Russia-Ukraine live news: UN, Moscow discuss Zaporizhzhia plant
UN chief Guterres holds phone call with Russian Defence Minister Shoigu on safe functioning of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant.
- Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu holds talks with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
- Moscow says it will facilitate a visit by the UN’s nuclear watchdog to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, following reports of shelling.
- Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu holds talks with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
- Moscow says it will facilitate a visit by the UN’s nuclear watchdog to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, following reports of shelling.
- Brittney Griner’s legal team has appealed the US basketball star’s conviction by a Russian court for narcotics possession and trafficking.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to expand ties with North Korea amid Western condemnation.
This live blog is now closed, thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war on Monday, August 15:
Russian fighter jet escorts UK aircraft out of airspace: ministry
Russia’s defence ministry has said a United Kingdom reconnaissance aircraft violated the Russian air border near the Cape Svyatoy Nos, located between the Barents Sea and the White Sea in northwestern Russia.
A Russian fighter jet forced the UK aircraft out of its airspace, the ministry added in a statement.
Norway delivers all the gas it can to Germany: Norway PM
Norway is delivering all the gas it can to Germany, according to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
“Norway delivers as much gas as possible to Germany,” Store told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Russia’s Shoigu, UN’s Guterres discuss safe functioning of Zaporizhzhia plant
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has held a phone call with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss conditions for the safe functioning of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to the ministry.
During the call, Shoigu and Guterres also discussed initiatives to ease conditions for exports of Russian food products and fertilisers, the Russian ministry added in a statement.
Separatist court charges five foreigners as mercenaries: Russian media
A Russian-backed separatist court in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk has charged five foreign nationals, who were captured fighting with Ukrainian forces, with being mercenaries on Monday, saying three could face the death penalty, according to Russian media.
UK national John Harding, Croatian Vjekoslav Prebeg and Swedish citizen Mathias Gustafsson, who were apprehended in and around the port city of Mariupol, face a possible death sentence, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported.
TASS cited the judge as saying that the trial would resume in early October.
UN can facilitate IAEA visit to power plant if Russia, Ukraine agree
The United Nations has said “it has in Ukraine the logistics and security capacity to be able to support any IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from Kyiv, should both Russia and Ukraine agree”.
The power plant, Europe’s largest, was seized by Russian soldiers in the opening days of the invasion of Ukraine and has remained on the front line ever since.
The plant has come under shelling in recent days, with both Moscow and Kyiv accusing each other of risking a nuclear accident.
Germany’s Scholz: Russian tourist ban should not harm dissidents
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said while there was room for a European-level debate on banning Russian tourists, it was important not to make life harder for Kremlin opponents to flee Russia.
“What is important for us is that we understand there are a lot of people fleeing from Russia because they disagree with the Russian regime,” he said, following a meeting with leaders of the Nordic countries in Oslo.
“All the decisions we take should not make it more complicated to leave the country, for getting away from the leadership and the dictatorship in Russia,” he added.
Location of first ship to leave Ukraine carrying grain unknown
The first grain ship to leave Ukraine under a wartime deal has had its cargo resold several times and there is now no information about its location and cargo destination, the Ukrainian embassy in Beirut has said.
The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, which left Odesa on August 1 and moved through the Black Sea carrying Ukrainian corn, later passed inspection in Turkey.
It was initially heading for Lebanon with 26,000 metric tons of corn, but the buyer refused to accept the cargo since it was delivered much later than agreed.
“We don’t have any information about [the] position of the vessel and cargo destination,” the Ukrainian embassy said in a statement. “We have also information that cargo has been resold a few times after that.”
Austria commits to neutrality, even as Russia destroys Ukraine
Room for geopolitical neutrality has shrunk across Europe since February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.
The continent’s evolving security architecture has prompted Sweden and Finland to abandon their historic non-alignment and push to join NATO.
However, Austria continues to sit on the fence and Vienna has no plans to join the transatlantic military alliance despite the ongoing war.
Read more here.
Russia unveils model of new space station
Russia’s space agency has unveiled for the first time a physical model of what a planned new Russian-built space station will look like, suggesting Moscow is serious about abandoning the International Space Station (ISS) and going it alone.
Russia’s national space agency Roskosmos presented a model of the planned space station, dubbed “ROSS” by Russian state media, on Monday at “Army-2022”, a military-industrial exhibition outside Moscow.
Yuri Borisov, whom Putin appointed last month to head Roskosmos, has said Russia will quit the ISS after 2024 and is working to develop its own orbital station.
Read more here.
Explosive item kills three swimmers off Ukrainian Black Sea beach
Three civilians have been killed and two others wounded by an explosive device while swimming in the Black Sea in Ukraine’s southwestern region of Odesa, according to local police.
