Russian- Ukraine latest news today: Lukashenko and Putin taunt Poland with Wagner troops at border

Russian missiles hit apartment block and Ukrainian security service building in Dnipro

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Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and Russian president Vladimir Putin have taunted Poland over the presence of Wagner troops near Poland’s border.

Lukashenko said Poles “should pray that we’re holding onto (the Wagner fighters) and providing for them. Otherwise, without us, they would have seeped through and smashed up Rzeszow and Warsaw in no small way. So they shouldn’t reproach me, they should say thank you,” reported state news agency Belta.

Since staging a brief mutiny in Russia in June, an unspecified number of Wagner fighters have moved to Belarus to begin training Lukashenko’s army. As such, Poland has moved over 1,000 of its own troops closer to the border.

On Saturday, Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said a group of 100 Wagner fighters had moved closer to the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish border, describing the situation as “increasingly dangerous.”

“Suddenly, I hear recently, Poland went berserk that allegedly some detachment is coming here, as many as 100 people,” Lukashenko said.

“No Wagner detachments of 100 people moved here. And if they did, then only to transfer their military experience to (Belarusian) brigades concentrated in Brest and Grodno.”

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Lukashenko taunts Poland again over Wagner troops near border

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday taunted Poland over the presence of Russian Wagner mercenaries near the NATO country’s border, saying Warsaw should thank him for keeping them in check.

An unspecified number of the Wagner fighters who staged a brief mutiny in Russia in June have since moved to Belarus and have begun training Lukashenko’s army, prompting Poland to start moving more than 1,000 of its own troops closer to the border.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, joked at a meeting with him last month that some of the fighters were keen to press into Poland and “go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszow”.

State news agency Belta quoted him on Tuesday as saying that the Poles “should pray that we’re holding onto (the Wagner fighters) and providing for them. Otherwise, without us, they would have seeped through and smashed up Rzeszow and Warsaw in no small way. So they shouldn’t reproach me, they should say thank you.”

Rzeszow is a city in southeast Poland near the Ukrainian border.

On Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said a group of 100 Wagner fighters had moved closer to the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish border, describing the situation as “increasingly dangerous”.

Lukashenko, in his latest comments, appeared at first to deny that, then immediately to row back on the denial.

“Suddenly, I hear recently, Poland went berserk that allegedly some detachment is coming here, as many as 100 people,” he said.

“No Wagner detachments of 100 people moved here. And if they did, then only to transfer their military experience to (Belarusian) brigades concentrated in Brest and Grodno.”

Lukashenko has helped Putin in the Ukraine war by letting him launch it in part from Belarusian territory and allowing the use of his bases to train Russian troops.

He has not committed his own troops to the war but has said they will benefit from training by Wagner, which took part in some of the fiercest battles of the conflict.

“I have to teach my military, because an army that does not fight is half an army,” he said.

(AP)

Eleanor Noyce1 August 2023 19:52

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Torture, sexual violence commonly used by Russian forces in Ukraine, say experts

A large number of prisoners held in makeshift detention centres in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine were tortured and sexually violated, a team of international experts said today citing a summary of their latest findings.

Around 320 cases and witness accounts at 35 locations in the Kherson region have been reviewed by the Mobile Justice Team.

Of the victims’ accounts reviewed “43 per cent explicitly mentioned practices of torture in the detention centres, citing sexual violence as a common tactic imposed on them by Russian guards”, a statement said.

At least 36 victims interviewed by prosecutors mentioned the use of electrocution during interrogations, often genital electrocution, as well as threats of genital mutilation. One victim was forced to witness the rape of another detainee, the report said.

Detainees most likely to undergo torture were military personnel, it found, but also law enforcement, volunteers, activists, community leaders, medical workers and teachers. The torture techniques most commonly used were suffocation, waterboarding, severe beatings and threats of rape, it found.

The Mobile Justice Team, established by the international humanitarian law firm Global Rights Compliance, has worked with Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors in the Kherson region since it was reclaimed in November after more than eight months under Russian control.

Ukrainian authorities are reviewing more than 97,000 reports of war crimes and have filed charges against 220 suspects in domestic courts. High-level perpetrators could be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which has already sought the arrest of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Arpan Rai2 August 2023 06:53

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Halted Ukraine grain deal, funding shortages rattle UN food aid programs

A landmark grain deal that was recently stopped by Russia and that allowed Ukrainian grain to flow to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia is rattling the operations of the UN’s food agency along with donor’s fatigue, the world agency’s deputy executive director said.

“What we have to do now is to look elsewhere (for grain) of course,” Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program said.

“We don’t know exactly where the market will land, but there might well be an increase in food prices.”

