Putin to visit Mongolia despite risk of arrest under ICC warrantRussian president Vladimir Putin will visit Mongolia next week, despite the country being a member of the International Criminal Court, which last year issued a warrant for his arrest, AP reports.
The visit, scheduled for 3 September, will be Putin’s first trip to an ICC member state since the warrant was issued in March 2023 over suspected war crimes in Ukraine.
Under the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, ICC members are bound to detain suspects for whom an arrest warrant has been issued by the court, if they set foot on their soil.
But the court doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism. In a famous case, then Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir wasn’t arrested in 2015 when he visited South Africa, which is a member of the court, sparking angry condemnation by rights activists and the country’s main opposition party.
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The Kremlin said it was not worried that Mongolia could arrest president Vladimir Putin during his visit next week to the member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued a warrant for the Russian leader, AFP reports.
Putin will travel to Mongolia on Tuesday, in a first trip to an ICC member since The Hague-based court issued a warrant for his arrest over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children in March 2023.
“There are no worries, we have a great dialogue with our friends from Mongolia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Asked if Moscow had discussed the arrest warrant with Ulaanbaatar ahead of Putin’s trip, he said: “All aspects of the visit were carefully prepared.”
The European Union wants to train more Ukrainian soldiers, but remains divided over whether to provide the support in Ukraine itself, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said on Friday, AFP reports.
The EU has already set a goal of training around 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers this year, but with fierce fighting continuing, the bloc wants to do more.
“We will discuss how to increase our training mission” of Ukrainian soldiers, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels before a meeting of the bloc’s defence ministers.
“We are thinking about having a coordination centre in Ukraine, but there is no agreement to train Ukrainian soldiers on Ukrainian soil with European instructors,” Borrell added.
The issue divides the EU’s 27 member states. Several countries, including Estonia, France and Sweden, support training soldiers in Ukraine, but other countries, including Hungary, fear such a move could lead to conflict escalation.
France shocked its allies earlier this year when president Emmanuel Macron said he did not rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine, although he acknowledged that there was no consensus on taking such action.
Ministers will discuss renewing the European mission for training Ukrainian soldiers but the current text does not mention carrying it out on Ukrainian soil, an EU diplomat said.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has provided an update on the formation of new Russian volunteer units in Kursk.
The units are part of reservist groups known as BARS, which were established in Russia in 2021. The UK’s MoD says the units were established to provide Russia with a cadre of reservists with a high level of readiness and training.
The MoD’s post said that the formation of the BARS units in Kursk is almost certainly a response to Ukraine’s offensive in the area.
In another post, the MoD shared a map showing the current battlefield situation in Russia and Ukraine. The map shows Russia’s advance on Pokrovsk and the extent of Ukraine’s advance into Kursk.
A Russian news editor in Siberia has been sentenced to eight years in prison for publishing critical material on Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, AFP reports.
Sergei Mikhailov, a journalist and editor in the mountainous Altai region, was arrested in the first weeks of the Kremlin launching its invasion in 2022, shortly after repressive laws that banned criticism of Russia’s actions in Ukraine were adopted.
He had published online posts about civilian deaths in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and in Mariupol.
A court in the city of Gorno-Altaisk sentenced the 48-year-old after finding him guilty of “knowingly spreading fake information” about the Russian army. Prosecutors said he was “motivated by political hatred.”
In a speech in court earlier this week, Mikhailov stood by his reporting and criticised the Kremlin for sending troops to Ukraine. He said the Russian state narrative of calling the Ukrainian leadership “fascist” had “created a whole virtual universe in the information space, and this fog became stronger and stronger.”
“My publications were aimed against this fog, so that my readers were not seduced by lies, so that they do not take part in armed conflicts, do not become murderers and victims and so that they do not harm the brotherly Ukrainian people,” Mikhailov said, in audio of the speech published by Listok, the social media channel Mikhailov ran prior to his arrest.
More than 1,000 people have been prosecuted in Russia for criticising the Russian offensive against Ukraine since the start of the armed conflict in February 2022, according to monitor OVD-Info.
