Jul 30, 2022 10 min read

Russia-Ukraine war: MI6 chief says Russian forces ‘running out of steam’

Photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka runs from a blaze in a burning wheat field in the Kharkiv region Photograph: Mstyslav Chernov/AP

The Guardian - Joe Middleton - Sat 30 Jul 2022 14.57 BST

Russian shelling leaves one dead and strikes school in Kharkiv

Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said on Saturday.

The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv – close to where Ukrainian troops are seeking to stage a counter-offensive – said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight, Agence France-Presse reported.

Six others were wounded in the strikes, which left “windows and doors broken, and balconies destroyed”, Oleksandr Sienkevych wrote on Telegram.

In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility in a strike in the early hours of Saturday, local authorities said.

Firefighters extinguished a blaze and there were no reports of casualties, the authorities said.

Updated at 11.04 BST18m ago14.55

Ukraine hits back at Russian calls to 'hang' Azov fighters

Ukrainian officials on Saturday denounced a call by Russia’s embassy in Britain for fighters from the Azov regiment to face a “humiliating” execution, reported AFP.

The tweet said:

Azov militants deserve execution, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they’re not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death.

Twitter said it violated its rules on “hateful conduct” but put a warning on the tweet rather than ban the post about the Azov, who is a Ukrainian battalion which retains some far-right affiliations.

Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, responded on Telegram:

Russia is a terrorist state. In the 21st century, only savages and terrorists can talk at the diplomatic level about the fact that people deserve to be executed by hanging. Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism. What more evidence is needed?

Updated at 14.57 BST37m ago14.36

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist and argues that western sanctions against Russia are not working:

Western sanctions against Russia are the most ill-conceived and counterproductive policy in recent international history. Military aid to Ukraine is justified, but the economic war is ineffective against the regime in Moscow, and devastating for its unintended targets.

World energy prices are rocketing, inflation is soaring, supply chains are chaotic and millions are being starved of gas, grain and fertiliser. Yet Vladimir Putin’s barbarity only escalates – as does his hold over his own people. To criticise western sanctions is close to anathema. Defence analysts are dumb on the subject. Strategy think tanks are silent.

Britain’s putative leaders, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak compete in belligerent rhetoric, promising ever tougher sanctions without a word of purpose. Yet, hint at scepticism on the subject and you will be excoriated as “pro-Putin” and anti-Ukraine. Sanctions are the war cry of the west’s crusade.

The rouble is soaring and Putin is stronger than ever – our sanctions have backfired

Updated at 14.48 BST

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55m ago14.19

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Kyiv’s ministry of internal affairs, has shared a video of a protest in the capital city that was calling to recognise Russia as state sponsors of terrorism.

Updated at 14.24 BST1h ago13.58

These are some of the latest images to be sent to us over the newswires from Ukraine

A market destroyed by a Russian missile strike in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine on July 30 2022. — A market destroyed by a Russian missile strike in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine on 30 July. Photograph: State Emergency Service Of Ukraine/Reuters

Karina, a former textile worker of Tajik origin, sits in a military vehicle during an interview with AFP in Donbas region, eastern Ukraine, on 26 July. Photograph: Bülent Kılıç/AFP/Getty Images

Relatives of defenders of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol hold a rally outside of Donetsk on 30 July. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Updated at 14.02 BST2h ago13.20

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has shared these pictures of a journalist standing in burning crops.

“These photos are reminders of not only burnt harvest that was supposed to feed the world but also of the inhuman circumstances, in which journalists and photographers are working to tell the world truth about Russia’s atrocities,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.

Updated at 13.35 BST3h ago12.41

An Everton fan who has been helping Ukrainian refugees was brought on to take a penalty during the Premier League team’s preseason match against Dynamo Kyiv, AP has reported.

Paul Stratton, 44, has travelled to Poland to deliver supplies to refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Stratton came on as a substitute towards the end of Everton and Dynamo Kyiv’s “match for peace” at Goodison Park on Friday night.

Everton’s manager, Frank Lampard, gave him instructions on the touchline before Stratton tucked away his penalty.

This was the first “match for peace” in Britain. Dynamo Kyiv has played similar games in other European countries since the start of the war.

The crowd included 2,000 Ukrainian refugees who have been resettled in Merseyside communities. They were given free tickets.

Paul Stratton celebrates scoring Everton’s fourth goal during the preseason friendly with Dynamo Kyiv at Goodison Park on Friday. Photograph: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images

Updated at 12.53 BST3h ago11.55

Russia announced on Saturday it was banning 32 New Zealand officials and journalists from entering its territory, in response to similar measures taken by Wellington against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported.

