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• What we know on day 512 of the invasion

The Belarus Red Cross has sparked international outrage after its chief told Belarusian state television that the organisation is actively involved in bringing Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied areas to Belarus.

A report that aired on Wednesday on Belarus state TV showed Dzmitry Shautsou, the head of the Belarus Red Cross, visiting the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk region.

Spokesperson of the Ukrainian southern operational command Captain of the First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated that the Russian July 19 strikes “happened virtually simultaneously,” and that Russian forces likely attempted to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defense systems.

Ukrainian Air Forces spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated that this attack was the most intense missile and drone attack on Odesa Oblast since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Port bears brunt of missile and drone onslaught, with grain and oil terminal, market and storage said to have been hit

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa has endured a second “hellish night” of attacks, with loud explosions audible throughout the city in the early hours of Wednesday and at least one missile landing within the city limits, as Russia targeted grain facilities and port infrastructure.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 63 missiles and drones at various targets across the country, of which 37 had been shot down, suggesting that more of Russia’s missiles got through air defences than has been the case in recent weeks.

Russia attacks Ukrainian ports; arresting Putin would amount to declaration of war on Russia, South African president says

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had carried out overnight strikes on two Ukrainian port cities in what it called “a mass revenge strike” a day after an attack on the Kursk Bridge, which it blamed on Kyiv. The ministry claiming thats it hit “facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using crewless boats, as well as at the place of their manufacture at a shipyard near the city of Odesa”, and fuel depots in Mykolayiv.

Russia and Ukraine presented vastly different accounts of fighting in northeastern Ukraine on Tuesday, with Moscow reporting advances by its troops and Kyiv saying it had seized the initiative in the region. Both sides reported no letup in the fighting. Ukraine has reported a measure of progress in a counteroffensive launched early last month in the east and in capturing villages in the south, while Moscow says it has contained any move forward by Kyiv’s forces.

Both sides have achieved “marginal advances” in different areas over the past week, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.

There are a “number of ideas being floated” to help get Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertiliser to global markets after Moscow quit a deal allowing the safe export of Ukraine grain through the Black Sea, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The head of USAid accused Putin of making a “life and death decision” affecting millions of the world’s poorest people by withdrawing from the Black Sea grain deal. Speaking in the shadow of several vast grain silos in the key trading port of Odesa, Samantha Power pledged a further $250m to create and expand alternative routes for Ukrainian grain to leave the country, but admitted nothing would compensate for the loss of the Black Sea ports.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, discussed with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, ways of exporting Russian grain via routes “that would not be susceptible to Kyiv and the west’s sabotage”, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has asked permission from the international criminal court not to arrest Russia’s Vladimir Putin, because to do so would amount to a declaration of war, a local court submission published on Tuesday showed. South Africa is due to host a summit of the BRICS club of nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – next month. But the ICC has an arrest warrant out for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. South Africa, as an ICC member, is obliged to arrest him should he appear in person at the summit.

An investigation has identified military units under Russia’s command that carried out human rights abuses last year during the occupation of the Ukrainian city of Izium. The report by the Centre for Information Resilience names four militia units that allegedly abused civilians and prisoners of war.

US General Mark Milley said in a Pentagon briefing that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is far from a failure but the fight ahead will be long. He said: “I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It’s going be hard. It’s going to be bloody.”

Ben Wallace, the outgoing UK defence secretary, said the war in Ukraine is “winnable”, arguing the Nato alliance “does function” as a deterrent against Russia at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change conference in London.

Russia’s parliament has extended the eligibility for military call-up by at least five years – in the case of the highest-ranking officers, up to the age of 70.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday it plans to invest £2.5bn ($3.3bn) in army stockpiles and munitions “to improve fighting readiness”, as it “takes learnings from the war in Ukraine”.

Russian air defences and electronic countermeasure systems downed 28 Ukrainian drones over Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday, the RIA news agency has cited the Russian defence ministry as saying. The drone attacks caused no casualties or damages, the ministry said.

Russian state-owned media is reporting that Russian Federation security services claim to have detained a woman on suspicion of preparing “a terrorist attack” in the Yaroslavl region, to the north of Moscow.