After visiting Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant earlier this week, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi will next week travel to Ukraine to hold high-level talks and assess developments at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a statement on the IAEA website said.
“The IAEA acts promptly and decisively whenever and wherever there are threats to nuclear safety and security. Our proactive presence is of paramount importance to help stabilise the situation,” Grossi said.
“My message has been loud and clear throughout this tragic war: a nuclear accident must be avoided at all costs, and a nuclear power plant must never be attacked. The consequences could be disastrous, and no one stands to benefit from it. I remain determined to do everything in my power to protect nuclear safety and security as long as the fighting continues.”
At the Zaporizhzhia plant, the IAEA team stationed at the site has continued to hear explosions and other indications of military activities, at times near the plant itself. Due to reported drone threats in the area, the team was told to shelter indoors on 20 August and had to reschedule their planned walkdown on 26 August.
Since Grossi last went to the site in February, it has been hit by drone strikes, experienced loss of power lines and, earlier this month, a fire caused significant damage to one of its two cooling towers, the IAEA said.
IAEA chief Mariano Grossi, left, visits visits Kursk nuclear power plant Photograph: Rosatom Press Service Handout/EPAUkraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has praised his country’s Paralympic athletes after they won their first medals at this year’s Games in Paris.
“It’s a great start! Every victory of our athletes inspires our entire country. Keep it up!” he said in a post on X.
The first victories of our Paralympic athletes in Paris. Ukraine won two silver and two bronze medals in swimming 🇺🇦
Anton Kol won silver in the 100-meter backstroke.
Iryna Poida won a silver medal in the 200-meter freestyle.
Anna Hontar is a bronze medalist in the 50-meter… pic.twitter.com/VZCO4fIwOp
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 30, 2024 A woman has died in Sumy following Russia’s overnight attacks on the region.
“According to the investigation, on August 30, 2024, at about 1:30 a.m., using methods of warfare prohibited by international law, the enemy launched an airstrike on an enterprise in Sumy. As a result of the attack by the occupiers, according to preliminary data, nine people were injured. The damage from the fire is currently being eliminated. Prosecutors, in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies, are documenting the consequences of the shelling,” Sumy prosecutor’s office said on Facebook, Ukraine’s Interfax news agency reported.
“A woman, 48, died from her wounds in hospital,” it later added.
Russian overnight attacks injured at least 9 people in the Sumy region, and hit an industrial facility in Poltava region, local authorities said, AP reports.
An airstrike on the northeastern city of Sumy caused a fire, prompting regional authorities to ask residents to stay inside and close the windows. The Sumy region borders the Russian Kursk region.
A drone attack hit an industrial facility in Poltava without causing any casualties, regional governor Filip Pronin said.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 12 out of 18 Russia-launched drones overnight over five Ukrainian regions. Four more drones fell over the Ukrainian territory. Russia also used an Iskander-M missile during the attack, the air force added.
A group of Russian armed volunteers is being set up in Kursk to “ensure security”.
Kursk is the scene of a nearly four-week long incursion into Russia by Ukraine. Thousands of Russian civilians have fled border areas because of the assault.
Kursk governor, Alexy Smirnov said on Telegram that the new detachments would be tasked with “not only ensuring security, but also participating in life support in resettled areas in order to support the remaining people in this difficult time.”
His post said the contract for participation would be for six months and had a phone number for those interested in enlisting.
Putin to visit Mongolia despite risk of arrest under ICC warrantRussian president Vladimir Putin will visit Mongolia next week, despite the country being a member of the International Criminal Court, which last year issued a warrant for his arrest, AP reports.
The visit, scheduled for 3 September, will be Putin’s first trip to an ICC member state since the warrant was issued in March 2023 over suspected war crimes in Ukraine.
Under the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, ICC members are bound to detain suspects for whom an arrest warrant has been issued by the court, if they set foot on their soil.
But the court doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism. In a famous case, then Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir wasn’t arrested in 2015 when he visited South Africa, which is a member of the court, sparking angry condemnation by rights activists and the country’s main opposition party.
