Ukrainian forces in major cross-border attack on Russian village, claims Moscow

From September this year, Russian schools will teach children about the soldiers sent to war in Ukraine.

Putin’s education ministry has published a list of “war heroes” who are involved in its belligerent and illegal invasion of Ukraine – which Russia describes as a “special military operation”.

The programme will teach children about Russian soldiers from the pre-revolution, Soviet, and modern eras.

This includes Vladimir Zhoga and Olga Kachura, Russian-Ukrainian pro-separatists who Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda describe as “terrorists and militants”.

Pro-Russian propaganda outlets celebrated Zhoga as a war hero following his death in battle in March 2022.

Olga Kachura was killed by a Ukrainian missile in July 2022.

Ukrainian forces have used more drones in July than fired by Russia, president Volodymyr Zelensky said, as he lauded Kyiv’s good progress in manufacturing and deploying drones.

Zelensky thanked all Ukrainian servicemen for their efforts in combat “in particular, all those soldiers and commanders who make good use of our possibilities with drones” in his nightly video address.

“Our Ukrainian defence forces are already leading the way in this regard, and in July our forces used more drones than did the occupiers,” he said. “This must become a sustainable trend at the front – across all types of drones that are in our units.” He said drones, including long-range versions, “are already affecting the war in strategic terms”.

Ukraine is boosting its production capacity with help from its Western partners and the country’s manufacturers will exceed over the course of 2024 contractual plans to produce one million drones, the president said.

A Russian pianist and anti-war activist has died in prison after going on hunger strike, his mother said, in what the European Union called a shocking case of political repression.

The death of Pavel Kushnir was first reported by a Russian news site last Friday and confirmed to independent outlet Mediazona yesterday by his mother, Irina Levina.

A Telegram channel with links to Russia’s security services reported in May that Kushnir had been arrested and accused of inciting terrorist activity after posting anti-war material online.

Levina told Mediazona that an investigator from the FSB security service had told her that Kushnir died on 28 July while in pre-trial detention in Birobidzhan in Russia’s far east.

It was not clear how long he had been on hunger strike. Levina said she had been told that he was hooked up to an intravenous drip “but apparently this was not enough” to save him.

Kushnir was an accomplished concert pianist who had studied at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky conservatory.

EU external affairs spokesperson Peter Stano posted on X that the case was a “shocking reminder of (the) Kremlin’s ongoing repression” and urged Russia to “respect its Constitution, release all prisoners of conscience and stop repression against anti-war protesters”.

An independent Siberian politician, Svetlana Kaverzina, said Kushnir had been left isolated and without support because there was no local network of dissidents, and people had not known about his case.

“We couldn’t chip in and send him a lawyer – we didn’t know. We didn’t write him letters of support – we didn’t know. We didn’t talk him out of sacrificing himself – we didn’t know. He was alone,” she wrote on Telegram.

Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for the US Department of State, was asked about President Zelensky’s order for Ukrainian diplomats to work on creating a coalition of states to help shoot down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory.

But Mr Miller said that it is a “discussion to be had among NATO members” and a decision which the alliance needs to “reach collectively”.

When pushed on whether Ukraine will be authoritised to launch western weapons deeper into Russian territory than they are currently allowed, Miller said Ukraine’s requirements are constantly being assessed.

“We make those determinations both when it comes to these specific weapons that we provide Ukraine and the restrictions, if any, that we put on the use of those weapons,” he said.

Ukraine was first permitted to fire western weapons into Russian territory two months ago, following a change in policy from allies who had previously feared escalation.

Russian forces have captured the village of Tymofiivka in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, a Russian news agency quoted the defence ministry as saying.

Interfax, the Russian agency headquartered in Moscow, made the claim which was unable to be independently verified by Reuters.

It follows Ukrainian media reports last week based on DeepState – an online map that shows the updated course of military actions in Ukraine – which showed Russia had taken the village.

Russian troops continue to advance towards Pokrovsk, a strategic city on the Ukrainian front, 70km northwest of Donetsk city.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine conducted a major attack involving some 300 soldiers across the border into Russia’s southern Kursk region on Tuesday.

