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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Russia warned that ships sailing to Ukraine's Black Sea ports from Thursday will be seen as potential military targets, days after its withdrawal from a safe-passage deal that threatens to worsen global food supplies. Ukraine said on Wednesday it was establishing a temporary shipping route via Romania, one of the neighbouring Black Sea countries.
AP News: The White House on Wednesday warned that the Russian military is preparing for possible attacks on civilian shipping vessels in the Black Sea.
Reuters: At least 18 people were wounded by a Russian strike on the Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv on Thursday, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said, while authorities in Odesa reported fresh strikes on the region.
BBC News: Wheat prices have risen sharply on global markets after Russia said it would treat ships heading for Ukrainian ports as potential military targets.
ISW: Russian forces launched an extensive missile and drone attack against port and grain infrastructure in southern Ukraine on July 19 likely to further emphasize Russia’s objections to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and hinder Ukraine’s ability to export grain.
More News
IStories: Wagner Group leadership has reportedly decided to send home all former prisoners who fought with the military cartel. Many of them are currently staying in Black Sea hotels waiting for their contracts to end and their pardons to arrive.
The Moscow Times: Russia unlikely to stop with the seizure of Russian assets of Carlsberg and Danone, experts say.
AFP: Ukraine expects its fight to regain land lost to the Russian invasion to be long and grinding, a senior presidential aide in Kyiv told AFP Wednesday.
AP News: The Czech Parliament gave its expected approval Wednesday to a defense treaty signed with the United States in May that would deepen military cooperation and make it easier to deploy U.S. troops on Czech territory.
Reuters: U.S. Agency for International Development chief Samantha Power pledged $230 million in new funding on Wednesday to help Ukraine's small and medium-sized businesses and boost the economy, hit by the war.
US Department of Defense: The US has announced additional security assistance for Ukraine, totalling about $1.3b, with the package including air defence capabilities and munitions.
FIG: Russian and Belarusian gymnasts will be allowed to compete as "individual neutral athletes" at events organised by the governing body from next January, the International Gymnastics Federation said on Wednesday.
Reuters: Talks being mediated by Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the repatriation of Ukrainian thousands of children taken to Russia since Moscow's invasion have been under way since at least April, a source with knowledge of the discussions said on Wednesday.
IStories: While designer Alexander Zakharov equips the Russian army with Lancet suicide drones, his son Lavrentiy Zakharov works at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and owns an apartment in London overlooking Big Ben.
Mediazona continues to track how Russian authorities prosecute military personnel who are unwilling to participate in the war with Ukraine. In the first half of 2023, military courts received 2,076 cases related to unauthorized absence from units. That’s twice as much as the total for 2022 and three times more than the pre-war year of 2021. In recent months, most defendants in these cases are mobilised soldiers.
POLITICO: China and its communist ruler Xi Jinping are “absolutely complicit” in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the chief of the U.K.’s Secret Intelligence Service (known as MI6) said at a rare public appearance hosted by POLITICO in Prague Wednesday.
POLITICO: Putin is “under pressure” at home following an aborted mutiny by warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin that resulted in the Russian president having to cut a “humiliating” deal to “save his skin,” the head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence service told POLITICO.
The Guardian: The lawfulness of the UK sanctions regime set up in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine faces its biggest legal test on Thursday when a Soviet-era oligarch and ally of Roman Abramovich seeks a court order to release his assets including two private jets.
Reuters: Finland will revoke the license of the Russian consulate in Turku, one of the two Russian consulates in the country, the Finnish government said in a statement on Wednesday.
Reuters: Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was shown in a video welcoming his Wagner fighters to Belarus and telling them they would for now take no further part in the Ukraine war.
Reuters: Putin will not attend a summit of the BRICS nations in August, South Africa said on Wednesday, ending months of speculation about whether the country would arrest him on an international warrant.
HRW: A Russian cruise missile strike on Lviv in western Ukraine on July 6, 2023, struck a residential apartment complex in violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said.
AP News: Russia unleashed intense drone and missile attacks overnight Wednesday, damaging critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine, including grain and oil terminals, and wounding at least 12 people, officials said.
BBC News: More than 2,000 residents are being evacuated from four villages in Russian-occupied Crimea after a fire that triggered hours of explosions at a nearby ammunition depot.
worth mentioning
A portrait of Valery Zorkin, chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court
Iran supplying drones to Russia sparked quarrels at "highest level" of Tehran regime
Photographer criticises use of image in Italian artist’s pro-Russia mural
China prepares for naval drills with Russia in sign of continuing support amid Ukraine conflict
Companies sell their businesses in Russia
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