices.
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Russian shelling leaves one dead and strikes school in Kharkiv
Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said on Saturday.
The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv – close to where Ukrainian troops are seeking to stage a counter-offensive – said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight, Agence France-Presse reported.
Six others were wounded in the strikes, which left “windows and doors broken, and balconies destroyed”, Oleksandr Sienkevych wrote on Telegram.
In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility in a strike in the early hours of Saturday, local authorities said.
Firefighters extinguished a blaze and there were no reports of casualties, the authorities said.
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Russia 'running out of steam', says MI6 chief
Russia is “running out of steam” in its war on Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday.
Moore made the remark above an earlier tweet by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that said the Kremlin was “growing desperate”.
The MoD’s post added:
Russia has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and is using Soviet-era weapons. Their outdated missiles are killing and injuring innocent Ukrainians. Russia won’t win this unjust war.
Running out of steam… https://t.co/bExZXZ3l3z
— Richard Moore (@ChiefMI6) July 30, 2022
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Peter Beaumont reports for us from Kyiv:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has denounced as a war crime an attack that killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-occupied Donetsk, as both sides traded blame for the deaths.
In a Friday night address, the Ukrainian president said more than 50 died in the assault on Olenivka, calling it “a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war”.
The captured fighters – who Russia’s defence ministry said included members of the Azov battalion, who defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol – should have been protected by guarantees secured by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Zelenskiy, who joined his foreign minister in urging those organisations to intervene and investigate.
Olenivka is about 10km (6 miles) south of the occupied city of Donetsk and close to the frontline. Establishing responsibility is likely to be highly challenging without independent access to the site.
Read more of Peter Beaumont’s report from Kyiv: Prison attack that killed Ukraine PoWs a war crime, says Zelenskiy, amid calls for UN inquiry
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These are some of the latest images to be sent to us over the newswires from Ukraine.
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The official Twitter account of the Russian embassy in the UK has posted that members of Ukraine’s Azov battalion – which does retain some far-right affiliations – deserve death by “hanging”.
The post adds they are “not real soldiers” and that they “deserve a humiliating death”.
Twitter has posted a warning on the tweet that states: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about hateful conduct. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”
💬#Azov militants deserve execution, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they’re not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death.
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) July 29, 2022
A married couple from #Mariupol tell how they were shelled by 🇺🇦forces from #Azovstal. #StopNaziUkraine https://t.co/jyQGEOJFYz
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Gazprom suspends gas supplies to Latvia
The state-owned firm on Saturday suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the west over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping sanctions against Russia, AFP reports.
Gazprom said on Telegram:
Today, Gazprom suspended its gas supplies to Latvia ... due to violations of the conditions.
The company drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20% of its capacity.
EU states have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The European Union this week agreed a plan to reduce gas consumption in solidarity with Germany.
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Andrew Roth reports for us from Moscow:
As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into its fifth month, Moscow is a city doing everything it can to turn a blind eye to the conflict. It is a champagne-soaked summer like any other in the Russian capital, despite the thousands of dead and many more wounded in a war increasingly marked by acts of savage brutality.
In Gorky Park, outdoor festivals, cinemas and bars were all jammed on a recent evening, with young couples twirling to ballroom dance music as others stopped for selfies along the nearby Moscow River.
“Yes, we are having a party,” said Anna Mitrokhina, one of the dancers at an outdoor dance platform on the river, wearing a blue-sequin dress and heavy eye-makeup. “We are outside of politics, we want to dance, to feel and have fun. I can’t worry any more and this helps me forget.”
Walk through the city or switch on a VPN to scroll through Instagram or Facebook and you might not even know the country’s at war, a word that the Russian censors have banned from local media and that, even among many friends, has become taboo.
Read more of Andrew Roth’s report from Moscow: ‘People are turning off’: Muscovites put the war aside and enjoy summer
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The US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intended to dismantle Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN security council that the United States was seeing growing signs of Russia laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Thomas-Greenfield added this would include installing:
Illegitimate proxy officials in Russian-held areas, with the goal of holding sham referenda or decree to join Russia.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has previously said this was the country’s war aim, she added.
Apparently suggesting that Moscow’s war aims extended beyond Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region in the east, comprising Donetsk and Luhansk, Lavrov said last Sunday during a tour of Africa:
We will certainly help the Ukrainian people to get rid of the regime, which is absolutely anti-people and anti-historical.
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The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines.
Reuters reported the military’s southern command as saying rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
Ukraine has used western-supplied long-range missile systems to badly damage three bridges across the Dnipro in recent weeks, cutting off Kherson city and – in the assessment of British defence officials – leaving Russia’s 49th army stationed on the west bank of the river highly vulnerable.