Russian reports earlier noted the incursion and said it had moved in reserves to help repel hundreds of fighters backed by tanks. The regional governor said three people were killed.

“The enemy today launched another attempt to break into the territory of Russia’s Kursk region,” the latest defence ministry statement said. “Artillery fire, army aviation strikes and drone strikes are being inflicted on the enemy.”

Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov, writing on Telegram late in the evening, said Ukrainian forces had shelled a border area, injuring two children. Local officials said the border town of Sudzha had also come under attack. Smirnov also posted a video on Telegram telling residents: “I ask you to remain calm and not to be subject to the enemy’s information provocations. The situation is controllable.”

Ukraine’s military authorities in Sumy region – on the other side of the border from Russia’s Kursk region – said Ukrainian forces had destroyed a Russian ballistic missile, two drones and a helicopter in the region.

Unofficial Ukrainian military blogs showed pictures of what they described as the destroyed helicopter and other equipment. Russian ministry appeared to have deleted an earlier account of the attack in which it said a “Ukrainian sabotage group” had suffered heavy losses and retreated into Ukrainian territory.

Russia had suspicions that Ukraine planned to attack Russia during the Navy Day parade attended by Vladimir Putin last month and contacted Washington about its concerns, Russian state television reports.

Russian television said that the details were a state secret and provided no further details. Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

The New York Times previously reported that US defence secretary Lloyd Austin had taken a call from Russia’s defence minister Andrei Belousov on 12 July about a covert Ukrainian operation planned against Russia that Moscow believed had the blessing of the United States.

The Times cited two unidentified US officials as saying that Pentagon officials were surprised by the Russian allegation and unaware of any such plot, but that the Russian concerns were taken seriously enough for Washington to caution Kyiv that, if it was planning such an operation, then it should not carry it out.

A drone launched by Ukraine hit an ambulance near the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region, killing the driver and a paramedic, the acting governor of the southwestern region said this morning.

Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor, said in a post on Telegram that a doctor was also wounded.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Moscow launched with its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.

Shipments of Russian liquified natural gas to France more than doubled the first half of this year, according to new analyses of trade data, at a time when Europe has tried to pull back from energy purchases that help finance the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Europe has restricted oil imports from Russia, but natural gas is still allowed. And while companies in France are importing the most, one analysis found EU countries overall imported 7 per cent more Russian LNG, natural gas that has been chilled and liquified for easier ocean transport, in the first half of this year compared to the same period a year ago.

Oleh Savytskyi, a founder of non-profit Razom We Stand, which campaigns for tougher sanctions on Russian fossil fuels, said the EU’s goal of phasing out all Russian fossil fuels by 2027 was “appallingly off track.” He said countries buying Russian LNG are sabotaging the continent’s energy transition and contributing billions to Russia’s war effort.

TotalEnergies, the French energy giant that accounted for the largest share of the imports in a list of cargoes between January and June seen by The Associated Press, said it was bound by contracts signed before Russia’s Ukraine invasion.

Niger’s junta has cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine over remarks from Kyiv which showed Ukraine’s support for groups involved in fighting in neighbouring Mali that killed dozens of soldiers and Russian Wagner fighters in July.

The move follows Mali’s decision on Sunday to sever relations with Kyiv following comments by Ukraine’s military spy agency about the fighting in northern Mali in which Tuareg rebels said they killed at least 84 Wagner mercenaries and 47 Malian soldiers.

GUR spokesperson Andriy Yusov has not confirmed Kyiv’s involvement in the fighting, but in comments published on public broadcaster Suspilne’s website on Monday, 29 July, he said the Malian rebels had received the “necessary” information to conduct the attack, adding “and not only information”.

The incident appeared to be Wagner’s heaviest defeat since it stepped in two years ago to help Mali’s military authorities fight insurgent groups.

In a televised address, spokesperson Abdourahamane Amadou said Niger had decided to act in solidarity with the government and people of Mali by cutting ties with Ukraine with immediate effect.

Ukraine has already condemned Mali’s decision to sever relations as short-sighted and hasty, saying Kyiv rejected the allegation of Ukrainian support for international terrorism.