Ukraine shoots down 12 of 18 Russia-launched drones in overnight attackHello and welcome to our live blog covering the Russia-Ukraine war. Russian overnight attacks damaged an enterprise in Sumy region, injuring at least nine people, and hit an industrial facility in Poltava region, local authorities said on Friday, as reported by Reuters.
An airstrike on the northeastern city of Sumy caused a fire, prompting regional authorities to ask residents to stay inside and close the windows.
A drone attack hit an industrial facility in Poltava without causing any casualties, regional governor Filip Pronin said. The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 12 out of 18 Russia-launched drones overnight over five Ukrainian regions. Four more drones fell over the Ukrainian territory.
Russia also used an Iskander-M missile during the attack, the air force added.
In other news:
One of the F-16 warplanes that Ukraine received from its western partners to help fight Russia’s invasion has crashed, killing the pilot, Ukraine’s Army General Staff said on Thursday. The fighter jet went down on Monday during a major Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine, a military statement posted on Facebook said. Four of those Russian missiles were shot down by F-16s, the statement said.
The crash was the first reported loss of an F-16 in Ukraine, after they arrived at the end of last month. At least six of the warplanes are believed to have been delivered. The defence ministry has opened an investigation into the crash. The Ukrainian air force in a Facebook post identified the pilot as Col. Alexei “Moonfish” Mes, who “saved Ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles, unfortunately, at the cost of your own life.”
A US defence official told Reuters that Monday’s crash did not appear to be the result of Russian fire, and possible causes from pilot error to mechanical failure were still being investigated.
The EU’s top diplomat on Thursday ramped up pressure on Ukraine’s international backers to lift restrictions on the use of weapons they provide to allow its armed forces to strike targets inside Russia. “The weaponry that we are providing to Ukraine has to have full use, and the restrictions have to be lifted in order for the Ukrainians to be able to target the places where Russia is bombing them. Otherwise, the weaponry is useless,” Josep Borrell told reporters as the bloc’s foreign ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Thursday he had spent several days on the eastern Pokrovsk front and described fighting there as “exceptionally tough”. Russia has been pressing hard towards the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in recent months, steadily inching forward. “Fights are exceptionally tough. The enemy throws into battle everything that can move and advance, trying to break through our defences,” commander Syrskyi said on Facebook. He said the most intense clashes were taking place in the area of Krasnyi Yar, 10 km (6.2 miles) from the city of Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s military said on Thursday it had attacked an artillery depot and two oil storage facilities in Russia, causing a fire on Wednesday at the Atlas oil depot in the southern Rostov region. The military said it had also attacked the Zenit oil facility in Russia’s Kirov region, 1,500 km (930 miles) north-east of the border with Ukraine. A field artillery depot in the Russian region of Voronezh was also attacked, it added in the same message on the Telegram app.
IAEA director general Rafael Grossi will travel to Ukraine next week to hold high-level talks and assess developments at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the IAEA said on Thursday. The UN’s nuclear watchdog warned earlier this month that the safety situation at the plant was “deteriorating” after a nearby drone strike.
A military court in Moscow placed Pavel Popov, a former deputy defence minister, in detention on Thursday on suspicion of fraud in the latest of a string of corruption probes of officials tied to ex-defence minister Sergei Shoigu.
The case against Popov, who has served in his role since 2013, is the third investigation into a senior defence official relating to the construction of a military theme park near Moscow. The court ordered Popov detained until 29 October, Russian media said. He denies guilt, his lawyer told the Ria state news agency.
At least one person died and six sustained injuries during Russian shelling of the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka on Thursday, the local governor said. Kostiantynivka, which is miles away from the frontline, is one of the most affected cities in the region, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin wrote in a statement on the Telegram messaging app. “It comes under enemy fire almost every day,” he said.
One person has been killed and two injured in strikes on Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, the regional governor said Thursday. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that “the town of Shebekino was targeted by Ukrainian forces” and “unfortunately, one person was killed”.