Russian forces have struck port infrastructure in Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, its mayor has said.
"A massive missile strike was launched on the south of Ukraine from the direction of the Black Sea, and with the use of aviation," Oleksandr Senkevich told Ukrainian state television, providing no details on the aftermath of the strike.
Last weekend, Russia struck another southern Ukrainian port, Odesa, casting doubt on a plan to restart Ukrainian grain exports.
The strike came as the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called Russia's "overt gas war" a form of terrorism, as Moscow cuts gas supplies to Europe once again.
Russian energy giant Gazprom said gas deliveries to Europe would be slashed by 80 per cent, in order to carry out maintenance on its Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
"This is an overt gas war that Russia is waging against a united Europe," Mr Zelensky said.
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A gas turbine for Russia's Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline has not yet arrived after maintenance in Canada, but Moscow hopes it will be installed "sooner rather than later", the Kremlin's spokesman has said.
Dmitry Peskov said the sanctions against Russia complicate the work of Nord Stream 1, which is controversially lowering gas supplies to Europe to just 20 per cent of its capacity amid maintenance.
The European Union member states have reached agreement on how to cut their consumption of gas by 15 percent and reduce their dependence on Russian supplies.
"This was not a Mission Impossible!" the EU presidency, currently held by the Czech Republic, tweeted on Tuesday.
"Ministers have reached a political agreement on gas demand reduction ahead of the upcoming winter."
European Union countries have agreed to an emergency regulation to curb their gas use this winter, as Europe prepares for a winter of uncertain supplies from Russia.
"This was not a Mission Impossible! Ministers have reached a political agreement on gas demand reduction ahead of the upcoming winter," the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency, wrote in a tweet.
Russia's armed forces destroyed eight Ukrainian missile and artillery arms depots in the southern Mykolaiv region and in the eastern Donetsk region, the defence ministry said in its daily briefing.
Ukrainian officials said earlier today that Russia launched a "massive missile strike" against the south of the country overnight, including hits against infrastructure in the black sea port of Mykolaiv.
A top Russian official in another anti-Western rant threatened Europe with a cold winter ahead if it keeps on sending weapons to Ukraine, reports our Moscow correspondent Nataliya Vasilyeva.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and deputy head of the Russian Security Council, has dismissed Europe’s policy towards Russia as a “repulsive cocktail of arrogant rudeness, adolescent infanitility and primitive stupidity” and hinted that the EU will have to reap the consequences of slapping sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine.
Europeans, according to the Russian officials, have only just now realised that “winter hasn’t been cancelled while alternative supplies of gas, oil and coal are expensive or just not realistic.”
Mr Medvedev claimed that Europeans are scared of “freezing in their cold home” but still insist on sending weapons to Ukraine to defeat Russia:
“Well, well: A cold spell is coming anyway,” he wrote.
Mr Medvedev’s remarks were published just a few hours before the EU was to hold an emergency meeting on gas supply.
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who helped to broker a landmark grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, warned the West against snubbing Vladimir Putin, saying that a resolution to the ongoing war is possible only through a respectful dialogue.
“With Mr Putin, the Western approach… is not the approach one uses to deal with politicians,” he told the TRT TV station on Monday night. “Of course, if you treat him this way, how will Mr Putin treat you?”
Putin’s gas war against Europe is a direct continuation of his war on Ukraine. Wherever he can bring harm, he will. He will use every dependence Europe has on Russia to ruin the normal life of every European family. The only way is to hit back hard and get rid of any dependence.
US basketball player Brittney Griner has appeared at a Russian court for the fifth hearing of her trial on drugs charges that could carry a jail sentence of up to 10 years.
Ms Griner, a Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) star who has played in Russia during the league's offseason, was escorted into the defendant's cage at a courtroom at the Khimki District Court outside Moscow, bending down to avoid banging her head against the door frame.
Wearing round-rimmed glasses and a black and grey sweatshirt with "Black Lives For Peace" on the back, Ms Griner shook hands with her lawyers through the bars of the defendant's cage.
Before taking a seat, Ms Griner held up a lined sheet of paper with personal pictures, including that of her wife Cherelle in her #42 Phoenix Mercury jersey, her WNBA team.
The two-time Olympic champion was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Feb. 17 after vape cartridges containing hashish oil were found in her baggage.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has welcomed efforts to coordinate gas saving measures across the European Union, stressing that the bloc would stand united as Russia further throttles its gas supply to Germany and beyond.
"We will not be divided because gas is scarce, instead we stand together, and that is the most important signal to the Russian president," Ms Baerbock said in Prague following talks with her Czech counterpart.
