August 2, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni, carrying Ukrainian grain, is seen in the Black Sea off Kilyos, near Istanbul, Turkey on August 2.

Ukrainian authorities have welcomed the arrival in Turkey of the first grain shipment to leave the Black Sea port of Odesa since Russia began its invasion. 

“The first cargo ship RAZONI with corn arrived in Istanbul. Our allies are helping us to fight #RussianAggression, and Ukraine is helping the [world] to prevent hunger crisis,” Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Twitter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this shipment must be the first of many to ensure food security internally and across the world.

Zelensky accused Russia of provoking the food crisis to use “the supply of wheat, corn, oil as a weapon.”

“Russia creates a deficit, plays to raise prices, and when this provokes social unrest, it demands political concessions. It should not work with food,” the Ukrainian president said.

“But when the world is united, when partners fulfill their commitments, the necessary result can be achieved. Let’s see how the grain initiative will work in the coming days,” he added.

The M/V Razoni, the first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa since Russia began its invasion, is seen in the Black Sea off Kilyos, near Istanbul, Turkey, on August 2.

The M/V Razoni, the first shipment of grain to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa since Russia began its invasion, has arrived in the Black Sea entrance of the Bosphorus channel of Istanbul, Turkey’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Tuesday night.

The Razoni has anchored to the place that has been designated for the ship, the Ministry of Defense added.

The first inspection on the grain ship, which is heading to Lebanon, will be carried out in Istanbul on Wednesday around 10 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET), Turkey’s Ministry of Defense said earlier.

“Inspection will be carried out by a Delegation consisting of representatives of Turkey, Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the UN on the dry cargo ship Razoni, carrying 27 thousand tons of corn with the flag of Sierra Leon, leaving the Ukrainian port of Odesa,” Turkey’s Defense Ministry said.

The Ukrainian air force says that Russian bombers launched a cruise missile attack on Tuesday afternoon.

It said Tu-95 strategic bombers were used to fire eight cruise missiles at Ukrainian territory.

The air force said that 7 of the 8 missiles were shot down — most of them by anti-aircraft missile forces.

One missile had struck an anti-aircraft missile complex in the western Lviv region. Damage was being assessed. 

Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, chief executive officer of PhosAgro, speaks in an interview at the opening press conference during the World Chess Tournament on March 9, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.

US President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday took a series of actions targeting Russian elites — including several with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin — in its latest attempt to penalize the Kremlin for its ongoing war in Ukraine.

In a statement, the Treasury Department announced a new round of sanctions against a number of oligarchs, a major steel production company and two of its subsidiaries, as well as a financial institution accused of running a sanctions evasion operation and its general director.

Separately, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced sanctions on three oligarchs, a Russian state-owned company overseen by the Russian Ministry of Transport, “four individuals and one entity illegitimately operating in Ukraine’s territory in collaboration with Russia,” and 24 Russian defense and technology-related entities.

The US is also imposing visa restrictions on 893 Russian Federation officials and “31 foreign government officials who have acted to support Russia’s purported annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and thereby threatened or violated Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Blinken said.

Many of the designations announced by the US target oligarchs who were previously sanctioned by allies like the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the European Union. The actions come as the war in Ukraine nears its sixth-month mark. 

The oligarchs sanctioned by the State Department Tuesday are Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko, Alexander Anatolevich Ponomarenko and Dmitry Aleksandrovich Pumpyanskiy. The yacht Axioma was identified as blocked property in which Pumpyanskiy has an interest, the State Department said in a fact sheet. 

According to that fact sheet, Ponomarenko “is an oligarch with close ties to other oligarchs and the construction of Vladimir Putin’s seaside palace” who has previously been sanctioned by the UK, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Among the oligarchs sanctioned by the Treasury Department Tuesday is Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, the Russian billionaire founder of the chemical company PhosAgro and former government official described by the Treasury as “a known close associate” of Putin. He is also sanctioned by the UK, and according to the US Treasury, he “owns the Witanhurst estate, which is the second largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace.”

