In the second strike on a Russian ship in two days, a maritime drone carrying explosives rammed into an oil tanker; Ukraine has warned that it would consider any ship approaching Russian Black Sea ports a “war risk” (NYT)
Russia retaliated with a barrage of strikes across Ukraine, killing six people (AP)
Saudi Arabia Hosts Talks on Path to Peace in Ukraine
Officials from some forty countries, including the United States and Ukraine, will meet in Jeddah to discuss a peace blueprint for ending the war in Ukraine; envoys from India, Brazil, and South Africa will attend, while Russia will not (Reuters)
The talks come as developing countries have faced the fallout of Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal and a subsequent increase in grain prices (AP)
Meanwhile, a Russian court announced a verdict today that added nineteen years to the prison sentence of opposition leader Alexei Navalny (NYT)
Ukraine Takes Stock of Grain Damaged in Latest Port Attack
Ukrainian officials said yesterday that a Russian attack on Kyiv’s main port on the Danube River had damaged almost forty thousand tons of grain initially bound for Africa, China, and Israel; overall, Russian strikes have destroyed 180,000 tons of grain since they withdrew from the deal last month, sending global grain prices soaring (Reuters)
Russia Strikes Ukrainian Port
The port is situated across the Danube River that has served as Kyiv’s main channel for exporting grains since Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal last month; the attacks have sent grain prices higher as Russia escalates its attempt to prevent Ukraine from exporting grain (Reuters)
Meanwhile, Poland sent troops to the Belarus border and summoned Belarus’s envoy in the country to explain what it said were two Belarusian helicopters crossing into its territory yesterday; Belarus’s defense ministry denied any airspace violation, according to state media (Bloomberg)
Ukraine Faces Tough Resistance in Counteroffensive Push
As Ukraine sends fresh forces and more advanced weaponry to try to break through Russian lines in southern Ukraine, hardened Russian defenses have made the battles deadlier than expected (CNN;Reuters)
Meanwhile, another drone hit a skyscraper in Moscow, and Russia continued strikes on Ukrainian cities (WaPo)
Russian Missile Strike On Zelenskyy’s Hometown Kills At Least Five
An additional fifty-three people were wounded in today’s attack, Ukraine’s interior ministry said; the strike follows attempted drone attacks on Moscow and Crimea that Russia blamed on Ukraine (WaPo)
Russia Blames Ukraine for Attempted Drone Strikes
Russia shot down drones in Moscow and Crimea, claiming they were Ukrainian, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that strikes inside Russia are “inevitable” (AFP)
Meanwhile, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would have to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine’s counteroffensive succeeded (Reuters)
Saudi Arabia Plans Peace Talks on Ukraine War
Saudi officials are reportedly planning talks in Jeddah next weekend and have invited officials from Ukraine as well as several countries from the Group of Twenty, including the United States, Brazil, and India, though Russia has not been invited; Ukrainian officials hope the talks will sway countries that have taken neutral positions to side with Ukraine and culminate in a peace summit later this year (WSJ)
African Leaders Press Putin to Resume Black Sea Grain Deal
At a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, African leaders urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to rejoin the grain deal with Ukraine that he exited last week; Putin reacted by blaming the rising food prices affecting African countries on Western policies rather than Russia pulling out of the grain deal (Reuters)
Meanwhile, Russia’s legislature advanced a bill this week to increase the conscription age from twenty-seven to thirty (Guardian)
Ukraine Sends New Troops into Battle in Country’s South
The move constitutes a new push in Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces; heavy fighting was reported around the village of Robotyne in southern Ukraine (Economist)
Meanwhile, only seventeen African leaders, down from forty-three in 2019, are attending a summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, today; Russian President Vladimir Putin pitched the summit as a way to bolster ties with African countries and accused Western countries of pressuring heads of state not to attend (AP)
Separately, President Joe Biden reportedly approved sharing court evidence of potential Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite resistance from the Pentagon (NYT)
WaPo: Ukraine Becomes Testing Ground for AI Drones
Tech investors are funding programs in Ukraine that use artificial intelligence (AI) to push the frontiers of drone warfare, the Washington Post reported; Ukraine’s military is testing drones that can still fire on targets after losing contact with their human operators (WaPo)
Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers advanced a bill to raise the maximum age for military conscription from twenty-seven to thirty and ban draftees from leaving the country in an effort to widen the recruitment pool for the war in Ukraine; it needs to pass an additional congressional vote and get signed by President Vladimir Putin before it becomes law (Moscow Times)
Russia Strikes Ukrainian Alternative Grain Export Route
Following Moscow’s dissolution of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Russian drones yesterday attacked Ukrainian grain warehouses and other facilities on the Danube River, an alternative route for Ukraine to export grain without using the Black Sea ports currently blocked by Russia (Guardian)
Meanwhile, reports emerged that even before the end of the grain deal, Russia had been selling wheat to Mali for prices lower than those offered in Europe to shore up ties with one of its closest African allies (Bloomberg)