Ukraine’s southern command said in a statement:
As a result of fire establishing control over the main transport links in occupied territory, it has been established that traffic over the rail bridge crossing the Dnipro is not possible.
It said that more than 100 Russian soldiers and seven tanks had been destroyed in fighting on Friday in the Kherson region.
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has spoken with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in their first contact since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, saying he pressed him to accept a proposal on freeing two Americans held in Russia.
“We had a frank and direct conversation,” Agence France-Presse reported Blinken as telling reporters after they spoke on Friday.
I pressed the Kremlin to accept the substantial proposal that we put forward.
Blinken had said on Wednesday that he planned to contact Lavrov in efforts to free two Americans – the basketball star Brittney Griner and the former marine Paul Whelan – and push forward a proposal issued several weeks earlier.
Blinken declined to characterise Lavrov’s reaction, saying:
I can’t give you an assessment of whether I think things are any more or less likely. But it was important that he heard directly.
The proposal reportedly includes swapping the two Americans for the convicted Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout.
Blinken said he also pressed Lavrov on Russia honouring a Turkish-brokered proposal to ship grain out of Ukraine and on purported plans by Moscow to annex additional parts of Ukraine seized by Russian troops.
Blinken said he told Lavrov in the phone call – their first since 15 February – that “the world will never recognise annexation” and that Russia would be hit by additional ramifications.
A Russian foreign ministry account of the call cited Lavrov as telling Blinken that Russia would achieve all the goals of its “special military operation” and that western arms supplies to Ukraine would only drag out the conflict.
Lavrov also told Blinken that Washington was not living up to promises regarding the exemption of food from sanctions, Reuters reported the ministry as saying.
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The latest daily assessment from the UK Ministry of Defence:
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 30 July 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 30, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/qHY0jStUD4
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/R6CKioK2Tl
Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of bombing the jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in the town of Olenivka, in Russian-held territory in the Donetsk region, with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, saying that more than 50 were killed and calling the attack a war crime.
Russia’s defence ministry alleged the strikes were carried out by Ukraine with US-supplied long-range missiles in an “egregious provocation” designed to stop soldiers from surrendering, Agence France-Presse reported.
The ministry said that among the dead were Ukrainian forces who had laid down their arms after weeks of fighting off Russia’s bombardment of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
However, Zelensky squarely blamed Russia, saying in his daily address on Friday night:
This was a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. As it passes 9am in Kyiv, here is a summary of the latest developments:
- Russia and Ukraine have both launched criminal investigations into strikes that have reportedly killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held at a pre-trial detention centre in the village of Olenivka, after both countries blamed the other side for the attack.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of a “petrifying war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognise Russia as a terrorist state”.
- Ukraine has said it is ready for grain exports to leave its ports again but is waiting for the go-ahead from the United Nations, which it hoped it would receive on Friday.
- Horrific video has emerged that appears to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner, who other reports suggest was subsequently murdered. The footage, reviewed by the Guardian, was originally posted on pro-Russian Telegram channels. Aric Toler, at the investigative outlet Bellingcat, suggested that the video – which shows a Russian soldier, wearing a distinctive black, wide-brimmed hat, approaching another figure who has his hands bound and is lying face down with the back of his trousers cut away – appeared to be authentic .
- At least five people have been killed and seven injured in a strike on a bus stop in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim. Graphic images from the scene showed the street littered with bodies.
- Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that Russia staunchly supported China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, warned the US president, Joe Biden, against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a phone call on Thursday.
- Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said on Friday that putting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into operation was not an option as this would only play into the hands of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. There is growing anger in Germany over soaring energy prices.
- Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a Russian operative who was subjected to US sanctions on Friday, has been charged with using political groups in the US to advance pro-Russia propaganda, including during the initial stages of the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
- The US treasury department said on Friday it had imposed sanctions on another individual alongside Ionov, as well as on four entities that “support the Kremlin’s global malign influence operations and election interference activities”, including in the US and Ukraine.
- Belarus recalled its UK ambassador on Friday in response to what it called “hostile and unfriendly” actions by London.
- North Macedonia plans to donate an unspecified number of Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine as it seeks to modernise its own military to meet Nato standards, its defence ministry said on Friday.
- Germany would deliver 16 Biber bridge-layer tanks to Ukrainian forces, the German defence ministry said.
- A Ukrainian court on Friday reduced to 15 years a life sentence handed to a Russian soldier in May for premeditated murder, in the country’s first war crimes trial.
- A Russian ammunition depot in the southern Kherson region has been destroyed, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.
- The UK defence minister, Ben Wallace, has said Russian forces in Ukraine are in “a very difficult spot”, and that Putin’s strategy was akin to putting his forces through a meat grinder. In his opinion, he said, Russia was “certainly not able to occupy the country. They may be able to carry on killing indiscriminately and destroying as they go, but that is not a victory.”
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