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday identified the yacht Alfa Nero, reportedly owned by AG Guryev, as blocked property.

Another close ally of Putin, Alina Maratovna Kabaeva, was sanctioned Tuesday. Kabaeva is a former State Duma member and current head of the National Media Group, “a pro-Kremlin empire of television, radio, and print organizations.” According to the Treasury Department, “she has also been sanctioned by the EU and the UK.”

AG Guryev’s son, Andrey Andreevich Guryev, was also sanctioned by the US Tuesday, after previously being sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, and the UK, as was his investment firm Dzhi AI Invest OOO.

Natalya Valeryevna Popova was sanctioned “for operating or having operated in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy, and for being or having been a leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of LLC VEB Ventures,” which is a sanctioned entity. She was also sanctioned for being the wife of Kirill Aleksandrovich Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Both he and the RDIF were sanctioned in the days following the start of the war. 

The Joint Stock Company Promising Industrial and Infrastructure Technologies, “a financial institution owned by the Russian Federal Agency for State Property Management,” and its General Director Anton Sergeevich Urusov were sanctioned Tuesday in relation to alleged sanctions evasion. 

According to the Treasury Department, “JSC PPIT attempted to facilitate the circumvention of sanctions imposed on the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).”

The Treasury Department sanctioned Publichnoe Aktsionernoe Obschestvo Magnitogorskiy Metallurgicheskiy Kombinat (MMK), described as “one of the world’s largest steel producers,” the chair of its board of directors Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov — who has also been sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the EU, Switzerland and the UK — and two of MMK’s subsidiaries.

“MMK is one of Russia’s largest taxpayers, providing a substantial source of revenue to the Government of the Russian Federation,” the Treasury Department said. The agency has authorized a wind-down period for transactions with MMK and one of its subsidiaries. 

A person drives a car past a crater on Kherson's Antonovsky bridge across the Dnipro River on July 21.

Ukrainian officials say that tensions are growing in the southern Kherson region as Russian forces try to both avoid the impact of long-range Ukrainian weaponry and reinforce their defensive positions.

Serhii Khlan, adviser to the head of Kherson civil military administration, said Tuesday that “the Russians are gradually transferring personnel, battalion tactical groups and equipment to Kherson.”

Khlan said that after the destruction of two bridges across the Dnipro river, a large accumulation of traffic had built up at the bridge next to a hydroelectric plant in Kakhovka.

Khlan said there was a great danger that there could be street battles in Kherson, though Ukrainian forces are still a distance from population centers in the region.

Separately, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russian forces had experienced an accident when unloading a train of ammunition and equipment on Monday at the Kalanchak railway station in the Kherson region. They had set up a smoke screen to hide the unloading, but there was then an explosion and Russian troops scattered, according to Ukraine.  

The directorate also provided more details about a reported explosion at Brylivka station on the night of July 29. It claimed that a train of more than 40 wagons with manpower, equipment and ammunition was struck.

The Ukrainian military said that the Russian military had evicted residents from their houses near the railway station so that the locals would not inform Ukrainian forces about the movement of Russian army equipment.

Fighting also continues in the north of the Kherson region. Dmytro Butriy, acting head of Kherson region military administration, said 53 settlements had been taken back from the Russians, but almost the whole area was under constant shelling.

“The situation in these villages is catastrophic,” he said. 

The Gazprom Neft's Moscow oil refinery is seen on the southeastern outskirts of Moscow on April 28.

The G7 is considering further options to stop Russia “profiting from its war of aggression and to curtail Russia’s ability to wage war,” according to a statement from the forum’s foreign ministers on Tuesday.

Such options could include “a comprehensive prohibition of all services that enable transportation of Russian seaborne crude oil and petroleum products globally” unless the oil was purchased at or below a set price, the statement said. 

The foreign ministers said Russia is using energy as “a tool of geopolitical coercion” and that they would work together to reduce G7 countries demand on Russian energy, while protecting the most vulnerable groups from the impacts of supply disruptions and rising prices. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg from his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on August 2.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg held a phone call on Tuesday to discuss the alliance’s military support to Kyiv. 