Russia Blames Ukraine for Drone Attacks on Moscow
Drones hit two buildings in Moscow and an ammunition depot in Crimea today after Ukraine vowed to retaliate against Russia for its attacks on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa; Russian officials blamed Kyiv for the strikes, while an unnamed Ukrainian source said it was a “special operation” carried out by Kyiv’s forces (Moscow Times; AFP)
Russia Strikes Odesa, Killing One and Wounding Twenty-Two
The attack also severely damaged twenty-five landmarks across the city, including a historic Orthodox cathedral (AP)
Meanwhile, Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in a meeting in Moscow that Wagner troops in Belarus “want to go west,” threatening Poland (RFE/RL)
Also today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukraine had retaken about 50 percent of the territory Russia occupied, adding that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive could take months to make significant gains (Reuters)
Russia Bombards Ukrainian Grain Silos as Black Sea Port Becomes Flash Point
Russia carried out strikes on southern Ukrainian ports for the fourth consecutive night yesterday, killing at least three people and injuring at least twenty-three others, Ukrainian officials said (FT;Reuters)
Since Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which allowed nearly thirty-three million metric tons of foodstuffs to be exported from Ukraine, wheat prices have soared twelve percent in the last week alone (CNN)
U.S. Pledges $2.3 Billion in New Aid to Ukraine This Week
The aid includes humanitarian and economic reconstruction aid, as well as $1.3 billion for Ukraine to buy new military equipment and ammunition; the United States has provided Ukraine with more than $70 billion in military and humanitarian support since shortly before the war (NYT)
Meanwhile, Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video yesterday that Wagner has moved to Belarus “for some time” before deploying to Africa, adding that the group could later rejoin Russian troops in Ukraine (FT)
In an escalation of Black Sea aggression, Ukraine responded to Russia’s threat of treating any ships traveling to Ukraine as potential military targets by saying it would do the same for ships headed to Russia (Reuters)
Russia Launches Air Strikes On Odessa For Second Consecutive Night
A Ukrainian presidential advisor said the attacks were targeting grain terminals and port infrastructure; they come days after Russia withdrew from a deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports (Reuters)
Russia Strikes Odesa Port Infrastructure
Russia said it struck a fuel storage facility and a weapons plant in the port city of Odesa in Ukraine today in retaliation for yesterday’s attack by Ukrainian forces on a bridge leading to Russia-occupied Crimea (Reuters)
Russia Announces Withdrawal From Black Sea Grain Deal
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson said that Russia will no longer cooperate with a deal to allow Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports, sparking fears of a further strain on global markets as tens of millions of tons of food exports are put at risk; since the deal was first implemented, Russia has complained that Western sanctions have hurt its ability to export agricultural products (FT)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who helped broker the deal, said Ankara is pushing for its renewal (New York Times)
Russia Closes Bridge to Crimea After Two Explosions
Russia blamed Ukraine for strikes on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which is a vital link for Russian war supplies, that killed two people and injured one (New York Times;Reuters)
Earlier in the day, Russia claimed to have shot down Ukrainian drones attempting to attack Sevastopol in Crimea (France 24)
Meanwhile, the last grain ship departed Odesa before the deadline for the grain deal, which Russia has not yet extended (BBC)
Putin Proposes New Wagner Group Leader
Andrei “Sedoi” Troshev, a senior Wagner commander involved in the group’s Syria operations, would take over from Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his mercenaries in a rebellion in June (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Wagner forces would be permitted to continue fighting, but could not longer be led by Prigozhin (New York Times)
Russian General Criticizes Top Brass After Dismissal
The general said via audio message to troops that he was fired after issuing a bleak prognosis of the battle situation on the frontlines against Ukraine and felt the military leadership had betrayed Russian soldiers (FT;Reuters)
Meanwhile, Ukrainian air defenses shot down twenty Iranian-made drones, most of which were targeting Kyiv (AP)
NATO-Ukraine Defense Council Meets Amid New Pledges of War Aid
Leaders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today as part of a new joint body focused on Ukraine’s security, with Group of Seven (G7) countries also laying out sustained security guarantees for Ukraine aimed at ensuring its military capabilities (FT)
Zelenskyy has welcomed the guarantees, but said they are not a substitute for a timeline on Ukraine’s accession to NATO. He is also set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of today’s summit (RFE/RL, Reuters, AFP)
Putin Met With Prigozhin Days After Failed Coup, Kremlin Says
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin and at least thirty-five others from the private military company Wagner Group on June 29, Putin’s spokesperson said yesterday; Putin had originally called Prigozhin “a traitor,” though Russia has since dropped charges against him (FT)
Australia Deploys Surveillance Aircraft to Assist Ukraine
The aircraft will be used to monitor and protect logistics hubs critical to providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine (Reuters)
Meanwhile, a Russian strike on a school serving as an aid distribution center killed seven people (Al Jazeera)