Russia has banned the entry of 54 British nationals, including International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan, in response to UK sanctions against its citizens and businesses, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
In March, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, charges Moscow denies.
Moscow also added British Defense Minister Annabelle Goldie to the list, as well as numerous correspondents from the BBC, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, reports Reuters.
The announcement states that the MSP will continue to expand the list in retaliation for the sanctions.
The total number of dead or wounded Ukrainian and Russian soldiers since the beginning of the war in Ukraine is approaching 500.000, the New York Times reported, citing an unnamed American official, Reuters reports.
According to reports, it is difficult to estimate the number of victims because Moscow downplays them, while Kiev refuses to release official data.
American officials specify that the number of Russian military casualties is approaching 120.000, with 170 to 180.000 injured soldiers.
On the other hand, they claim that close to 70.000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, and that 100 to 120.000 of them were wounded.
Despite the fact that several Russian soldiers died, the New York Times emphasizes that the Russians outnumber the Ukrainians on the battlefield.
According to New York Times sources, the number of casualties increased after Ukraine launched a counter-offensive.
Today, Ukraine and Romania signed an agreement according to which they will work together to increase the export of Ukrainian grain through Romania after Moscow terminated the agreement on the safe transportation of these goods across the Black Sea.
The agreement was signed during the visit of Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal to Bucharest, during which he spoke with his Romanian counterpart, Marcelo Colaku.
Shmihal and Čolaku discussed ways to increase grain exports from war-torn Ukraine and improve infrastructure for transport across rivers, railways, roads, seas, including border crossings.
Ukraine's economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, and its grain is key to the world's supplies of wheat, barley and sunflower oil.
At the press conference after the meeting, Colaku expressed the hope that more than 60 percent of Ukrainian grain destined for export can be transported through Romania.
He also pointed to an "ambitious" goal to double the transport of Ukrainian grain through Romania, a goal established last Sunday at a meeting in the Romanian city of Galac on the Danube attended by Western and Ukrainian officials.
Romania intends to double the export flow of Ukrainian grain from two to four million tons per month, but Colaku did not specify the time frame in which this increase would be achieved.
The Romanian leader added that the Black Sea port of Constanța will remain a key transport route for Ukrainian goods to reach the international market.
The Sulinski Canal, an arm of the Danube River at its confluence with the Black Sea, will also play a role.
The bilateral meeting comes as Russia destroys Ukraine's grain warehouses and port facilities along the Danube River.
Ukraine has become increasingly reliant on those Danube ports after Moscow scrapped an agreement on the safe transport of its grain through the Black Sea.
Ukraine is one of the largest grain exporters in the world.
(BETA)
Russia has banned the entry of Moldovan officials following Chisinau's "hostile" decision to expel XNUMX Russian diplomats, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, marking a further deterioration in already strained relations.
Moldova, a former Soviet republic, has been affected by Russia's war in neighboring Ukraine. Moldovan President Maja Sandu condemned Russia's attack on Ukraine and accused Moscow of trying to destabilize its own country.
On August 14, Russian diplomats were expelled from the capital of Moldova, Chisinau.
"This hostile step leads to the further destruction of Russian-Moldovan relations, which are already in a deep crisis due to the actions of the Moldovan side," the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement after calling the ambassador of Chisinau in Moscow to express his disapproval, reports Reuters.
The envoy was informed that "as an asymmetric response, entry into the Russian Federation was closed for a number of officials of the Republic of Moldova," the ministry said.
It does not identify the Moldovan officials to whom the ban applies or state how many there were, but Moldovan media, citing unnamed sources, state that the ban applies to 20 officials, including MPs from President Sandu's ruling party.
A senior Moldovan official said Russia's move was regrettable.
"This is not the first time that the Russian authorities have resorted to such measures," said Igor Zakharov, communications adviser to the Moldovan foreign minister.
Moldova shares a border with both Ukraine and Romania.