Gen Mark Milley and US Defence Secretary reassert backing for Ukraine and say its forces are making progress against Russia. This live blog is closed

Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak has commented on Russia’s overnight attacks. He posted to Telegram to say:

The Russian night attack on Odesa and Mykolaiv with the use of rockets and kamikaze drones is more proof that the terrorist country wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports.

Thanks to our air force for their efficient work.

This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

Exclusive: Four units from Donbas ‘people’s republics’ allegedly abused civilians in Ukrainian city where mass grave was found

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

An investigation has identified military units under Russia’s command that carried out multiple human rights abuses last year during the occupation of the Ukrainian city of Izium.

In April 2022 Russian forces seized Izium, after a month-long battle. Six months later Ukrainian troops liberated the city in the north-east of the country, during a counteroffensive. They discovered a mass grave, containing 447 bodies including the remains of 22 Ukrainian soldiers, as well as several torture chambers.

Russia says it carried out ‘revenge’ strikes on Odesa and Mykolayiv after Crimea bridge was attacked; Kremlin warns it will be a risk for Ukraine to ship grain without Russian security guarantees

Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had carried out overnight strikes on two Ukrainian port cities in what it called “a mass revenge strike” a day after an attack on the Crimean bridge, which it blamed on Kyiv. The ministry claiming that it hit “facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using crewless boats, as well as at the place of their manufacture at a shipyard near the city of Odesa”, and fuel depots in Mykolayiv.

Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal on Monday, brokered by the UN and Turkey a year ago to alleviate a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported safely. Moscow said the decision was final. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Russia’s decision was “unconscionable” while UN secretary general António Guterres said he did not accept its explanations for why it had terminated the agreement, including the loss of Russian food markets.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the grain deal must continue and could operate without Russian participation. “Africa has the right to stability. Asia has the right to stability,” he said in his nightly video address.

Continuing to ship grain out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports without security guarantees from Russia would carry risks, because Ukraine uses those waters for military activities, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told his regular daily briefing that Moscow rejected US criticism of its withdrawal from the grain deal, and would continue supplying grain to poor countries.

Poland’s agriculture minister, Robert Telus said Russia is using grain as ammunition.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak ommented on Russia’s overnight attacks, saying: “The Russian night attack on Odesa and Mykolaiv with the use of rockets and kamikaze drones is more proof that the terrorist country wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports.”

Kyiv reported a “complicated” situation in fighting in eastern Ukraine and success in parts of the south on Tuesday as it pressed on with its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces. “The situation is complicated but under control [in the east],” Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian ground forces, said on Telegram. He said Russia had concentrated forces in the direction of Kupiansk in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv, but Ukrainian troops were holding them back.

Both sides have achieved “marginal advances” in different areas over the past week, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.

Russian air defences and electronic countermeasure systems downed 28 Ukrainian drones over Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday, the RIA news agency has cited the Russian defence ministry as saying. The drone attacks caused no casualties or damages, the ministry said

Russian state-owned media is reporting that Russian Federation security services claim to have detained a woman on suspicion of preparing “a terrorist attack” in the Yaroslavl region, to the north of Moscow.

Germany’s military has ordered several hundred thousand artillery shells in a deal with Rheinmetall as it works to replenish stocks dented by the war in Ukraine.

More mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner military contractor arrived in Belarus on Monday, a monitoring group said, continuing their relocation to the ex-Soviet nation after last month’s short-lived mutiny. Belaruski Hajun, a Belarusian activist group, said a convoy of more than 100 vehicles carrying Russian flags and Wagner insignia entered the country, heading toward a field camp that Belarusian authorities have offered to the company.

US president Joe Biden will meet with Pope Francis’ peace envoy on Tuesday as part of the Holy See’s peace and humanitarian initiatives for Ukraine. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s two-day visit to Washington follows his recent mission to Moscow and an earlier stop in Kyiv, where he met with Zelenskiy.

Latest missile strike part of series of attacks that began at 2am on Sunday, with one dead and four wounded reported

Russia has continued its assault on Kharkiv, with loud explosions heard in the central district on Sunday evening, just hours after one person was killed and four wounded in an earlier attack.

The governor, Oleh Synyehubov, urged people to take to shelters. Russia had began bombarding the north-eastern Ukrainian city at 2am on Sunday, firing four S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. No one was injured as two were intercepted and the other two landed in a courtyard.

