Ukrainians have reacted angrily to calls by freed Russian political prisoners to ease sanctions that affect ordinary Russians and for the two sides to enter negotiations. Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was serving 25 years in prison, had asked the west to consider whether sanctions hitting ordinary Russians were “unfair and counterproductive”. The Ukrainian lawmaker Iryna Gerashchenko was among those who responded, saying: “I no longer believe in any good Russians.” After a wave of criticism, Kara-Murza told the BBC he accepted that Russian society shared “responsibility for what the Putin regime is doing … Putin can’t be allowed to win this war. Ukraine must win, and there should be more support from western countries so that happens.”
Ilya Yashin, released from an eight-and-a-half year sentence over condemning Russian forces’ massacre at the Ukrainian town of Bucha, also triggered uproar with calls for Ukraine to “sit down at the negotiating table”. After the backlash, Yashin the next day reiterated his opposition to Russia’s “criminal, barbaric” invasion of Ukraine. “I gave two years of my life for telling the truth about the war in Ukraine,” he said, telling Ukrainians: “I am not your enemy.”
Ukrainian analysts said they feared the high-profile Russian dissidents had the ability to influence western policy, creating tensions with Kyiv’s position. Andriy Yermak, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said: “The common goal of all Russians should be to liberate Russia from the insane dictator Putin and his regime, not to fight sanctions. Sanctions should only be strengthened as long as Russia continues its armed aggression … sanctions are what restrain the regime’s military machine.”
Pavel Kushnir, a Russian pianist and anti-war activist, has died in prison after going on hunger strike, his mother said, in what the EU called a shocking case of political repression. Kushnir’s arrest became public in May. He was an accomplished concert pianist who had studied at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky conservatory.
Russian missiles and drones targeted Kyiv and surrounds on Monday evening, with air defences activated in response, officials said. Kyiv has reported several intense air attacks over the recent weeks, including a Russian missile attack that destroyed part of a children’s hospital in July. Last Wednesday, Russia fired at least 89 drones at Ukraine, more than 40 of which were shot down over the capital Kyiv and surrounding area in one of the largest aerial barrages in months.
Russian troops have made tactical gains in the area of Toretsk, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The Donetsk former mining city is a priority for Putin’s efforts to take control of the entire region. Russians were advancing in nearby Druzhba and Pivnichne, both to the east of Toretsk, said the ISW. There were other reported Russian advances farther west around Pokrovsk. The Ukrainian general staff reported continued fighting in the areas mentioned.
Ukraine has criticised Mali’s move to break off diplomatic relations over alleged Ukrainian support to separatist rebels who killed scores of soldiers of the military dictatorship and the Wagner mercenaries fighting alongside them. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the decision was “shortsighted and hasty”. Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence unit, said last week of the battle that “the rebels received all the necessary information they needed”, which was taken as meaning help from Ukraine.
Two people were wounded by Russian shelling in Tomina Balka, Kherson region, on Monday, Ukrainian officials said. Across the border in Russia, one person was killed and another three were injured in a drone strike on the village of Vyazovoe, said the local governor.
Vyacheslav Akhmedov, the director of a Russia’s Patriot Park – sometimes referred to as its “military Disneyland” – has been arrested on fraud charges, along with Maj Gen Vladimir Shesterov, deputy of the defence ministry’s innovations department. It follows a series of arrests of senior military officials from an inner circle of Sergei Shoigu, whom Vladimir Putin dismissed as defence minister in May. The park, designed to inspire patriotism in Russian youth, was a pet project of Shoigu’s.
