Summary of the day so far …
- The Russian Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline has restarted with gas flowing from Russia to Germany after maintenance, according to data viewed this morning. “It’s working,” a Nord Stream spokesperson said, without specifying the amount of gas being delivered. If Gazprom resumes gas deliveries at 40% of the capacity before the maintenance break, Germany will narrowly scrape through the winter without shortages, modelling by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy suggests.
- Russia’s foreign minister has said Moscow’s military “tasks” now go beyond the eastern Donbas region to permanently occupy broad swaths of southern Ukraine. Sergei Lavrov said Russia may seek more territory along the frontlines in Ukraine, calling it a buffer against US-supplied Himars rocket artillery. “Now the geography is different,” Lavrov said. “It’s not just Donetsk and Luhansk, it’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and a number of other territories.”
- Russia has shut down the idea of resuming peace talks with Ukraine, accusing it of being undeserving of “serious attention from serious people”. Lavrov said the previous sit-down proved Ukraine had no “desire to discuss anything in earnest”. He continued: “They simply will never be able to articulate anything that would deserve the serious attention of serious people.” “[Peace talks] don’t make any sense in the current situation.”
- At least two people have been killed and 19 injured in an attack on Kharkiv, according to the region’s governor Oleh Synyehubov. He posted on Telegram to say that the injured included one child, and that four people “are in serious condition”.
- Russian forces destroyed two schools in the Donetsk towns of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka overnight, Ukrainian officials say.
- The state emergency services of Ukraine has stated on Telegram that in the Donetsk region, the central market of the city of Bakhmut has also been shelled.
- Russian and separatist forces continue to attempt small scale assaults along the Donbas front line and are also closing in on Ukraine’s second biggest power plant at Vuhlehirska, according to the latest British intelligence report.
- Russia’s ministry of defence claims to have shot down one Ukrainian Su-25 aircraft, one Mi-8 helicopter, and five unmanned drones in the last 24 hours.
- The United States estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine so far have reached around 15,000 killed and perhaps 45,000 wounded, CIA director William Burns said.
- Ukraine’s central bank has devalued the hryvnia currency by 25% against the US dollar because of the impact of the invasion by Russia.
- Officials from Turkey, Finland and Sweden will meet in August to evaluate the progress made in fulfilling Ankara’s counter-terrorism demands from the Nordic countries to lift its veto on their Nato membership bid, foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said.
- What could be a priceless Fabergé egg has been found onboard a Russian oligarch’s superyacht seized by US authorities. US deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco told the Aspen security forum on Wednesday it was one of the more “interesting” finds her team has made. Monaco did not specify exactly which yacht she was referring to but did say it was currently docked in San Diego Bay after being sailed from Fiji last month.
story by Martin Belam