Police said the accident happened on Sunday when several people working on a construction site ignored barriers and warning signs on the beach and went swimming in the sea in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi district.
“In the water, as a result of an explosion of an unknown object, three men aged 25, 32 and 53 years old … were killed,” the police said in a written statement. The statement added that another man and a woman had been wounded.
Ukrainian authorities closed sea beaches in recent months amid Russia’s invasion. Ukraine’s military also planted mines along the coast in case of a Russian amphibious assault, cordoning off beach entrances with red and white tape.
Russia will ‘do everything necessary’ to facilitate IAEA visit to Zaporizhzhia plant
Russia will do “everything necessary” to allow specialists from the United Nations nuclear watchdog to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, a spokeswoman for the country’s foreign ministry has said.
“In close cooperation with the Agency and its leadership, we will do everything necessary for the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] specialists to be at the station and give a truthful assessment of the destructive actions of the Ukrainian side,” Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
Zakharova also called for Kyiv’s Western allies, including the United States and the 27-member European Union, to force a stop to what she claimed was persistent Ukrainian shelling of the site and nearby areas.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, was captured by Russian forces in March. It has come under shelling in recent weeks, with both Moscow and Kyiv accusing each other of being behind the attacks and risking a major nuclear accident.
Putin says Russia ready to sell arms to allies
President Putin says Moscow is ready to offer modern weapons to its allies, adding it values its ties with countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
“[We] are ready to offer our allies the most modern types of weapons, from small arms to armoured vehicles and artillery to combat aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles,” he said at the opening ceremony of the “Army-2022” forum, an arms show being held near Moscow.
“Almost all of them have been used more than once in real combat operations,” he added.
Putin was speaking nearly six months after Russia launched its invasion in Ukraine, an offensive that has seen Moscow suffer repeated setbacks and heavy losses.
Western military analysts say the poor performance of Russian troops and weaponry could make its arms exports less attractive to potential buyers, such as India, which have heavily relied on its technology in the past.
Saudi Kingdom Holding Co invested $500m in Russian firms at start of war
Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Company, the investment firm controlled by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, quietly invested more than $500m in three major Russian energy companies between February and March, regulatory filings have revealed.
Kingdom in February invested in global depository receipts of Gazprom and Rosneft worth 1.37 billion Saudi riyals ($365m) and 196 million riyals ($52m) respectively, filings showed on Sunday as part of a lengthy disclosure of recent investments.
The firm also invested 410 million riyals ($109m) in Lukoil’s US depository receipts between February and March. It gave no reason for any of its specific investments.
Kingdom Holding, which is 16.9 percent owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had previously not revealed the details of its investments.
What will ‘referendums’ in Ukraine’s occupied regions look like?
Moscow-appointed officials in occupied Ukraine say they are planning to stage votes on the regions joining Russia, but Kyiv, its Western allies and observers say the ballots will lack legitimacy.
Read more here.
Dutch court to announce ruling in MH17 murder trial in November
The Dutch court handling the murder trial of four suspects in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 has said it will hand down its verdict on November 17.
Prosecutors say the one Ukrainian and three Russian defendants, who are all at large, helped supply a missile system that Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine used to fire a rocket at the plane on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board were killed.
The prosecution is seeking life terms for all suspects.
Moscow, Pyongyang believe they ‘have something to offer to one another’: Analyst
Mason Richey, an associate professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul and specialist on North Korea, says Moscow and Pyongyang appear to believe “they need each other and have something to offer to one another”.
“Both Moscow and Pyongyang are under extensive sanctions, and in the case of North Korea, have been for a long time now. So both of these countries have been limited with respect to how they can interact with the international economic community,” Richey told Al Jazeera from the South Korean capital.
“In the case of North Korea, they can send workers for instance to Russia, notably in the far east, and Russia will be an additional import/export market or one that would be larger if they were to extend their economic relationship,” he added.
“This is important for North Korea not only as a source of financial stability and international currency but also as a source of diversification away from too much reliance on China. And in the case of Russia, they could gain workers for the far east, and it [North Korea] is also an important import-export market for them as well.
“After the Ukraine invasion, Russia could also use other partners not only for the direct economic exchange but also because of the geostrategic implications of … a bloc of authoritarian states who are pushing back against the West.”
UK defence ministry maps Russian attacks, troop locations
The UK’s defence ministry has published its latest map showing Russian attacks and troop locations in Ukraine.
The map indicates Russian forces are pressing to make gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas and northeastern Kharkiv regions.
It also indicates that Ukrainian troops are staging counterattacks in the country’s south in a bid to reclaim territory captured by Moscow earlier in the war.
The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is continuing.
