The Ukrainian military attacked an oil facility in Ust-Luga, Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj announced this on Telegram, but left it open whether the attack caused any damage. Just on Friday, Ukraine attacked the Russian gas condensate processing plant in the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga.
The Ukrainian military attacked the missile and space center in Samara, Russia. The armed forces also shelled the Zavasleika military airfield, a base for Russian fighter jets, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.
Russian authorities in Samara had previously announced that local industrial facilities had been attacked. The air defense repelled a “massive attack,” said the head of administration of the regional capital of the same name, Samara, Ivan Noskov, in an online post. The city’s industrial infrastructure suffered “localized damage.” He did not provide any further information about the affected facility.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the threat to food supplies from Russian attacks on cargo ships in the Black Sea with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Ukraine is one of the largest suppliers of food to Egypt and many other countries in Africa and the Middle East, Zelensky said on the X platform. Because of the war, these deliveries are now seriously threatened. There is already a significant decline, which could lead to rising prices and bottlenecks. Both countries agreed to work on solutions. Russia's recent attacks on ships and port infrastructure de facto block the main export route for Ukrainian grain to international markets.
The Russian justice system has included the Eastern European Research Center (FSO), based at the University of Bremen, in its controversial list of undesirable organizations. The Ministry of Justice thus expanded its list of foreign and international entities whose work on the territory of the Russian Federation is prohibited.
No specific reasons are given, but organizations are listed that the Moscow authorities believe are working against the interests of the Russian state. Several German organizations are already on the list, including the German Historical Institute (DHI), which has been active in Moscow for many years, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and numerous political foundations.
In Romania, a drone crashed in a forest area around five kilometers from the border with Ukraine. The NATO country's Defense Ministry announced this on Friday. The drone landed in the eastern Tulcea district. Military radar systems did not detect it because it was flying at a “very low” altitude, it said. The ministry initially did not provide any information about the origin of the drone.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced an expansion of Russian air strikes on Ukraine. “We will use much harsher methods to destroy everything that feeds Kiev's war machine from the West,” he said in an interview broadcast on Russian state television on Friday.
A Russian glide bomb destroyed six floors of a ten-story apartment building in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. One person was killed and 16 others were injured, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday. According to Zelensky, Russia attacked a total of twelve Ukrainian regions during the night.
A 29-year-old woman and her nine-year-old son were killed in a Russian drone attack on a residential building in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy. The authorities announced this on Friday. Four other people were injured in the attack early Friday morning, including the father and grandmother of the boy who was killed. Both were taken to hospital with severe burns, the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Hryhorov, said.
According to insider information, crude oil exports from the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk have been suspended following a drone attack. Because of the attack, loadings have been stopped and acceptance of oil suspended because the storage tanks are full, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The terminal is Russia's main oil export facility on the Black Sea, with a capacity of around 700,000 barrels per day. The Novorossiysk city administration also again issued a drone alert for residents.
The liberal opposition party Yabloko, which opposes the Russian war of aggression, has appealed against the ruling banning it from the parliamentary elections in Russia. “Yabloko will be on the ballot for the Duma election,” said Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov in a video released by the party to submit the appeal. However, experts assume that the Kremlin-controlled court will confirm its decision. The appeal hearing is scheduled for Monday.
According to the United Nations, Russian troops killed more Ukrainian civilians in July than in more than four years. At least 337 civilians were killed and 2,160 injured, the UN observation mission in Kiev said. That is 30 percent more than in June and 70 percent more than in July last year.
Russia rejects the idea of a ceasefire with Ukraine in the Black Sea. There is no basis for “half-measures” that would only give the other side a breathing space, says Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Both Russia and Ukraine have increased their attacks on merchant ships in the Black Sea in recent weeks. This drove up global grain prices. According to an insider, Ukraine has sent Russia an offer through a third party to stop attacks on civilian targets in the Black Sea on both sides.
According to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Russia is intensifying its attacks on targets that serve the West's support for Ukraine.
A Moscow court has sentenced a Russian citizen to 23 years in prison for spying for Poland.
A drone entered Latvian airspace and was shot down by fighter jets from a NATO partner state.
Latvia is declaring an air alert for some of its eastern territories bordering Russia and Belarus. Finland is also establishing a temporary exclusion zone for air and shipping traffic in the eastern Gulf of Finland.
According to authorities, at least 15 people were injured by a Russian bomb attack on the front-line town of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine. There has been one death so far, said the military administrator of the Donetsk region, Vadym Filaschkin, on Telegram.
According to its own information, the security company Ambrey has been commissioned to salvage the tanker that ran aground off the coast of Oman. The tanker “Caroline Bezengi”, which is part of Russia's so-called shadow fleet and is under EU sanctions, lost oil off the coast of Oman.
For security reasons, Estonia is restricting the operation of border crossings with Russia and suspending operations at night-time checkpoints for an indefinite period.
According to government information, Poland's secret service has caught a Russian who is said to have planned an assassination attempt on a man with Ukrainian and US citizenship. The potential murder victim was inconvenient for Russian President Vladimir Putin's system, said Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw.