“Good call w/Pres [Zelensky] on priorities for military support,” Stoltenberg tweeted on Tuesday. “It’s vital that #NATO & Allies provide even more assistance to #Ukraine even faster.”

Zelensky’s office echoed Stoltenberg’s remarks, calling on Ukraine’s allies to send military support at a faster rate.

“In addition, Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of receiving non-lethal military aid from the Alliance as soon as possible in the framework of the comprehensive package approved at the Madrid NATO Summit,” according to the statement.

The two sides also highlighted the resumption of grain shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

US basketball player Brittney Griner stands in a defendants' cage before a court hearing during her trial on charges of drug smuggling, in Khimki, outside Moscow, Russia, on August 2.

WNBA star Brittney Griner is “focused” and “nervous” after the seventh hearing in her trial in Russia ended on Tuesday without a verdict, one of her lawyers told CNN in an interview outside the courthouse in Khimki, near Moscow.

“She’s still focused, and she’s still nervous. And she still knows that the end is near, and of course she heard the news so she’s hoping that sometime she could be coming home and we hope too,” said lawyer Maria Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners law firm, adding that closing debates are expected Thursday.

Blagovolina said Griner’s legal team is “confident” about a positive verdict but was awaiting the court’s decision.

Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges early last month to try to mitigate her sentence. The 31-year-old Olympic medalist has been held in Russia since February on allegations of attempted drug smuggling, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in Russia.

Asked about their team’s strategy to challenge Russian prosecutors’ evidence after Griner pleaded to drug charges, Blagovolina said: “There are a lot of factors which should be taken by the court into account. She admitted that she did bring something, but we need to know what did she bring, what substance.”

Blagovolina also told CNN her team’s experts identified “a few defects” in the machines used to measure the substance.

The Kremlin has warned that US “megaphone diplomacy” will not help negotiations for a prisoner exchange regarding basketball star Brittney Griner.

Moscow believes these talks should be “discrete,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

“Megaphone diplomacy and public exchange of positions will not lead to results here,” Peskov added.

Amid this pressure and after months of internal debate, the Biden administration proposed a prisoner swap with Russia, offering to release a convicted Russian arms trafficker in exchange for Griner and another American detainee, Paul Whelan, people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Russian officials replied to the US prisoner swap offer, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, requesting that in addition to arms dealer Viktor Bout, the US also include a convicted murderer who was formerly a colonel with the Russian spy agency, Vadim Krasikov.

The UN Secretary-General has cautioned that humanity is just “one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” as “geopolitical tensions are reaching new highs,” and “distrust has replaced dialogue.” Meanwhile, the first ship loaded with grain to leave Ukraine since Russia began its invasion has been delayed due to bad weather.

Here are the latest developments:

Ukrainian officials said the mandatory evacuation of the Donetsk region has begun, with the first train leaving Pokrovsk and arriving further west in the city of Kropyvnytskyi. 

“The first train arrived in Kropyvnytskyi this morning. Women, children, the elderly, many people with limited mobility. Everyone was met and accommodated, everyone was helped,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in her Telegram channel on Tuesday. “Thanks to local services, international organizations and volunteers.”

The head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, also announced the beginning of the evacuation, adding that trains will depart every two days. 

According to Ukrainian Railways, Ukrzaliznytsia, 136 passengers — including 44 with limited mobility — were on the first evacuation train. Volunteers from World Central Kitchen provided people with food, while the Ukrainian Postal Service, Ukrposhta, supported payments at the station. 

A demonstrator tears a U.S. flag during a protest against U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit, in Taipei, Taiwan, on August 2.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s expected visit to Taiwan is “provocative” and increases tensions, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday.

“We cannot now say for certain whether (Pelosi) will reach (Taiwan) or not. But still everything around this tour and a possible visit to Taiwan, of course, is purely provocative,” Peskov said on a regular conference call.

“This provokes the situation, leads to an increase in tensions,” he added. 