The map below is the latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 15 August 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/x42xdnOdvu
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/d7IcBtpzeg
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) August 15, 2022
What happens if Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant explodes?
Kyiv and Moscow have traded accusations over recent shelling at and near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, raising fears of a potential disaster at the site.
Click here for Al Jazeera’s explainer on the possible consequences of any serious damage to the facility.
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Brittney Griner defence team appeals against Russian drugs conviction: Report
Jailed US basketball player Brittney Griner has appealed against her conviction for narcotics possession and trafficking, according to her lawyer.
Maria Blagovolina told the Reuters news agency that Griner’s defence team had lodged the appeal after the 31-year-old was sentenced to nine years in Russian prison earlier this month.
Griner, who had played for a Russian club, was arrested at a Moscow airport on February 17 after cannabis-infused vape cartridges were found in her luggage.
She pleaded guilty to the charges but said she had made an “honest mistake” by entering Russia with cannabis oil, which is illegal in the country.
Read more here.
Risks of disaster at nuclear plant ‘increasing every day’: Mayor
The risk of disaster at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant occupied by Russian troops is “increasing every day”, the mayor of Energodar, where the facility is located, has warned.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, was seized by Russian soldiers in the opening days of the invasion of Ukraine, and has remained on the front line ever since. Last week, the facility came under fire repeatedly, with Kyiv and Moscow trading blame for the incidents.
Energodar mayor said on Sunday that “the risks are increasing every day”.
“What is happening there is outright nuclear terrorism,” Dmytro Orlov said from Zaporizhzhia. “It can end unpredictably at any moment.”
Russian gas flows to Europe appear stable
Russian gas flows to Europe via some key pipeline routes appear to be steady, operator data shows.
Physical flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany were at 14,554,412 kilowatt hours per hour (kWh/h) at 08:00-09:00 CET (07:00-08:00 GMT) on Monday morning, similar to the previous 24 hours.
Eastbound gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Poland from Germany were also stable, data from operator Gascade showed. Exit flows at the Mallnow metering point on the German border were 2,520,133 kWh/h, little changed from midnight.
Nominations for Russian gas flows into Slovakia from Ukraine via the Velke Kapusany border point were about 36.4 million cubic metres (mcm) 91,285 cubic feet) per day, little changed from the previous day, data from the Ukrainian system operator showed.
Putin says Russia and North Korea will expand bilateral relations
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the two countries will “expand the comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations with common efforts”, Pyongyang’s state media has reported.
In a letter to Kim for North Korea’s liberation day, Putin said closer ties would be in both countries’ interests and would help strengthen the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the Northeastern Asian region, the KCNA news agency said.
Kim also sent a letter to Putin saying Russian-North Korean friendship had been forged in World War II with victory over Japan, which had occupied the Korean peninsula.
The “strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity” between the two countries has since reached a new level in their common efforts to frustrate threats and provocations from “hostile forces”, Kim said in the letter. Pyongyang did not identify the hostile forces, but it has typically used that term to refer to the United States and its allies.
Wall Street revives Russian bond trading: Reuters
Several major Wall Street banks have begun offering to facilitate trades in Russian debt in recent days, according to bank documents seen by the Reuters news agency, giving investors another chance to dispose of assets widely seen in the West as toxic.
Most US and European banks had pulled back from the market in June after the Treasury Department banned US investors from buying any Russian security as part of economic sanctions to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine, investors who hold Russian securities and two banking sources told Reuters.
Following subsequent guidelines from the Treasury in July that allowed US holders to wind down their positions, the largest Wall Street firms have cautiously returned to the market for Russian government and corporate bonds, the agency reported, citing emails, client notes and other communications from six banks as well as interviews with the sources.
New Zealand to deploy 120 soldiers to UK to train Ukraine troops
New Zealand is sending 120 military personnel to the UK to help train Ukrainians in front-line combat, its government has said.
The deployment will enable two infantry training teams to equip about 800 Ukrainian personnel with the core skills to be effective in combat, including weapon handling, combat first aid, operational law and other skills, the government said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, during a news conference announcing the deployment, stressed that New Zealand troops have not and would not engage in combat in Ukraine.
Renewed Russian assaults in east, south, says Ukraine
Ukrainian forces have reported heavy Russian shelling and attempts to advance on several towns in the country’s eastern region of Donetsk, which has become a key focus of the near six-month war, but say they had repelled many of the attacks.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also reported Russian shelling of more than a dozen towns on the southern front – particularly in the mainly Russia-controlled Kherson region, where Ukrainian troops are steadily recapturing territory.
Heavy fighting has focused on the village of Pisky, near Donetsk airport, the British Ministry of Defence said in its latest daily intelligence update on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Russia said its forces had taken control of Udy, a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region.