Photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka runs from a blaze in a burning wheat field while on assignment after Russian shelling, a few kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, July 29, 2022. (AP)Russia Ukraine War News Live Updates: The US ambassador to the United Nations said there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intends to dismantle Ukraine “and dissolve it from the world map entirely.” Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN Security Council that the United States is seeing growing signs that Russia is laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines. It said more than 100 Russian soldiers and seven tanks had been destroyed in fighting on Friday in the Kherson region, the first major town captured by the Russians following their Feb. 24 invasion.
In a respite to Indian medical students who returned from Ukraine, the National Medical Commission said that they will now be eligible to appear in Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) — a screening test that foreign medical students have to clear to practise in the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, listens to Yuri Borisov, the new CEO of the Russian State Space Corporation "Roscosmos", at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, July 26, 2022. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian-installed authorities in newly occupied territories in southern Ukraine are under pressure and possibly preparing to hold referendums on joining Russia later this year, Britain military said on Saturday.
"Local authorities are likely coercing the population into disclosing personal details in order to compose voting registers," the Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Twitter. Russia classifies these occupied areas as being under interim "civil-military administration". (Reuters)
➡️ Russia and Ukraine traded blame for dozens of deaths in the destruction of a Donetsk prison. Moscow-backed separatists said Kyiv targeted the facility with US-made rockets. Ukraine's armed forces said Russian artillery had targeted the prison to hide the mistreatment of prisoners.
➡️ Ukraine said at least five people had been killed and seven wounded in a Russian missile strike on the southeastern city of Mykolaiv, a river port just off the Black Sea.
➡️ Ukraine is ready to start shipping grain from two Black Sea ports under a UN-brokered agreement but no date has been set for the first shipment, the Ukrainian infrastructure minister said. (Reuters)
The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv's counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow's supply lines.
Rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, the military's southern command said, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
It said more than 100 Russian soldiers and seven tanks had been destroyed in fighting on Friday in the Kherson region, the first major town captured by the Russians following their Feb. 24 invasion. (Reuters)
Final year medical students from countries such as China and Ukraine, who were forced to return to India owing to the Covid-19 pandemic or the war, will now be eligible to appear in Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) — a screening test that foreign medical students have to clear to practise in the country.
Only students who have completed the courses and have been granted a certificate of completion on or before June 30, 2022, will be eligible for this one-time relaxation by the National Medical Commission (NMC), the apex body regulating medical education in the country.
Ukraine has warned that Russia is racing to bolster its troops and defenses in the south, and that Kyiv still needed more weapons from the West, creating a heightened sense of urgency before a looming counteroffensive to reclaim territory seized by Moscow.
The Ukrainians have been setting the stage for a broad counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region for weeks, and recent long-range rocket strikes have left thousands of Russian soldiers stationed west of the Dnieper River, in and around the port city of Kherson, in a precarious position, largely cut off from Russian strongholds to the east.
Dozens of medical students who returned from Ukraine with the outbreak of war are in the middle of a hunger strike in the capital, demanding that they be allowed to complete their degrees in Indian universities.
These students returned to India in March and have been attending their classes online, even completing a semester remotely. However, with the war raging on, a section of students is trying to raise the pressure to be accommodated in Indian universities.
“I came back to India on March 4 and online classes started around two months after that and I completed my third year that way. Our next semester will begin online in September, which is just not enough in medical studies. Countries like Ghana and Nigeria have absorbed students who returned from Ukraine and we also want to be accommodated in India,” said Harsh Goel (21) from Muzaffarnagar, a student of Ivano Frankvisk National Medical University.
Dozens of medical students who returned from Ukraine with the outbreak of war are in the middle of a hunger strike in the capital, demanding that they be allowed to complete their degrees in Indian universities.
These students returned to India in March and have been attending their classes online, even completing a semester remotely. However, with the war raging on, a section of students is trying to raise the pressure to be accommodated in Indian universities.
“I came back to India on March 4 and online classes started around two months after that and I completed my third year that way. Our next semester will begin online in September, which is just not enough in medical studies. Countries like Ghana and Nigeria have absorbed students who returned from Ukraine and we also want to be accommodated in India,” said Harsh Goel (21) from Muzaffarnagar, a student of Ivano Frankvisk National Medical University.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that he's open to a call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss a possible prisoner swap involving American basketball star Brittney Griner.Blinken said Wednesday that Washington had offered Russia a deal that would bring home Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan.
A person familiar with the matter said the U.S. government proposed trading convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for Whelan and Griner. Speaking on a visit to Uzbekistan, Lavrov said his ministry had received an official U.S. request for a call after Blinken made the statement.
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Ukraine has warned that Russia is racing to bolster its troops and defenses in the south, and that Kyiv still needed more weapons from the West, creating a heightened sense of urgency before a looming counteroffensive to reclaim territory seized by Moscow.
The Ukrainians have been setting the stage for a broad counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region for weeks, and recent long-range rocket strikes have left thousands of Russian soldiers stationed west of the Dnieper River, in and around the port city of Kherson, in a precarious position, largely cut off from Russian strongholds to the east.
Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine say that at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war captured during the fighting for Mariupol have been killed by Ukrainian shelling.
Daniil Bezsonov, a spokesman for the Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk region, said that at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed and 130 were injured Friday when Ukrainian shelling hit a prison in the town of Olenivka. The Ukrainian troops were taken prisoner after the fierce fighting for Ukraine’s Azov Sea port of Mariupol, where they holed up at the giant Azovstal steel mill for months. (AP)
Britain's defence minister Ben Wallace said on Friday that Russia was failing in "many areas" in its war in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin might seek to change strategy again.
"The Russians are failing at the moment on the ground in many areas ... Putin's plan A, B, and C has failed and he may look to plan D," Wallace told Sky News television. (Reuters)
Russia's Sakhalin Energy Investment Co has requested its liquefied natural gas (LNG) customers to make payments via a Moscow unit of a European bank and is in talks to change the payment currencies away from US dollars, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.
Some of the buyers are already paying via the designated bank but these payments are still made in US dollars, the sources said. (Reuters)
The Biden administration likes to say Russia has become isolated internationally because of its invasion of Ukraine. Yet Moscow's top officials have hardly been cloistered in the Kremlin. And now, even the US wants to talk.
President Vladimir Putin has been meeting with world leaders, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is a NATO member. Meanwhile, his top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, is jetting around the world, smiling, shaking hands and posing for photos with foreign leaders — including some friends of the US.
And on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he wants to end months of top-level US diplomatic estrangement with Lavrov to discuss the release of American detainees as well as issues related to Ukraine. The call has not been scheduled but is expected in coming days.
The handshakes and phone calls cast doubt on a core part of the US strategy aimed at ending the Ukraine war: that diplomatic and economic isolation, along with battlefield setbacks, would ultimately force Russia to send its troops home. (AP)
Russian private military firm Wagner has likely been allocated responsibility for specific sectors of the front line in eastern Ukraine, possibly as Russia is facing a major shortage of combat infantry, Britain's Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Friday.
"This is a significant change from the previous employment of the group since 2015, when it typically undertook missions distinct from overt, large-scale regular Russian military activity," Britain said in a regular intelligence bulletin on Twitter.
It also said that Wagner's forces are highly unlikely to be sufficient to make a significant difference in the trajectory of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Reuters)
One is perhaps the world’s most notorious arms dealer, a man known as the “Merchant of Death” who sold weapons to terrorists, rebels and militants around the world before finally being hunted down and locked up for conspiring to kill Americans.
The other is a basketball player who got caught with a little hashish oil.
By no measure are they comparable, yet the Biden administration has proposed trading the merchant of death for the imprisoned basketball player as well as a former Marine held in Russia on what are considered trumped-up espionage charges. In the harsh and cynical world of international diplomacy, prisoner exchanges are rarely pretty, but unpalatable choices are often the only choices on the table.
Another season, another Vogue story on a politician causing a kerfuffle. After the hoo-ha over the magazine not giving Melania Trump a cover (even though Michelle Obama got three) and the to-do over Kamala Harris’ “relaxed” portrait being chosen over her more formal cover try, comes a new controversy, related to a “digital cover” released online featuring Olena Zelenska, the Ukrainian first lady.
Titled “Portrait of Bravery,” the article is a collaboration between the Condé Nast Vogues (pretty much all of them) and Ukrainian Vogue (a licensed magazine owned by Media Group Ukraine).
It has moody, graceful portraits of Zelenska by Annie Leibovitz: sitting on the marble steps of the presidential palace, staring grimly ahead; holding hands with her husband, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; and standing next to female soldiers at Antonov Airport, clutching the lapels of a long navy overcoat. The photos are accompanied by a lengthy interview and some BTS video footage of the first couple and Leibovitz. It will appear in print later this year.
Since Feb. 24, 5,237 civilians have been recorded as killed and 7,035 as injured, though the actual casualties are much higher, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on July 25. Most of those killed or injured were the victims of explosive weapons such as artillery, missile and air strikes, the OHCHR said.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine have given details on the military deaths in the conflict.
As the fighting rages, international efforts continued to try to reopen Ukrainian ports and allow exports of grain and other commodities.
Russia and Ukraine struck a deal last week to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports, but UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said "crucial" details for the safe passage of vessels were still being worked out.
Griffiths was hopeful the first shipment of grain from a Ukrainian Black Sea port could take place as early as Friday. (Reuters)
US-based think tank Institute of War, in their daily briefing on the Russia-Ukraine war, said that the Russian forces in Donetsk are likely to seek to capitalise on recent marginal territorial gains around Bakhmut and may deprioritise their efforts to take Siversk.
Other notable points include:
Air raid sirens blared in Kyiv as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed parliament alongside visiting Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, as Ukraine marked its Day of Ukrainian Statehood with a public holiday for the first time on Thursday.
"It doesn't matter with what Russia threatens us; whether it's air-raid sirens or something else, what is important is that we make other countries fall in love with our Ukrainian firmness," Zelenskyy said. (Reuters)