Ukraine latest updates: Russia is failing , top US general says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed as inadequate a seventh round of European Union sanctions against Russia, which is currently being finalised.

“This is not enough and I am telling my partners this frankly. Russia must feel a much higher price for the war to force it to seek peace,” he said in a late-night video address.

Russia will not supply oil to the world market if a price cap is imposed, Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak as telling Russian television.

“If these prices that they are talking about are lower than the cost of producing oil, then, of course, Russia will not ensure the supply of this oil to world markets. This means we are simply not going to work at a loss,” it cited Novak as saying.

Germany’s state-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn has said it was planning to transport grain by freight train from Ukraine to Germany’s ports.

Deutsche Bahn said it will transform its network that was set up to transport humanitarian aid to bring grain from Ukraine to the German ports of Rostock, Hamburg and Brake near Bremerhaven.

The railway operator plans to run several trains per week and a large part of the grain would be transported via Romania and Poland, the company said, adding that the company couldn’t yet quantify how much grain it could transport.

“We will move as much grain as possible,” a spokesperson for the company was quoted as saying by the dpa news agency.

US Department of State spokesperson Ned Price has said that Russia’s expanded military focus in Ukraine to annex parts of the country beyond the eastern Donbas region is what the Biden administration has warned about.

“This war is nothing more than a war of territorial conquest,” Price said at a briefing in reaction to comments issued by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

The Russian-installed administration in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia has said that Ukraine had conducted a drone attack on a nuclear power station there, but the reactor was undamaged.

Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-installed administration, wrote on Telegram that three Ukrainian “kamikaze drones” had struck the plant. Rogov told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that the plant’s reactor section was not damaged.

Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, whose employees still run the plant despite the area being under Russian control, issued a statement later accusing Russian forces of demanding access to the machine halls of three reactors at the plant in order to store tanks and equipment there.

Energoatom said, without providing evidence, that Russian troops were doing so for fear of “presents” from Ukraine’s armed forces, an apparent reference to targeted attacks. The company did not comment on the alleged drone impact.

Top US general Mark Milley has stressed that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is failing, despite some recent advances in the east of the country.

“While the Russians have achieved some incremental tactical success in the Donbas over the last several weeks and actually months, they have failed to achieve their strategic and operational objectives,” Milley told reporters.

“A capable and defiant people of Ukraine, their capital still stands, their army still fights and their people are more determined now than ever to preserve their democracy.”

He added that the war continues to be a “battle of attrition” carried out largely through long-range fire.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced that the United States is set to send four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine in the next military aid package, to be announced later this week.

Austin told reporters at the Pentagon that the package will also include additional rockets for the HIMARS and two ground-based air defence systems known as NASAMS.

“The Ukrainians have made excellent use of the HIMARS, and you can see the impact on the battlefield,” he said.

Austin reaffirmed Washington’s commitment “to support Ukraine self-defence for the long haul” as the war drags on.

Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region has not yet been lost to the Russians, a top US general said.

“No, it’s not lost yet,” US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said in a news briefing when asked by a reporter if the region was lost.

Moscow’s military “tasks” in Ukraine now go beyond the eastern Donbas region, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said.

US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has said she welcomed a decision to suspend Ukraine’s debt service obligations by a group of six creditor countries, including the United States, and urged other official and private creditors to join the effort.

The creditor group announcing its intent includes Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US.

“I reiterate the call to all other bilateral official and private creditors to join this initiative and assist Ukraine as it defends itself from Russia’s unprovoked and brutal war, which has had a devastating impact on Ukraine’s people and economy, with spillover effects throughout the world,” Yellen said in a statement.

Ukraine has asked its international creditors, including Western powers and the world’s largest investment firms, to freeze its debt payments for two years so it can focus its dwindling financial resources on repelling Russia.

Facing an estimated 35 percent to 45 percent crash in GDP this year, Ukraine’s finance ministry said it was hoping to finalise the deferral on its roughly $20bn of debt by August 9.

“The disruption to fiscal cash flows and increased demands on government resources caused by the war has created unprecedented liquidity pressures and debt servicing difficulties,” the finance ministry said.

Ukraine’s first lady made an emotional pitch to US legislators for more weapons to fight Russian invaders, saying she spoke for millions of parents fearing for their children.

“We want every father and every mother to be able to tell their child: ‘Go to sleep peacefully, there will be no more air strikes, no more missile strikes.’ Is this too much to wish for?” Olena Zelenska said.

