The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.
10:05 p.m.: Two Albanian soldiers were injured while trying to stop two Russians and a Ukrainian national from entering a military plant, the country’s defense ministry said late Saturday evening.
One of the suspects allegedly attacked the guards while trying to take photographs of the Gramsh factory in central Albania, which is used for dismantling derelict weapons, the ministry said in a statement.
The two injured Albanian soldiers were taken to a Tirana hospital with eye injuries, the statement said.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said the three individuals were “suspected of espionage.” The suspects were arrested, and an investigation has begun.
9:02 p.m.: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday the United Nations is working with the United States and European Union to overcome obstacles to Russian food and fertilizers reaching world markets, Reuters reported.
Guterres said that under a U.N.-brokered deal to resume Ukraine’s grain exports cut off since Russia’s invasion in February, more than 650,000 metric tons of grain and other food has been exported.
“The other part of this package deal is the unimpeded access to the global markets of Russian food and fertilizer, which are not subject to sanctions,” Guterres said in Istanbul, where he visited a coordination centre overseeing the exports.
He said those countries that imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine had made clear that the measures did not apply to food and fertilizers, but added there had nevertheless been a “chilling effect” on exports.
“There are a certain number of obstacles and difficulties that need to be overcome in relation to shipping … to insurance and … finance,” Guterres told a news conference alongside Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar.
Guterres said the United Nations was working with Washington and the European Union to remove those obstacles.
8:12 p.m.: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres went to the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul on Saturday.
6:26 p.m.: Two more ships carrying grain have left Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday, Reuters reported. That brings the total number of vessels to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea ports under a U.N.-brokered grain export deal to 27.
The Zumrut Ana and MV Ocean S, which were authorized to depart Saturday, were loaded with 6,300 metric tons of sunflower oil and 25,000 metric tons of wheat respectively, the joint coordination center set up to enable safe passage said in a statement.
Ukraine’s Sea Ports Authority said on Saturday three Ukrainian seaports had begun loading food onto seven ships, which would deliver 66,500 metric tons of wheat, corn and sunflower oil to consumers.
5:37 p.m.: Russian shelling hit a residential area in the southern region of Mykolayiv, wounding 12 civilians, including four children, on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
A five-story apartment building and private homes in the town of Voznesensk were badly damaged by shelling that collapsed balconies and blew out windows, the Black Sea region’s governor, Vitaliy Kim, said.
Voznesensk is about 30 kilometers from the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, the second largest in Ukraine. There were no reports of any damage to the nuclear plant.
4:25 p.m.: Ukraine’s Ambassador to Ireland Larysa Gerasko said on Saturday her country had proved itself a reliable partner under a U.N.-backed deal allowing grain exports as a shipment arrived in Ireland, Agence France-Presse reported.
The shipment of 33,000 metric tons of grain left Ukraine’s main port of Odesa two weeks ago. It was one of the first to leave the war-torn country under a landmark deal struck with Russia and brokered by Turkey and the United Nations.
Philip Lynch, a trader with R&H Hall, the Irish grain and feed firm that acquired the shipment said the arrival was “the first step in returning some degree of certainty to the global food supply chain in what remains a volatile situation.”
3:30 p.m.: On the second anniversary of the poisoning attack on Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, Germany and the United States hailed the determination of the Kremlin critic who is still imprisoned in Russia.
“He barely survived the assassination attempt. He was able to recover in Germany,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a video message released Saturday, praising the Russian dissident’s bravery for going back to his homeland.
The U.S. State Department called for the immediate release of Navalny and condemned the Russian government’s crackdown on opposition figures and independent media.
“It is no coincidence that the Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine has been accompanied by intensified repression at home,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
Navalny himself tweeted Saturday that “this is the second time I celebrate my second birthday. The day they tried to kill me, but for some reason I didn’t die.”
He also wrote that his case “has exposed both Putin himself and his system to such an extent that it has shown not only the criminality, but also the dysfunctionality and failure of his regime.”
2:30 p.m. Pavel Fischer, senator and chair of the Czech Republic’s committee on foreign affairs, and Marek Zhenishek, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs of the chamber of deputies, say they support an EU-wide ban for tourists from Russia, Kyiv Independent reports.
“It’s absurd when they (Russians) support the killing of women and children in Ukraine, and then they come and have fun in the EU,” Zhenishek said.
EU foreign affairs ministers are scheduled to discuss the issue during an informal meeting in Prague on August 30-31.
1:50 p.m.: Shortly before his two-day trip to Canada, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz received support for his interest in Canadian liquefied natural gas to help replace Russian gas imports from an unexpected ally: Ukrainian state-owned gas company Naftogaz, Reuters reported.