Russia says air defence forces intercepted attacks over port city of Sevastopol; Putin says Russia will take ‘reciprocal’ action if devices used on his troops

• What we know on day 508 of the invasion

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair has said Ukraine has done an “extraordinary” job in defending their country but when asked what endgame looked like he said the path will be “extremely difficult”.

He told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday:

I think there are two issues … it’s extremely difficult to see how you get a solution to this unless it’s very clear that Ukraine has a clear path to European Union membership, and a clear path to Nato membership.

I think probably people will wait and see what happens after this Ukrainian counter offensive. The Ukrainians have done an extraordinary job in defending their country and by the way, defending us by defending their country, but I think it will be how you deal with those two issues together. This is going to be extremely difficult, but I do think once we take stock after the counteroffensive, we’ve got to see if there was a way to bring it to an end with a negotiated end to it.

Territory is going to be the most difficult thing because Ukrainians will never accept the territory that, from an international community point of view has being taken wrongly from them, should be left with with Russia.

Of course, if they are used against us, we reserve the right to take reciprocal action.

Kyiv reports fighting has intensified on eastern front, with its forces on defensive near Kupiansk

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukraine said fighting had intensified on the eastern front as further details emerged about the number of Wagner troops who had relocated to Belarus.

“The situation has somewhat intensified in the east,” the Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said. She added that Ukrainian forces were on the defensive near the eastern city of Kupiansk but making advances near Bakhmut.

Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of shelling civilians; Moscow issues criminal charges against seven in alleged plot to kill top Russian journalists

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling civilians in a village in Zaporizhzhia after three people were wounded in attacks. The head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, said Russian forces bombed the village of Stepnohirske using multiple rocket launchers, hitting an administrative building. Moscow-backed officials claimed it was Kyiv’s forces that shelled a school in the village of Stulneve and air defence forces intercepted a drone over the city of Tokmak. Both sides have denied targeting civilians.

Russia has issued criminal charges against seven people who planned to kill two prominent Russian journalists in an alleged Ukrainian-backed plot, according to the state-owned Tass news agency. Russia’s FSB security service detained an unspecified number of people who conducted reconnaissance near the homes and workplaces of journalists Margarita Simonyan, head of state media outlet RT, and Ksenia Sobchak, who ran against President Vladimir Putin in 2018. The FSB said detainees had admitted preparing attacks on the two women on behalf of Ukraine and had been promised a reward of 1.5m roubles for each one.

South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has pledged to increase his country’s humanitarian and non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine after a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv. Yoon said Seoul would “expand the scale of supplies from last year, when we provided materials such as helmets and bullet-proof vests”, adding that humanitarian aid would be increased to $150m in 2023, from $100m last year.

Vladimir Putin has said the main objective of the deal that allowed Ukrainian grain exports to resume was not achieved, in a call with his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa. The Black Sea grain deal that eased fears of a global food crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine is due to expire late Monday unless Russia agrees to renew it. “The main goal of the deal, namely the supply of grain to countries in need, including on the African continent, has not been implemented,” Putin said according to a Kremlin release.

Ukraine has criticised Bulgaria’s president over his remarks that Kyiv is to blame for Russia’s ongoing war and that supplying arms to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict. President Rumen Radev spoke about the recent Nato summit and said that he wanted “to make it clear that Ukraine insists on fighting this war … But it should also be clear that the bill is paid by the whole of Europe.” The embassy of Ukraine in Sofia rejected Radev’s stance that supplying arms to Ukraine fuels and prolongs the war, saying Kyiv was making all possible efforts to restore peace.

Ukrainians have reacted with bemusement, mild irritation and irony to UK defence secretary Ben Wallace’s comments that the country should be more grateful for the help it is receiving from the UK and other allies as it fights off Russian aggression. Kyiv previously regarded Wallace as a staunch supporter and friend. His remarks – on the second day of the Nato summit in Lithuania last week – mystified officials. “Whether we like it or not, people want to see a bit of gratitude,” Wallace said, asked about President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s frustration at not being given a formal invitation to join Nato.

A large convoy carrying fighters from the Wagner private army was spotted entering Belarus from Russia early on Saturday, according to independent monitoring group Belaruski Hajun. At least 60 trucks, buses and other large vehicles crossed into the eastern European country accompanied by Belarusian police. Belarus’s defence ministry said it planned for the mercenaries and Minsk’s own armed forces to conduct joint military drills.

