Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s forces strike Russian military airfield in Crimea

Ukrainian missile forces struck a Russian military airfield in Crimea that had been used for long-range attacks, Ukraine said on Friday, in the latest in a series of blows to the Russian military on the occupied peninsula. Russia’s Saky airfield in western Crimea was targeted, the Ukrainian military’s general staff said, adding it was assessing the aftermath. “This is one of the operational airfields that Russia uses to control the airspace, in particular the Black Sea, and for launching airstrikes on Ukrainian territory.” There was no immediate comment from Russia’s defence ministry or local Moscow-installed officials.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, implicitly acknowledged the strike in his nightly video address on Friday, commending “our soldiers who are striking Russian bases and logistics on occupied territory”. He said: “To our guys, our soldiers, I thank you for your accuracy.” Ukraine claims to have struck a string of Russian air defence systems deployed in Crimea, such as S-300 and S-400 units, in recent months.

Russian air defences intercepted 12 Ukrainian drones in the space of an hour late on Friday over southern Russia’s border region of Bryansk, the regional governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said on Telegram. There were no casualties or serious damage reported. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod region, also on Ukraine’s border further to the south-east, said three drone attacks and a number of shelling incidents had smashed windows and caused some other damage to buildings.

Russia has issued sentences of up to 22 years to a string of people convicted of treason and “terrorism” charges linked to Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. A military court in Moscow jailed two men on Friday for allegedly plotting to blow up fuel tanks at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on orders from Ukraine’s secret services. The men, Mikhail Dariy and Ilya Kovylkov, were sentenced to 22 years and 15 years respectively on “terrorism” and other charges. Dariy said he did not go through with the planned attack because he wanted to minimise civilian casualties, the independent SOTAvision media outlet reported. Prosecutors said Ukrainian intelligence officers offered the men $2,000 to carry out the attack using a drone, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Two other men were convicted in separate cases of trying to join the Freedom of Russia Legion , a unit of pro-Kyiv fighters that includes Russian citizens and has made armed border incursions into Russian territory throughout the war. A military court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don sentenced Ivan Kovtunovsky, 23, to 11 years for plotting to commit treason and join a “terrorist organisation”. In Moscow, a military court sentenced another man, Vyacheslav Lutor, 34, to 10 years for attempting to join the same unit, the Interfax news agency reported, citing Russia’s FSB security service. It said Lutor was detained after buying an air ticket to Turkey in an attempt to travel to Ukraine and had taken photos of an “industrial facility” in St Petersburg that could have been a target “for future Ukrainian drone attacks”.

A former senior Russian defence official has been arrested and charged with corruption in the latest high-profile incident in an ongoing purge within the country’s military top brass. Dmitry Bulgakov, who was a deputy defence minister in charge of military logistics for almost 15 years until he was dismissed in September 2022 , was detained by the FSB security service on Friday and placed in the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow. He was widely blamed for the Russian army’s logistical failures during the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which left troops severely undersupplied and stalled Moscow’s advances. Bulgakov – the recipient of several top military and civilian awards including the Hero of Russia award, the country’s highest honour – was one of the longest-serving defence officials.

A Ukrainian court has remanded an 18-year-old man in custody over the murder of a nationalist former lawmaker , state media reported. Iryna Farion, a divisive hardline campaigner against the use of Russian language, was shot near her flat in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on 19 July. A Lviv court on Friday ordered the suspect, who gave his name as Vyacheslav Zinchenko, to be remanded in custody for at least 60 days, the state-run Suspline media outlet reported. Zinchenko was arrested this week in Dnipro, 800km (500 miles) east of Lviv. Investigators said they were working to determine the motive behind the attack. The interior minister, Igor Klymenko, said he was inclined to believe the shooter had acted on orders.

The US Treasury secretary said “things look good” for Group of Seven wealthy democracies to agree the terms of a $50bn loan to Ukraine backed by Russian assets by October. Janet Yellen told Reuters on Friday on the sidelines of a G20 finance leaders meeting in Brazil that talks to advance the loan were constructive, including over US demands for reassurances that the assets would stay frozen for a longer period of time. The $50bn loan, agreed in principle by G7 leaders in June, would be serviced with proceeds generated by about $300bn of Russian central bank assets frozen in the west after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Slovakia said on Friday it had offered a technical solution to Ukraine to restore stopped Russian oil supplies to Slovak and Hungarian refineries , after warnings that a partial halt could lead to fuel shortages as early as September. Eastern EU members Slovakia and Hungary have been hit by a stop in flows from Russian group Lukoil via Ukraine after Kyiv imposed sanctions on the company. Slovakia’s government office said the prime minister, Robert Fico, had spoken to his Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal, on Friday and that Fico “proposed to Ukrainian partners a technical solution in which several states including Slovakia would have to participate”, without giving more details.

A German man sentenced to death in Belarus has appeared on state television in the country, in tears and begging the German government to intervene in his case. “Mr Scholz, please, I am still alive … it is not yet too late,” said Rico Krieger, who was pictured handcuffed inside a cell, appealing to the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Authorities in Belarus claim that Krieger, 30, travelled to the country last autumn on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence, with the goal of carrying out a terrorist attack on a railway line.