Kyiv has been at loggerheads with Berlin over its gas imports policy; firstly, its deal with Moscow to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and more recently over its deal with Canada to get a repaired turbine for the Nord Stream 1 delivered back to Germany.
But the prospect of LNG deliveries to Europe from Canada, one of the world’s top gas producers, is something that not only Naftogaz supports, it is something it has also been quietly working on itself.
Naftogaz earlier this year signed a little-reported memorandum of understanding with Canadian energy developer Symbio Infrastructure to purchase LNG from Canada. Meanwhile Canada and Germany have been discussing building LNG terminals on the Canadian Atlantic coast.
Naftogaz’s CEO Yuriy Vitrenko told Reuters in an emailed statement that Canadian gas has many advantages.
“Canadian suppliers do not have dominance in the German market, do not abuse it, as Gazprom, who is artificially decreasing supplies, ‘cornering the market,’ and ripping off its customers,” he said.
Still, the challenges to these proposals are considerable, German and Canadian officials say.
1:30 p.m.: Kyiv Independent reports that Russian troops have conducted offensives near the villages of Blagodatne and Vasylky in Mykolaiv Oblast to “improve their tactical position,” according to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. The Russian military also concentrated its main efforts on resuming an offensive” in the Sloviansk direction in Donetsk Oblast and shelled six settlements with artillery, the General Staff said.
12:15 p.m.: Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo spoke with the Deputy Finance Minister of Turkey, Yunus Elitas, Friday to discuss ongoing efforts to implement and enforce the broad multilateral sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Adeyemo said he was concerned that Russian entities and individuals are attempting to use Turkey to evade sanctions put in place by the United States and 30 countries.
According to a Treasury Department statement, he reiterated US interest in the success of the Turkish economy and expressed the Treasury’s commitment to its partnership with Turkey to protect the integrity of its banking sector.
11:35 a.m.: A member of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russia’s legislature, has denounced his own daughter as a “traitor” after she gave an interview in which she denounced Russia’s unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine, RFE/RL reported Saturday.
“It is evident she received money from certain mass media — in other words, she sold out her father, her family, her motherland,” Federation Council member Eduard Isakov, who represents the northern Khanty-Mansi autonomous region, wrote on Telegram on Friday about his eldest daughter, Diana Isakova. “It is difficult to choose your words when your daughter turns out to be a traitor.”
Earlier Friday, the 25-year-old Isakova told Meduza and the BBC that she had left Russia and intended to form a “new opposition” abroad to oppose the war. Isakova’s parents have long been divorced, and she said she does not have “close relations” with her father.
“When the war began, I had a feeling of guilt,” Isakova told Meduza. “Now I take responsibility for my decisions and my actions, and I am doing what I can to help people, the opposition, and the nations of Russia, and so on…. Guilt doesn’t do anyone any good. I accept the past and do everything I can to make things better.”
11:00 a.m.: Mariupol Mayor Petro Andriushchenko reported on Saturday the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Kostiantyn Ivashchenko, Russian-installed head of occupied Mariupol, according to the Kyiv Independent . Andriushchenko didn’t provide any details, it said.
10: 50 a.m.: A drone crashed into a building at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea, on Saturday morning, the New York Times reported.
Mykhailo Razvozhaev, the local Russian proxy leader in the city, said no one was killed.
The Ukrainian government has not offered any public comment on specific strikes or operations, saying only that its military is engaged in a campaign to target Russian forces on the peninsula.
10:40 a.m. Russia’s defense ministry accused Ukraine on Saturday of poisoning some of its servicemen in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia in late July.
An adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry said in response that the alleged poisoning could have been caused by Russian forces eating expired canned meat.
The Russian defense ministry said several Russian servicemen had been taken to a military hospital with signs of serious poisoning on July 31. Tests showed a toxic substance, botulinum toxin type B, in their bodies, it said.
“On the fact of chemical terrorism sanctioned by the (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy regime, Russia is preparing supporting evidence with the results of all the analyses,” the ministry said in a statement.
It did not say how many servicemen had suffered or what their condition was now. It did not say what the “supporting evidence” was.
Botulinum toxin type B is a neurotoxin that can cause botulism when ingested in previously contaminated food products, but it can also have medical uses.
10:20 a.m. Russian forces stepped up their battle to seize one of the dwindling number of cities in eastern Ukraine not already under their control while continuing to fire on towns and villages in the country’s north and south, Ukrainian officials said Saturday.
Russian shelling collapsed balconies and blew out windows in the southern region of Mykolayiv, injuring at least nine civilians, authorities said. A five-story apartment building and private homes in the town of Voznesensk were badly damaged, the Black Sea region’s governor said.
“As of 13.30 p.m. (local time) – nine wounded, including four children. All children in a serious condition. Ages range from 3 to 17 years,” Gov. Vitaliy Kim wrote in a Telegram post. He added that a young girl lost an eye as a result of Saturday’s attack.
