The US and Russian defence chiefs spoke by telephone on Tuesday, in a rare conversation between the two powers and with tensions rising after Moscow blamed Washington for a deadly Ukraine attack over the weekend on the Russian-annexed Crimea. The two sides gave widely divergent accounts of the discussion – the first between US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and Russia’s defence minister Andrei Belousov.
Austin initiated the conversation and it was the first such call since March 2023, Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder told reporters. Russia’s defense ministry, however, said that Belousov warned Austin of the dangers of continued US arms supplies to Ukraine.
The international criminal court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russia’s former defence minister and its military chief of staff on Tuesday, for attacking civilian targets in Ukraine. The court is accusing Sergei Shoigu and leading Russian general Valery Gerasimov of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ukraine applauded the ICC’s issuing of the arrest warrants, saying it was “an important decision”. Shoigu and Gerasimov “bear individual responsibility … [They] will held be responsible for evil”, the presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.
Russia’s security council said the arrest warrants were part of a hybrid war against Moscow, the state-run Tass news agency reported. Shoigu is the security council’s secretary.
Ukrainian troops trying to hold their ground on the eastern front in Donetsk region may still be outnumbered by Russian forces but the “shell hunger” that plagued them for months as ammunitions started to run out is now behind them, Reuters reported.
An elderly woman was killed, four people injured and scores of buildings damaged in multiple air attacks by Ukraine on the southern Russian region of Belgorod, the governor said on Tuesday. Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems destroyed 29 Ukraine-launched drones over the region.
Russia and Ukraine each handed back 90 prisoners of war on Tuesday, in the latest of several periodic swaps in their conflict, with the United Arab Emirates overseeing the exchange as an intermediary. The last exchange took place on 31 May, when each side handed over 75 prisoners of war – the first exchange in nearly four months.
Russia said it was banning access inside Russia to the broadcasts of 81 different media outlets from the EU including Agence France-Presse and Politico in retaliation for a similar EU ban on several Russian media outlets. Moscow accused the outlets of “systematically distributing inaccurate information” about what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine. The EU said in May it was suspending the distribution of what it described as four “Kremlin-linked propaganda networks”.
Moscow expects to sign a new deal on comprehensive cooperation with Iran soon, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said. “We expect that this agreement will be signed in the very near future, since work on the text is already close to completion,” Russia’s state RIA news agency cited Andrei Rudenko as saying in an interview published on Tuesday. “All the necessary wording has been found.”