Zelenska acknowledged it was unusual for a first lady to seek weapons but said it was vital.

Ukraine needs air-defence systems “in order for rockets not to kill children in their strollers,” she said. “Help us to stop this terror against Ukrainians.”

A 13-year-old boy was killed by a Russian missile attack as he waited for a bus near a mosque in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv, according to a local official.

A Reuters news agency photograph appeared to show the teenager’s father kneeling as he held the hand of his dead son after the attack.

Rescue workers carried away another corpse on a stretcher, Reuters reported. The bus shelter was reportedly destroyed and the nearby mosque was said to be badly damaged.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov said three people had been killed in the region on Wednesday – the teenager, a man and a woman. It was not clear whether all three had died at the bus stop.

Synehubov said in a Telegram instant messenger post that the dead teenager’s 15-year-old sister had also been wounded by the alleged Russian attack, which he denounced as “another terrible act of terror”. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify his report.

Moscow has repeatedly denied deliberately attacking civilians during its offensive but Russian missile and rocket attacks have devastated many Ukrainian cities and towns.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants a possible deal on resuming Ukrainian grain exports from the Black Sea under a United Nations-led plan to be put in writing this week, according to a statement shared by his office.

“An agreement emerged from the talks in Istanbul last week on the general outline of the process under the UN plan. Now, we want to tie this agreement to a written document,” Erdogan was quoted by his office as telling reporters on a return flight from Tehran, where he met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

On Monday, Ankara said a meeting between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN over the issue would “probably” be held this week.

European Union diplomats have agreed on a new round of sanctions against Moscow, including a ban on importing gold from Russia and freezing the assets of the country’s top lender SberBank.

The sanctions include blacklisting more individuals and entities held responsible for the war, according to the Czech Republic, which currently holds the European Council’s rotating presidency.

The measures are due to take effect on Thursday and mark the seventh round of penalties imposed on Russia by the bloc since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February.

Ukraine has urged its allies to impose more sanctions on Russia and speed up arms deliveries to Kyiv after Moscow said the aims of its self-described “special military operation” had expanded.

“By confessing dreams to grab more Ukrainian land, Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] proves that Russia rejects diplomacy and focuses on war and terror,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, tweeted.

“Russians want blood, not talks. I call on all partners to step up sanctions pressure on Russia and speed up arms deliveries to Ukraine,” he added.

The United Kingdom’s government has set out measures to help the country’s courts stop large businesses and wealthy individuals, including Russian oligarchs, from using its legal system to silence critics.

The measures, announced by Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, are aimed at the so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), which are often used to intimidate journalists and rights advocates with the threat of endless legal action and costs.

“We won’t let those bankrolling Putin exploit the UK’s legal jurisdiction to muzzle their critics,” Raab, who is also justice minister, said in a statement.

In recent years, Russian billionaires and large businesses have used London courts to sue British individuals who have published articles that are critical of them.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said it makes no sense to resume peace talks with Kyiv at the moment as Moscow presses ahead with its offensive in Ukraine.

State news agency RIA Novosti quoted Lavrov as saying that earlier discussions with Ukrainian officials had proved that Kyiv had no “desire to discuss anything in earnest”.

Face-to-face talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held in Turkey in late March failed to produce any breakthrough on ending the war. Discussions between Moscow and Kyiv largely ground to a halt soon afterward, Lavrov said.

Al Jazeera asked Anton Dolin, Russia’s most prominent film critic, about his decision to flee the country in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine and the role of art during the war.

Click here to read the Q&A.

Russia’s defence ministry has said its forces killed more than 60 Ukrainian service personnel during a “high-precision” raid on a marines station in the southwestern Odesa region.

“Long-range sea-based weapons have hit the temporary deployment point of the 35th Marine Brigade in Dachne, Odesa Region, where reservists for the Ukrainian Armed Forces were being trained,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

Konashenkov added that more than 10 units of foreign military equipment were also destroyed in the attack.

He also said Russian forces had struck and destroyed a US-made Harpoon anti-ship missile launcher located elsewhere in the region. Ukraine began receiving the Harpoon missiles from Denmark in May as part of wider Western arms shipments to Kyiv.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv on the Russian defence ministry’s claims. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the ministry’s report.

Ukraine’s western creditor governments have announced they will suspend Kyiv’s debt servicing from August 1 to the end of 2023 and potentially for an additional year.

The group, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, also called on bondholders to consent to Ukraine’s request for a two-year delay on its debt payments.