Among those subjected to sanctions is the mayor of Wellington, Andrew Foster; the mayor of Auckland, Philip Goff; the commander of New Zealand’s navy, Commodore Garin Golding; and the journalist's Kate Green and Josie Pagani, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The decision was taken “in response to the government of New Zealand’s sanctions, which increasingly affect Russian citizens”, the statement said.

In April, Russia banned New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and a host of other politicians from entering its territory.

Updated at 12.28 BST4h ago11.34

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has said the country is ready to begin exporting grain from its Black Sea ports but is waiting for the go-ahead from the UN and Turkey, which brokered a deal with Russia to allow Ukrainian ships safe passage.

Shipments from the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi will be overseen by an Istanbul-based joint coordination centre, which will involve Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN officials.

Updated at 11.41 BST4h ago11.18

Summary

Here is a summary of the latest developments:

Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said on Saturday. The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv said one person was killed when rockets pounded two residential districts overnight, Agence France-Presse reported. In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility, local authorities said.
The Ukrainian military said on Saturday it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps in fighting in the Kherson region, the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines. Reuters reported the military’s southern command as saying rail traffic to Kherson over the Dnipro River had been cut, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and the east.
The US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intended to dismantle Ukraine, Reuters reports. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN security council that the United States was seeing growing signs of Russia laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Gazprom on Saturday suspended gas supplies to Latvia following tensions between Moscow and the west over the conflict in Ukraine and sweeping sanctions against Russia, AFP reports. The company drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20% of its capacity. EU states have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is “running out of steam” in its war on Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday. Moore made the remark above an earlier tweet by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that said the Kremlin was “growing desperate”.
Russia and Ukraine have both launched criminal investigations into strikes that have reportedly killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were held at a pre-trial detention centre in the village of Olenivka after both countries blamed the other side for the attack.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of a “petrifying war crime” over the killings and called on world leaders to “recognise Russia as a terrorist state”.
Ukraine has said it is ready for grain exports to leave its ports again but is waiting for the go-ahead from the United Nations.
A horrific video has emerged that appears to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner, who other reports suggest was subsequently murdered. The footage, reviewed by the Guardian, was originally posted on pro-Russian Telegram channels. Aric Toler, at the investigative outlet Bellingcat, suggested that the video – which shows a Russian soldier, wearing a distinctive black wide-brimmed hat, approaching another figure who has his hands bound and is lying face down with the back of his trousers cut away – appeared to be authentic.
At least five people have been killed and seven injured in a strike on a bus stop in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim. Graphic images from the scene showed the street littered with bodies.
Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that Russia staunchly supported China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, warned the US president, Joe Biden, against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a phone call on Thursday.
Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said on Friday that putting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into operation was not an option as that would only play into Putin’s hands. There is growing anger in Germany over soaring energy prices.
Updated at 11.39 BST4h ago10.59

Russian shelling leaves one dead and strikes school in Kharkiv

Renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s frontline have left one person dead in the south of the country and also hit a school in Kharkiv, officials said on Saturday.

Six others were wounded in the strikes, which left “windows and doors broken, and balconies destroyed”, Oleksandr Sienkevych wrote on Telegram.

In Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, rockets from an S-300 surface-to-air system destroyed part of an educational facility in a strike in the early hours of Saturday, local authorities said.

Firefighters extinguished a blaze and there were no reports of casualties, the authorities said.

Updated at 11.04 BST4h ago10.47

Russia 'running out of steam', says MI6 chief

Russia is “running out of steam” in its war on Ukraine, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Richard Moore, said in a brief comment on Twitter on Saturday.

Moore made the remark above an earlier tweet by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that said the Kremlin was “growing desperate”.

The MoD’s post added:

Russia has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and is using Soviet-era weapons. Their outdated missiles are killing and injuring innocent Ukrainians. Russia won’t win this unjust war.

Running out of steam… https://t.co/bExZXZ3l3z
— Richard Moore (@ChiefMI6) July 30, 2022

Peter Beaumont

Peter Beaumont reports for us from Kyiv:

Volodymyr Zelensky has denounced as a war crime an attack that killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-occupied Donetsk, as both sides traded blame for the deaths.

In a Friday night address, the Ukrainian president said more than 50 died in the assault on Olenivka, calling it “a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war”.

The captured fighters – who Russia’s defense ministry said included members of the Azov battalion, who defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol – should have been protected by guarantees secured by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Zelenskiy, who joined his foreign minister in urging those organizations to intervene and investigate.

Olenivka is about 10km (6 miles) south of the occupied city of Donetsk and close to the frontline. Establishing responsibility is likely to be highly challenging without independent access to the site.

Read more of Peter Beaumont’s report from Kyiv: Prison attack that killed Ukraine PoWs a war crime, says Zelenskiy, amid calls for UN inquiry prison attack that killed Ukraine PoWs a war crime, says Zelenskiy, calls for UN inquiry.