30.07.2023

AP News: Ukraine brought the war far from the front line into the heart of Russia again Sunday in drone penetrations that Russian authorities said damaged two office buildings a few miles (kilometers) from the Kremlin and a pig breeding complex on the countries’ border.

The Telegraph: Putin’s candidates for local elections in Russia are avoiding talking about the war in Ukraine amid fears that it could lose them votes, according to opposition media. United Russia party sources in the Urals region told Verstka website they had shredded pro-war campaign leaflets.

NY Times: Russian propaganda that the Kremlin has used to try to justify the war in Ukraine is spreading into the world’s video games, including Minecraft and Roblox.

AP News: Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organized peace summit in early August seeking to find a way to start negotiations over Russia’s war on the country, officials said Sunday. The summit will be held in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, said one official, who spoke early Sunday on condition of anonymity as no authorization had been given to publicly discuss the summit. Russia was not invited, the official added.

Meduza: Russia’s state-controlled television networks reportedly said nothing about the latest drone attack on Moscow, which damaged a building in the Moscow City skyscraper complex overnight on July 30, during their morning news shows.

Sky News: Thousands of supporters of the military junta that seized control in Niger in a coup have marched through the streets of the capital waving Russian flags and denouncing former colonial power France.

Reuters: Russia's embassy in Moldova has announced it will temporarily stop providing appointments for consular matters in what Moldovan officials say is a situation linked to the order by the country's authorities to reduce staff.

BBC News: At least 10 people have been killed and 76 injured after a severe storm hit areas of central Russia, the Emergencies Ministry says. Eight of the victims, three of them children, died when trees fell on their campsite in Mari El region.

AP News: African leaders have left two days of meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin with little to show for their requests to resume a deal that kept grain flowing from Ukraine and to find a path to end the war there.

Newsweek: Russian military bloggers, an influential faction in Russia's military and political spheres, are "deliberately amplifying old footage to support the Kremlin narrative" in Ukraine, according to a new assessment.

ISW: Segments of the Russian pro-war ultranationalist information space appear to be coalescing around the Kremlin’s narrative effort to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure, increasingly overstating Ukrainian losses and writing less about Russia's losses and challenges than they had been.

29.07.2023

CNN: The Ukrainian military on Saturday said it had recently conducted a successful missile strike on the Chonhar Bridge, a key piece of infrastructure that connects the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Kherson region to the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014.

CNN: Putin said Moscow has never rejected peace negotiations with Ukraine. In order to start the process to end the war, an agreement is needed from both sides, but it's difficult to reach one while Ukraine's army is on offense, the Russian ‘leader’ said.

Euromaidan Press: Several German politicians are pressing for the government to supply Ukraine with cruise missiles, DW reports. Opposition Christian Democratic Union deputy Roderich Kiesewetter insists that Berlin should “immediately” provide Kyiv with long-range Taurus missiles.

Meduza: At a meeting with leaders of African nations, Putin described Russia’s withdrawal from Kyiv and the surrounding region last spring as a gesture of goodwill. Most experts believe that Russia withdrew after sustaining massive losses in the region.

CNN: One of the newest pieces in Ukraine's arsenal is a remote-controlled sea drone designed to attack Russian forces in the Black Sea. The Ukrainian-made surface drones, first shown publicly to CNN, are armed with 300 kilograms of explosives and can hit a target 800 kilometers away.

Forbes: All is fair in war, as the saying goes, and Russia’s strategy is clear: degrade Ukraine’s grain export infrastructure with constant missile attacks while simultaneously warning the world that Ukraine is off-limits as a grain exporter.

Euromaidan Press: UNESCO representatives arrived in Odesa to make a comprehensive assessment of the damage caused to the city by the Russian missile attacks from 19 July to 23, head of Odesa Oblast Military Administration Oleh Kiper reported.

AP News: A 9-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother have been called as witnesses in a criminal case against their mother after she was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army.

BBC News: Wagner fighters in Belarus could pose as migrants and enter the EU, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned. Wagner could also facilitate illegal migration from Belarus, which Poland describes as "hybrid warfare", he says.

RFE/RL: U.S. says Russia's Shoigu looking for weapons in North Korea. "We're seeing Russia desperately looking for support, for weapons, wherever it can find them to continue to prosecute its aggression against Ukraine," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Reuters: Ukrainian soldiers were observed using North Korean rockets that they said were seized by a "friendly" country before being delivered to Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Ukraine's defence ministry suggested the arms were captured from the Russians, the newspaper said.

28.07.2023

MFA Finland: On 28 July Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio assigned the task of drawing up a plan concerning Finland’s participation in the reconstruction of Ukraine.

AP News: Russian and Belarusian players will not be allowed to participate in next week’s Prague Open, the organizers of the women’s tennis event said Friday. The announcement came a day after police prevented a Russian player from entering the country, organizers said.

Reuters: Russian missiles hit a residential complex and a nearby building of Ukraine's security service in the central city of Dnipro on Thursday, officials said, injuring nine people and causing widespread damage.

Reuters: Ukraine's Olga Kharlan was invited to compete at the Olympic Games in Paris next year by the IOC on Friday after the fencer was disqualified for refusing to shake hands with a Russian opponent during a tournament earlier this week.

The European Council has decided to impose sanctions on seven Russian individuals and five entities over a “digital information manipulation” campaign.

AFP: Moscow said Friday it downed a second Ukrainian missile over southwestern Russia, shortly after saying it intercepted a missile whose debris fell on the city of Taganrog, injuring at least 15.

The Guardian: Ukraine has moved its official Christmas holiday to 25 December in a break with the Russian Orthodox church, which celebrates it on 7 January. The bill signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday highlights the deepening rift between churches in Kyiv and Moscow since Russia’s invasion of its pro-western neighbour.

Euronews: French energy giant Total is fuelling Russia's "war machine" by buying massive amounts of Russian energy, an NGO has claimed. Global Witness said the company continues to buy Russian liquified natural gas, with their analysis suggesting it is the biggest non-Russian buyer.

The Guardian: Ukrainians are “de-Russifying” their statues and streets, including in cities with close historical and cultural links to Russia, writes the Guardian’s Russia correspondent Shaun Walker.

Reuters: Qatar will provide Ukraine with $100 million in humanitarian aid to support health, education and demining, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday.

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