10:00 am: Ukraine Foreign Minister Oleg Nikolenko has urged Austria to expel a Russian diplomat for a tweet which Nikolenko described as “genocidal.”
Mikhail Ulyanov defended his tweet, saying that it was deliberately misconstrued.
8:45 a.m.: Donetsk police reported that Russian forces had fired upon 11 cities and towns, including Bakhmut and Avdiivka, launching airstrikes and shelling the region with barrages of Uragan rounds, according to the Kyiv Independent.
The police said that 18 civilian infrastructures were either destroyed or damaged, which included 10 residential buildings, a playground, a dormitory, and a plant. The exact numbers of casualties were not included in the report.
The Independent also reports that Russian forces hit a five-story residential building in the city of Vosnesensk on Aug. 20, wounding nine, including four children, quoting Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim.
8:30 a.m.: Conservative British Member of Parliament Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Defense Select Committee of the House of Commons, cautioned Friday that any
nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant could draw NATO into the war.
“Let’s make it clear now: ANY deliberate damage causing potential radiation leak to a Ukrainian nuclear reactor would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5,” he posted on Twitter.
8:30a.m.: Conservative British Member of Parliament Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Defense Select Committee of the House of Commons, cautioned Friday that any nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant could draw NATO into the war.
“Let’s make it clear now: ANY deliberate damage causing potential radiation leak to a Ukrainian nuclear reactor would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5,” he posted on Twitter.
7:55 a.m.: The Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia is exporting up to 7,000 tons of grain per day, Reuters reports, citing a social media statement by Russian-installed authorities.
Ukraine has accused Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, of stealing grain from territories that Russia’s army has seized since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine on Feb. 24. Moscow denies this.
The Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia is transporting up to 5,000 tons of grain per day by railway and between 1,500 and 2,000 tons per day by vehicle, Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of the Russian-installed administration there posted. He did not say where the exports were heading.
7:35 a.m.: World Food Program Director David Beasley, speaking to Associated Press in Kenya Friday, said the U.S. will buy about 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine in the next few weeks from ports no longer under blockade. The final destinations for the grain are not confirmed and discussions continue, Beasley said. But the planned shipment, one of several the the UN agency is planning, is more than six times the amount of grain that the first WFP-arranged ship from Ukraine is now carrying toward people in the Horn of Africa at risk of starvation.
5:38 a.m.: The latest Ukraine assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian military and transport infrastructure in Crimea and Kherson Oblast are likely reducing Russian confidence in the security of Russian rear areas.
The update said that Russian authorities are likely preparing show trials of Ukrainian defenders of Azovstal on Ukraine’s Independence Day in order to further consolidate occupational control of occupied areas of Ukraine and set conditions to demoralize Ukrainian troops.
5 a.m.: Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, says it has decided to “apply coercive measures” against several foreign IT companies, including TikTok, Telegram, Zoom, Discord, and Pinterest, for violating Russian law, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
“The above IT companies do not comply with the procedure for deleting prohibited information and the main obligations established by federal law,” Roskomnadzor said in a statement on its website on Friday.
The statement said the measures would remain in place until the companies comply with the rules and the law.
In recent months, Russian courts have fined Google, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, WhatsApp, Telegram and TikTok over the personal-data issue, as well as for refusing to delete content deemed to be banned by Russian law.
President Vladimir Putin has accused social-media platforms and other foreign-based tech companies of flouting the country’s Internet laws. He has been pushing ways to force foreign firms to open offices in Russia and to store data locally.
Many critics have accused the Russian authorities of trying to quell dissent by imposing stricter regulations on Internet companies.
3:55 a.m.: A spokesperson for Britain’s foreign ministry said that as long as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, it has no moral right to sit at the Group of 20 nations, Reuters reported.
3 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry said that neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces have made advances on the Kherson front line. It said increasingly frequent explosions behind Russian lines are probably stressing Russian logistics and air basing in the south.
1:40 a.m.: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will visit Canada later this month to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other issues related to climate change, defense and security, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, according to Reuters.
Stoltenberg will travel to Canada from Aug. 24-26, Trudeau’s office said in a statement Friday.
12:02 a.m.: The ruble strengthened to a near four-week high against the dollar and euro Friday, supported by month-end tax payments that boost demand for the Russian currency.
The ruble was 0.7% stronger against the dollar at 59.12 after briefly hitting 57.70, a level last seen on July 25.
Against the euro, the ruble gained 1.4% to 59.35, also reaching a near four-week high of 58.5325 during the session.
“Before the end of the year, we expect the start of gradual ruble weakening in the 65-70 corridor to the dollar or euro,” said Maxim Petronevich, senior economist at Otkritie Research.
Source: Voice of America