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Russia’s defence ministry said early on Friday that it had thwarted overnight Ukrainian attacks on a naval base in the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula. “Tonight, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the use of two unmanned sea boats, attempted an attack on the Novorossiysk naval base of the Russian Armed Forces,” the ministry said on Telegram. Russian ships destroyed the naval drones, it said. The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk hosts the terminus of a pipeline that carries most Kazakh oil exports through Russia.
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Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has visited a combat zone in Ukraine to inspect a command post and meet senior military officers, the army said Friday. Shoigu got an update on the situation on the front and “thanked commanders and soldiers… for successful offensive operations” in Lyman in eastern Ukraine, it said, without mentioning when the visit took place. The minister, the subject of intense criticism from Yevgeny Prigozhin leading up to the aborted Wagner rebellion, was also shown getting on a Swedish CV90 – “one of the many armoured vehicles taken during fighting”, the army statement said.
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Russian news media is reporting the Kremlin as saying it does not believe a US promise that Washington will help ensure Moscow can freely export food if it returns to the Black Sea grain deal. US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told reporters Thursday: “In the event of return to the agreement, of course, we’ll continue to do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone can export their food and food products freely and safely to include Russia”. Russia has long argued that the failure to reopen an ammonia pipeline to Odesa and cutting off Russia’s agricultural bank from the Swift payment system effectively made it impossible for Russia to export some of its produce.
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The UK’s Ministry of Defence has suggested that Russia has begun striking at Ukraine’s Danube port of Izmail because it has “evolved its risk appetite for conducting strikes near Nato territory”. In its daily intelligence briefing on the war, the MoD said “one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles (OWA UAVs) have struck targets as close as 200 metres from the Romanian border, suggesting that Russia has evolved its risk appetite for conducting strikes near Nato territory. There is a realistic possibility that Russia is using OWA UAVs to strike this area in the belief they are less likely to risk escalation than cruise missiles.”
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Iran’s foreign minister Amir Abdollahian will visit Japan on Sunday and meet his Japanese counterpart and Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida. Japanese media reports that Japan will tell Iran to stop weapon supplies to Russia.
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The EU’s foreign policy chief has written to G20 ministers urging them to help Brussels persuade Vladimir Putin to reopen the main export route for Ukraine grain to countries in Africa and the Middle East. In a letter seen by the Guardian, Josep Borrell warned that Russia’s decision to walk out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) last month was risking the lives of children and others in war-torn countries and conflict zones. He urged the international community to speak on the issue “with a clear and unified voice,” adding: “We owe it to the people most in need.”
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African leaders involved in peace talks over Ukraine have called for the unlocking of Russian grain and fertiliser exports to revive the Black Sea grain deal, South Africa said on Thursday. The group also called for the United Nations to take action to release 200,000 tons of Russian fertiliser blocked in European Union seaports, said Vincent Magwenya, a spokesman for South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.
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Ukraine and the United States started talks on Thursday aimed at providing security guarantees for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said, a follow-up to pledges by G7 countries at last month’s Nato summit. Ukraine was told that the G7 would draw up and honour security guarantees and help bolster its military in light of Russia’s 17-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
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The EU on Thursday banned drone sales to Belarus and added prominent state TV presenters to its sanctions list over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Minsk’s crackdown on opposition.
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Polish and Lithuanian leaders held an urgent meeting on Thursday in a strategically sensitive area where their Nato nations border Belarus and the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, warning that they are bracing for provocations from Moscow and Minsk in the area. Wagner mercenaries are being moved close to Nato’s eastern flank to destabilise the military alliance, Poland’s prime minister said.