FSB says it has detained people carrying out reconnaissance near the homes of Margarita Simonyan and Ksenia Sobchak

• What we know on day 507 of the invasion

Russian president Vladimir Putin held a phone call with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa in which the two leaders discussed the Black Sea grain deal and an African peace initiative on Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

On the grain deal, which expires on Monday, Putin reiterated to Ramaphosa that commitments to remove obstacles to Russian food and fertiliser exports had not yet been fulfilled, the Kremlin said.

Zelenskiy says Russia doing everything it can to stop Ukrainian troop advance; Putin says he tried and failed to have Prigozhin replaced as Wagner leader in Ukraine

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukrainians must understand that Russia is deploying all possible resources to stop Kyiv’s forces from advancing in the east and south of Ukraine. It comes after reports of the counteroffensive advancing slowly. The Ukrainian president said on Friday: “We must all understand very clearly, as clearly as possible, that Russian forces in our southern and eastern lands are doing everything they can in order to stop our soldiers.”

The head of the Ukrainian president’s office said battles were difficult but that western allies were not putting pressure on Kyiv to advance faster. Andriy Yermak said: “Today it’s advancing not so quickly. If we are going to see that something is going wrong, we’ll say so. No one is going to embellish.”

Vladimir Putin has said he sought and failed to have Yevgeny Prigozhin replaced as the leader of Wagner’s fighters in Ukraine. Putin’s version of events, which appeared in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, was a surprise admission that the Russian president was still negotiating a takeover of the Wagner mercenary group.

Boris Johnson has criticised Nato’s “mealy mouthed procrastination” and called for a timetable to be drawn up for Ukraine to join, after this week’s difficult summit in Lithuania. Writing in the Daily Mail, the former British prime minister said it was “no wonder” that Volodymyr Zelenskiy “found it hard” to conceal his frustration at the joint declaration released on Tuesday that stopped short of outlining a roadmap to Nato membership.

Vladimir Putin has agreed to extend the Black Sea grain deal, which expires next week, according to the Turkish president. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday that he had spoken with his Russian counterpart about the crucial deal allowing for the export of Ukrainian grain to ease a global food crisis. Moscow played down Erdoğan’s comments, saying an agreement had not yet been reached.

A Kyiv court has ordered pre-trial detention for a senior cleric of a branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with historic links to Moscow on suspicion of sympathising with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian news reports said a Kyiv district court set bail at more than 33 million hryvnias (about $900,000). The church denies the allegations and says it severed all ties with Moscow last year. Metropolitan Pavlo had been under house arrest since April on suspicion of inflaming religious hatred and justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

An alleged Russian intelligence officer has pleaded not guilty to US charges of smuggling American-origin electronics and ammunition to Russia to help its war against Ukraine. Vadim Konoschenok, who was extradited on Thursday from Estonia, entered the plea in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday. Magistrate judge Ramon Reyes ordered Konoschenok, 48, be detained pending trial, after prosecutors called him a flight risk.

Russian air defence systems shot down two UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles that Ukraine had fired at Melitopol and Berdiansk on Thursday, the Russian-imposed leader of occupied Zaporizhzhia, Yevhen Balitsky, has claimed.

Mercenary fighters from Russia’s Wagner group are training Belarusian soldiers in Belarus, the country’s defence ministry has said. “[Wagner] fighters acted as instructors in a number of military disciplines,” it said on Friday.

A Ukrainian court has jailed a man for 10 years after finding him guilty of plotting with Russia to blow up transport infrastructure to disrupt foreign arms supplies. Ukraine’s domestic security agency said it detained the man in February before he had been able to carry out his mission.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy held a meeting with Ukraine’s intelligence chief and said on Telegram that according to intelligence data, there was no threat of invasion from Belarus.

Russia has accused the west of sponsoring “nuclear terrorism” after authorities said a Ukrainian drone struck the western Russian town of Kurchatov, where a nuclear power station similar to the Chornobyl plant is located. Roman Starovoit, the Kursk oblast governor, said on Telegram that no residents were injured. “Critical facilities were not damaged as a result of the drone crash and its subsequent detonation.”