The first six British Stormer HVM anti-aircraft missile systems have arrived to Ukraine.
I'm sure that our Warriors will make very good use of them!
Source: "South" operational command pic.twitter.com/dCfrzZhmDJ
Russian gas giant Gazprom's announcement that it will further slash deliveries to Europe this week is politically motivated, European Union energy policy chief Kadri Simson has said, disputing the company's claim that it had cut supply because it needed to halt the operation of a turbine.
"We know that there is no technical reason to do so. This is a politically motivated step, and we have to be ready for that. And exactly for that reason, the pre-emptive reduction of our gas demand is a wise strategy," Ms Simson said on her arrival to a meeting of EU countries' energy ministers in Brussels.
Ms Simson said she expected the ministers to reach a deal on emergency EU rules requiring countries to curb their gas demand.
The Kremlin's frontline supplies have been badly hit. If I were a Russian soldier in Kherson I would be pretty scared right now, says Mike Martin.
Some weeks ago the Russians announced an "operational pause" in the Donbas.
Breaks in fighting like these are pretty normal in this type of high-intensity warfare, because of the vast supplies required and damages inflicted.
Armies sometimes just have to take time-outs to regroup and build up their supplies again, although normally you don’t broadcast to everyone that you’re doing it.
That’s a bit odd, and makes it seem like there must be another reason that Russian military activity has decreased.
You can read Mike's report in full here.
Russian forces have struck port infrastructure in Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich has said.
"A massive missile strike was launched on the south of Ukraine from the direction of the Black Sea, and with the use of aviation," he told Ukrainian state television, providing no details on the aftermath of the strike.
Last Saturday, Russia struck another southern Ukrainian port of Odesa, casting doubt on a plan to restart Ukrainian grain exports.
Russia perceives anti-ship missiles as a "key threat" limiting the effectiveness of their Black Sea Fleet, the UK's Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday.
"This has significantly undermined the overall invasion plan, as Russia cannot realistically attempt an amphibious assault to seize Odesa," the ministry wrote on Twitter.
"Russia will continue to prioritise efforts to degrade and destroy Ukraine’s anti-ship capability."
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 26 July 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/tudEgSjS5H
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/ddsfUTa1Gg
A major fire broke out at an oil depot in the Russian-backed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine after Ukrainian troops shelled the province, Russia's TASS reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, a blaze which was tens of metres high, engulfed an oil depot in the Budyonnovsky district.
No injuries have been reported so far.
Politicians and officials from across the continent have accused Vladimir Putin of weaponising energy supplies in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed over his invasion of Ukraine.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which runs 760 miles from Russia to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea, has been at the centre of heightened diplomatic tensions between the West and Moscow.
Read the full story about gas supply cuts here
Russian gas giant Gazprom has sharply increased pressure in the pipeline that delivers Russian gas to Europe without prior notice, the Ukrainian state pipeline operator company claimed on Tuesday.
The spikes in pressure could lead to emergencies, such as pipeline ruptures, and pipeline operators are obliged to inform each other about them in advance, the Ukrainian company said.
Reuters has approached Gazprom for comment on the issue.
Ukraine is so big that the war has, so far, left much of the west untouched. But on the approach to Kyiv via the highway from Zhytomyr, the reality of the invasion is evident, writes David Knowles from Kyiv.
This is the highway that saw some of the most desperate fighting in the early weeks, advancing Russian columns were held by the Ukrainian army and, after weeks of battle, were forced to withdraw. Although the Russian army could not advance far into Kyiv many towns on the outskirts, like Bucha and Irpin, were occupied with deadly results.
From the road we see bombed out houses, apartment blocks with shattered windows and black scorch marks, large warehouses with buckled metal and collapsed roofs, bridges with ascending and descending steps but no middle section - and these sights become more frequent as we get closer to the captial.
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American-supplied Himars missile launchers have destroyed more than 50 Russian ammunition dumps since they arrived on the battlefield last month, Ukraine’s defence minister said.
Oleksiy Reznikov told Ukrainian television that the “scalpel”-like accuracy of the missiles had significantly eroded Russia’s supply chains and its ability to conduct “active fighting and cover our armed forces with heavy shelling”.
“We are talking about 50 sites in terms of ammunition storage locations alone,” he told Ukrainian television.
“Our gunners use Himars very precisely – like a surgeon with a scalpel."
Read the full story here
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights gave its latest civilian death toll from the Ukraine war to date as 5,237, with the number of those injured exceeding 7,000
The Ukrainian military reported Russian cruise missile strikes in the south