Peskov went on to say that Moscow stands “in solidarity with China” on the issue of the self-governing island that China claims as a part of its territory. He added, this is a very sensitive issue and expressed regret that “instead of respecting this sensitivity,” the US “chooses the path of confrontation.”

Pelosi is expected to visit Taiwan as part of her tour of Asia, according to a senior Taiwanese government official and a US official, despite warnings from Biden administration officials, who are worried about China’s response to such a high-profile visit.

US basketball player Brittney Griner stands in a defendants' cage before a court hearing during her trial on charges of drug smuggling, in Khimki, outside Moscow, Russia, on August 2.

The examination of the substance contained in WNBA star Brittney Griner’s cartridges did not comply with Russian law, an expert called by her defense team testified in a Russian court on Tuesday.

The scheduled appearance in the Khimki city courthouse in the Moscow region marked Griner’s seventh hearing as Russian prosecutors accuse her of trying to smuggle less than one gram of cannabis oil in her luggage while traveling through a Moscow airport in February.

 “The examination does not comply with the law in terms of the completeness of the study and does not comply with the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure,” forensic chemist Dmitry Gladyshev said.

The defense interrogated prosecution expert Alexander Korablyov who had examined Griner’s cartridges taken from her luggage in a Moscow airport.

Among the violations is the fact that the results of the examination do not contain the amount of THC in the substance tested by investigators, one of Griner’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina, a partner Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners law firm, said in her comments following the trial. 

Speaking outside the courthouse, Elizabeth Rood, the charge d’affaires of the US embassy, said: “As the trial moves towards its conclusion, we will continue to support Miss Griner through every step of this process and as long as it takes to bring her home to the United States safely and we’ll continue to support every US citizen in prison or detained in the Russian Federation.”

US basketball player Brittney Griner (R) is escorted by police during her trial in Khimki, outside Moscow, Russia, on August 2.

Brittney Griner’s seventh hearing has concluded, and she has been escorted from the court room.

Her next hearing will be on Thursday.

Russian prosecutors accused the WNBA star of trying to smuggle less than one gram of cannabis oil in her luggage while traveling through a Moscow airport in February.

During the trial, Griner has testified that she has a doctor’s prescription for medical cannabis and had no intention of bringing the drug into Russia. Following her detention in February, she was tested for drugs and was clean, her lawyers previously said.

Griner pleaded guilty last month, a decision her lawyers hope the court will take into account and potentially result in a less severe sentence. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

Some background: Amid pressure and after months of internal debate, the Biden administration proposed a prisoner swap with Russia, offering to release a convicted Russian arms trafficker in exchange for Griner and another American detainee, Paul Whelan, people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Russian officials countered the US offer, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, requesting that in addition to arms dealer Viktor Bout, the US also include a convicted murderer who was formerly a colonel with the Russian spy agency, Vadim Krasikov.

Five foreigners who sided with Ukraine in the defense of the southern city of Mariupol are to stand trial in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), accused of being foreign mercenaries.

Among the five are one Swede, one Croat and three Britons.

“The Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of the DPR has received a criminal case against foreign citizens Mathias Gustavsson, Vjekoslav Prebeg, John Harding, Dylan Healy, Andrew Hill, who are accused of mercenarism,” the court said in a statement on Tuesday.

A date and time for the hearing has not yet been set, Russian state news agency reported on Tuesday. 

CNN has reached out to the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development office for comment but has yet to hear back. 

Two other Britons and a Moroccan national were convicted and sentenced to death by a court in the so-called DPR on June 9. The trio was captured in the Donbas and also accused of being mercenaries fighting for Ukraine.

Both the UK and Ukraine condemned the sentences, saying they were in violation of international law.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks at a news conference at the Capitol in Washington D.C., on July 29.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has accused the US of “destabilization” over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s expected visit to Taiwan. 

“Washington is bringing destabilization to the world. Not a single resolved conflict in recent decades, but many provoked ones,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram on Tuesday. 