Arpan Rai2 August 2023 06:17

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Russia strikes port, grain storage in Odesa

Russian drones attacked port and grain storage facilities in the south of Ukraine’s coastal Odesa region in the early hours today, setting some of them on fire, regional governor Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian media reported the drones arrived from the Black Sea and then moved west along the Danube river towards Izmail, a key port from which Ukrainian grain is taken by barge to the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta for shipment onwards.

There have been no reports of casualties, he said. Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure after refusing to extend the Black Sea grain deal that had allowed for exports of Ukrainian grain.

Also, for the first time since the expiration of the grain deal, several foreign cargo ships arrived in the Izmail port via the Black Sea on Sunday, Ukrainian media reported.

Another Russian attack in late July targeted the Izmail port terminal on the Danube delta, destroying a grain warehouses.

Arpan Rai2 August 2023 06:06

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US says signals Russia prepared to return to Black Sea grain deal talks

The United States has been told that Russia is prepared to return to talks on a deal that had allowed the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, but “we haven’t seen any evidence of that yet,” the US envoy to the UN said.

Russia quit the deal on 17 July.

The US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that if Russia wants to get its fertilizer to global markets and facilitate agricultural transactions “they’re going to have to return to this deal.”

“We have seen indications that they might be interested in returning to discussions. So we will wait to see whether that actually happens,” she said, without giving further details.

Arpan Rai2 August 2023 05:20

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Ukraine and Poland call in envoys after war support comments

Ukraine and Poland called in the ambassadors from each other’s countries amid growing tussle after a foreign policy adviser to Poland’s president said Kyiv should show more appreciation for Warsaw’s support in its war with Russia.

The adviser, Marcin Przydacz, also said the Polish government must defend the interests of the country’s farmers – a reference to a ban on imports of Ukrainian commodities which will expire next month.

Volodymyr Zelensky issued a plea for unity amid the diplomatic manoeuvring, saying there could be no “crack” in the shield that solid Polish support had provided for Ukraine.

Kyiv and Warsaw have been firm allies throughout the conflict that erupted with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But the exchanges reflected contentious issues.

Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko said the Polish ambassador was told in the meeting that statements about Ukraine’s alleged ungratefulness for Poland’s help were “untrue and unacceptable”.

“We are convinced that Ukrainian-Polish friendship is much deeper than political expediency. Politics should not call into question the mutual understanding and strength of relations between our peoples,” a Ukrainian statement said.

Poland also called in the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw in response to the “comments of representatives of Ukrainian authorities,” Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

Arpan Rai2 August 2023 04:21

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Explosions and drone debris hit Kyiv in overnight attacks – officials

Debris from drones fell in three districts of Kyiv overnight as anti-aircraft units worked to shoot down the aerial munitions in the Ukrainian capital, mayor Vitali Klitschko and other military officials said.

The residual drone had fallen in the central Solomianskyi district and a non-residential building had been damaged. Emergency services were on site, Mr Klitschko said.

He added that the debris had also fallen in the Svyatoshyn district – further west – and that a tree had caught fire.

Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said debris also came down in a playground in the Holosiivskyi district, near the city centre, and set fire to a non-residential building. Neither official reported injuries.

Air raid alerts were lifted for the capital, the surrounding Kyiv region and most other parts of the country.

Arpan Rai2 August 2023 03:57

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Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

Ukraine has fought back courageously against Mr Putin’s warped bid to restore territory lost to Moscow with the collapse of the Soviet Union and has continued to defy the odds by defending itself against Russian onslaughts with the help of Western military aid.

Eleanor Noyce2 August 2023 03:00

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The Crimean Peninsula is both a playground and a battleground, coveted by Ukraine and Russia

Its balmy beaches have been vacation spots for Russian czars and Soviet general secretaries. It has hosted history-shaking meetings of world leaders and boasts a strategic naval base. And it has been the site of ethnic persecutions, forced deportations and political repression.

Now, as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its 18th month, the Crimean Peninsula is again both a playground and a battleground, with drone attacks and bombs seeking to dislodge Moscow’s hold on the territory and bring it back under Kyiv’s authority, no matter how loudly the Kremlin proclaims its ownership.

Eleanor Noyce2 August 2023 02:00

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Mapped: The latest strikes on Ukraine and Russia as war rages on

“Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” he said in a video address from the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

Russia’s defence ministry conceded on Sunday (30 July) that a 50-storey building containing the offices of a number of government agencies and a shopping precinct in the capital’s western Moskva-Citi business district were both hit by drone strikes it blamed on Ukraine, claiming to have brought down three more devices.

Eleanor Noyce2 August 2023 01:00