The US intelligence community has estimated that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will not succeed in reaching the key city of Melitopol in the southeast of the country, people familiar with the classified report told The Washington Post.
That finding, if proven correct, means Kiev will fail to fulfill its primary task of severing Russia's land bridge with Crimea this year.
The grim assessment is based on Russia's strength in defending occupied territory with minefields and trenches and is likely to fuel a debate between Kiev and Western power centers about why the counteroffensive, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in Western arms and military equipment, has not achieved its goals.
Ukrainian forces attacking in the direction of Melitopol from the city of Robotni, more than 80 kilometers away, will end up several kilometers from the city, US officials announced.
Melitopol is key to the Ukrainian counter-offensive, which is considered a shortcut to Crimea. The city is at the crossroads of two important highways that allow the Russians to move military equipment and personnel from the peninsula to other occupied territories in southern Ukraine.
Ukraine launched a counter-offensive in early June hoping to repeat the success of last fall when they recaptured two Kharkiv oblasts.
However, in the first week of the war, Ukrainian forces suffered significant casualties against Russian strong minefields, despite being equipped with new Western equipment, including American Bradley armored vehicles, German Leopard tanks and specialized mine-clearing vehicles.
Joint analyzes by the US, British and Ukrainian militaries predicted such losses but expected Kiev to accept them as the price of breaching Russia's main defense line, US and Western officials said.
But Ukraine decided to prevent losses on the battlefield and switch to the tactic of relying on smaller units to attack through different areas of the front. This led to Ukraine making small gains in the form of smaller pockets during the summer.
Kiev has recently sent more reserves to the front, including Stryker and Challenger units, but has yet to break through the main Russian defense line.
The road to Melitopol is very challenging and even taking back nearby towns like Tohak will be difficult, said Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Institute.
"Russia has three main lines of defense there, and then fortified cities after that," he said. "It's not just a question of whether Ukraine can break through one or two of them, but whether it can break through all three and have enough forces available after such attrition to achieve something more significant like taking Tokmak or something more."
The grim outlook, which some Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have been briefed on, has already sparked heated debate in closed-door meetings.
Some Republicans now oppose President Biden's request for an additional $20,6 billion (about 18 billion euros) in aid to Ukraine given the offensive's modest results. Other Republicans and, to a lesser extent, Democrats blame the administration for not sending more powerful weapons to Ukraine sooner.
(BETA)
The US has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed, an unnamed US official said.
Washington has assured officials in Denmark and the Netherlands that the US will expedite approval of a request to transfer F-16s to Ukraine once the pilots are trained, the official said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has sent letters to his Danish and Dutch counterparts assuring them that the requests will be granted, the official said.
In the letter, a copy of which Reuters had access to, Blinken pointed out that the US provides full support for the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, as well as for the training of Ukrainian pilots, which would help defend against Russian aggression, reports Al Jazeera.
(MINE)
A Ukrainian drone crashed into a building in central Moscow after being shot down by Russian air defenses, disrupting air traffic at all civilian airports in the Russian capital, Russian officials said.
A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing a "strong explosion". The photos show workers and emergency workers inspecting the damaged roof of the building hit by the drone, it reports N1.
The Russian Defense Ministry and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there were no casualties after air defenses destroyed a drone that then crashed into the Expo Center building in Moscow early Friday morning. The Expo Center is a complex of exhibition pavilions and multipurpose halls, less than five kilometers from the Kremlin.
"Around 4:XNUMX a.m. Moscow time, the Kiev regime carried out another terrorist attack using an unmanned aerial vehicle on objects located in Moscow and the Moscow region," the Russian Ministry of Defense announced.
The Russian Air Transport Agency said seven flights were diverted to alternative airports.
Drone attacks deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May, and Moscow's business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month.
Both Ukraine and Russia deny targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in the nearly 18-month war.
Ukraine usually does not comment on who is behind the attacks on Russian territory, although officials have publicly expressed satisfaction over them.
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