It comes after Moscow’s ally Beijing warned against the “egregious political impact” of Pelosi’s planned visit to the self-governing island that China claims as a part of its territory and reiterated that its military “won’t sit by idly” if it feels its “sovereignty and territorial integrity” is being threatened.

Some background: Pelosi is expected to visit Taiwan as part of her tour of Asia, according to a senior Taiwanese government official and a US official, despite warnings from US President Joe Biden administration officials, who are worried about China’s response to such a high-profile visit.

The stop – the first for a US House speaker in 25 years – is not currently on Pelosi’s public itinerary and comes at a time when US-China relations are already at a low point.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres speaks to the media prior to the 2022 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations in New York City on August 1.

Humanity is just “one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” the United Nations Secretary-General has warned.

Geopolitical threats including the climate crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and armed conflicts are putting the globe at risk of a nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War, according to Antonio Guterres.

On Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken were among those gathered for the 10th annual review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

“The climate crisis, stark inequalities, conflicts and human rights violations, and the personal and economic devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, have put our world under greater stress than it has faced in our lifetimes,” Guterres said.

“Humanity is in danger of forgetting the lessons forged in the terrifying fires of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Guterres added that “geopolitical tensions are reaching new highs,” and “distrust has replaced dialogue.”

“States are seeking false security in stockpiling and spending hundreds of billions of dollars on doomsday weapons that have no place on our planet.”

He listed five “areas of action” that are central to the treaty. This includes a steadfast commitment to reinforce and reaffirm the 77-year-old norm against the use of nuclear weapons, working toward the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, addressing simmering tensions in the Middle East and Asia, promoting the peaceful use of nuclear technology for medical and other uses and fulfilling all outstanding commitments in the treaty itself.

“We need the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as much as ever. That’s why this review conference is so important. It’s an opportunity to hammer-out the measures that will help avoid certain disaster.”

The Razoni departs from the port of Odesa in Odesa, Ukraine, on August 1.

The first ship loaded with grain to leave Ukraine since Russia began its invasion has been delayed because of bad weather, according to the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) in Istanbul.

The JCC said the MV Razoni had been moving slower than expected and is now due to reach Istanbul on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.

No further grain ship departures from Ukraine are scheduled yet, the JCC added.

Food crisis: The Razoni departed from the Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday under a UN-brokered export deal, raising hopes that a global food supply crisis caused by Russia’s invasion can be eased.

Since the war began, Ukraine’s southern ports had been blocked by Russia, preventing Ukrainian grain from reaching the many countries that rely on it.

Some 20 million metric tons of wheat and corn have been trapped at Odesa port, US Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Samantha Power said last week.

Ukraine and Russia are both significant suppliers of food to the world. In normal times, Ukraine would export around three-quarters of the grain it produces. According to data from the European Commission, about 90% of these exports were shipped from Black Sea ports.

WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is escorted to court prior to a hearing in Khimki, just outside Moscow, Russia, on August 2.

WNBA star Brittney Griner has arrived at Khimki court, in the Moscow region, for her seventh hearing as her trial continues on Tuesday. 

The previous hearing on July 27 ended without a verdict. Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges early last month in an attempt to mitigate her sentence.

The hearing on Tuesday, which has just begun, will see the defense presenting witnesses to testify in the case. No verdict is expected Tuesday.

Some context to the case: The 31-year-old Olympic medalist has been held in Russia since February on allegations of attempted drug smuggling, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in Russia. 

During the trial, Griner has testified that she has a doctor’s prescription for medical cannabis and had no intention of bringing the drug into Russia. Following her detention in February, she was tested for drugs and was clean, her lawyers previously said.

Charge d’Affaires of the US embassy Elizabeth Rood is also attending Tuesday’s hearing.

The prisoner swap: Amid growing pressure and after months of internal debate, the Biden administration proposed a prisoner swap with Russia, offering to release a convicted Russian arms trafficker in exchange for Griner and another American detainee, Paul Whelan, people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Russian officials countered the US offer, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, requesting that in addition to arms dealer Viktor Bout, the US also include a convicted murderer who was formerly a colonel with the Russian spy agency, Vadim Krasikov.