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Zelenskiy warns MPs, judges and military officials against ‘opposition to the state’ as two landmark cases come to light; Russia expands upper conscription age from 27 to 30
Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top stories this morning: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russia.
Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light – the arrests of a military recruitment official accused of mass embezzlement and of a parliamentarian accused of collaborating with Russia.
The Russian ministry of defence has claimed that it destroyed two unmanned Ukrainian boats that were engaged in an attack on one of its Black Sea fleet patrol ships. In a statement, the ministry said: “In the course of repulsing the attack, both enemy remote-controlled boats were destroyed by fire from the standard weapons of the Russian ship at a distance of 1,000m and 800m. There were no casualties. The Sergey Kotov continues to fulfill its tasks.”
The UK’s ambassador to the UN has said that prime minister Rishi Sunak has shared with Ukraine intelligence that Russia has laid additional mines in the Black Sea and may attack civilian shipping in the region. Barbara Woodward said the UK had information indicating “the Russian military may expand their targeting of Ukrainian grain facilities further, to include attacks against civilian shipping in the Black Sea. Our information also indicates that Russia has laid additional sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports. We agree with the US assessment that this is a coordinated effort to justify and lay blame on Ukraine for any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea.”
The Ukrainian military on Tuesday reported making small advances against Russian forces in parts of southern Ukraine. Andriy Kovaliov, spokesperson for the armed forces general staff, said Ukrainian troops had moved forward in the direction of the south-eastern village of Staromayorske, near settlements recaptured by Ukraine last month in the Donetsk region. He said the Ukrainian troops were reinforcing the positions they had taken, and Russian forces were mounting strong resistance.
The UN human rights chief on Tuesday called for accountability for the deaths of at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war last year in an explosion in a Donetsk region detention facility, rejecting Moscow’s claim that they were killed by a rocket. “The prisoners of war who were injured or died at Olenivka, and their family members, deserve the truth to be known, and for those responsible for breaches of international law to be held accountable,” the high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said in a statement to journalists.
The UN’s atomic watchdog said it saw anti-personnel mines at the site of Ukraine‘s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces. On 23 July, International Atomic Energy Agency experts “saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers”, agency chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Monday. The statement did not say how many mines the team had seen. The devices were in “restricted areas” that operating plant personnel cannot access, Grossi said, adding the IAEA’s initial assessment was that any detonation “should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems”.
AP reports, citing US officials, that the Biden administration is sending up to $400m in additional military aid to Ukraine, including a variety of munitions for advanced air defence systems and a number of small, surveillance Hornet drones.
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