Russia scrambles fighter jets to escort RAF Typhoons over Black Sea

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Russia scrambled fighter jets to escort two British Typhoon fighter jets over the Black Sea, its defence ministry has said.
A Su-27 fighter jet had been mobilised to escort two British Typhoon fighter jets and an RC-135 reconnaissance plane, Russian authorities said on Wednesday.
After the approach of the Russian fighter, the British planes turned away from the Russian border, according to the ministry.
It comes days after Russian fighter jets buzzed two US bombers over the Arctic on Sunday in what Moscow’s ministry of defence described as an operation to defend its “state borders”.
The two MiG fighter jets were scrambled when radar detected two US air force B-52H bombers approaching Russian territory over the Barents Sea.
“As Russian fighters approached, the American strategic bombers turned away from the state border of the Russian Federation,” said the ministry.
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Ukrainian units have been jamming their own drones in the sky as Russia capitalises on poor decision making to advance almost four miles towards a key garrison town, writes Joe Barnes.
Yuriy Butusov, a widely respected Ukrainian journalist covering the war, reported that Russian forces were deliberately targeting poorly organised and vulnerable units in a push for the Donetsk region town of Pokrovsk.
He said a lack of coordination between Ukrainian units’ electronic warfare jammers meant a “significant number of our own drones” had been destroyed in a post on social media.
“A critical problem is the lack of a single competent authority for all drone and electronic warfare forces, which continue to be used in a scattered and uncoordinated manner,” Mr Butusov wrote.
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Authorities in the city of Moscow are offering a record signing-on bonus for new recruits to fight in Ukraine.
The offer comes as Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, struggles to recruit soldiers for his army as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues.
Sergey Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, introduced the one-time signing bonus of 1.9 million rubles (about $22,000) for city residents who join the military, according to a statement on Tuesday.
Anyone taking up the offer could earn up to 5.2 million rubles ($59,600) in their first year of service, the statement added.
The docks of Odesa, which were silent for months at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are bustling again.
Dozens of cargo ships arrive each month and thousands of tonnes of grain are loaded onto each vessel to be shipped from Ukraine’s farmers to markets across the world.
Such activity is a far cry from only two years ago.
When Russia invaded, it imposed a blockade halting exports from the country’s Black Sea ports, as Vladimir Putin tried to bring one of the world’s breadbaskets to its economic knees, writes Ben Farmer.
Read the full article here
An officer from Russia’s foreign intelligence agency and his wife were reportedly targeted by a car bomb in Moscow, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
Several news outlets named Andrei Torgashov and his wife as the two victims of the attack. Baza Telegram channel, which is linked to Russian security services, said one of the victims was a Russian military intelligence officer.
Russia’s interior ministry has said that the blast was caused by the detonation of an unidentified object after a man and a woman got into a parked Toyota Land Cruiser.
Irina Volk, a ministry spokesman, said the victims were taken to hospital and that a criminal investigation has been opened.
The man, who Russian media reported was on Ukraine’s online target list, lost his feet in the explosion, while the woman received shrapnel wounds.
Rheinmetall, a German arms manufacturer, has said that it has received an order from the Ukrainian government to begin the construction of an ammunition factory in Ukraine.
The announcement marks the official beginning of a venture between Alexander Kamyshin, the strategic industries minister, and Armin Papperger, the Rheinmetall CEO.
“The intention is to start the ammunition production in Ukraine within 24 months,” Rheinmetall’s statement read.
The initial order “covers the complete technical equipment of the factory through to commissioning”.
Britain and Germany have signed a joint defence declaration, pledging to strengthen their defence industries, reinforce European security and support Ukraine.
John Healey, the Defence Secretary, signed the pact in Berlin on Wednesday.
His visit is part of a two-day trip that includes stops in France, Poland and Estonia as he sets out the government’s commitment to deepen defence ties with allies in the European Union.
“These visits send a clear message that European security will be this government’s first foreign and defence priority,” Mr Healey said in a statement.
He added: “Our new defence declaration between the UK and Germany will kickstart a deep, new defence relationship, built on our nations’ shared values.”
Russia needs to end the war in Ukraine if it doesn’t want to see long-range American missiles get deployed to Germany, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has said.
“The first thing Russia would have to do would be to stop the terrible war of aggression against Ukraine and give up the attempt to conquer the whole country,” he told an annual summer news conference.
It was announced earlier this month that the US will deploy more missiles in Germany in 2026.
At least two people have been injured after an unidentified object detonated in a car in a parking lot in Moscow.
Ukrainian authorities have charged pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk in absentia with the illegal seizure of the Samara-Western direction oil pipeline section several years ago, according to the Security Service of Ukraine.
Medvedchuk, who was previously an ally of Vladimir Putin, was arrested and released to Russia during a prisoner exchange in late 2022. 
Kyiv charged the pro-Russian oligarch with high treason in 2021 and stripped him of citizenship and a seat in the parliament two years later.
EU ambassadors supported on Wednesday the transfer of 4.2 billion euros to Kyiv as the first regular payment under the Ukraine Facility.
The funds will be directed toward “Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction, and modernization”.
The Ukraine Facility allocates 33 billion euros in loans and 17 billion euros in grants, conditional on the Ukrainian government carrying out certain reforms.
The European Commission sanctioned the disbursement earlier this month.
Russia said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s signal on talks with Moscow appeared to be in unison with the Kremlin’s own position but that more details were needed.
Dmytro Kuleba. the Ukrainian foreign minister, said Kyiv was ready for talks with Russia if Moscow was prepared to negotiate in good faith, though he said that Ukraine has seen no sign of that.
Mr Kuleba made the remarks during talks with his Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart. 
Romanian military have been searching for drone debris near the border with Ukraine after Russian attacks.
On Tuesday, places in southern Ukraine at the Danube, which marks the border with Romania in that area, came under renewed drone attack.
People in 17 cities and villages in Romania’s south-eastern Tulcea county got alerts on their mobile phones early Wednesday after “several objects” were observed “approaching the northern area” of the county, according to a statement from the Inspectorate for Emergency Situations.
Two Romanian Air Force F-16s have already scanned the area, while searches are being carried out “for possible fallen objects” near the village of Plauru, which faces the Ukrainian port city of Izmail across the Danube, the ministry of defence said.
Ukraine is ready for talks with Russia if Moscow is prepared to negotiate in good faith, Kyiv’s foreign minister said on Wednesday according to his ministry.
Dmytro Kuleba made the remarks during talks with his Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart. 
The talks “lasted for over three hours in total, longer than planned. This was a very deep and concrete conversation,” a source told Reuters.
 
North Korea is keen to boost ties with Belarus to “open a new era”, state media KCNA has quoted Choe Son Hui, the foreign minister, as saying on Wednesday.
The foreign minister met Maxim Vladimirovich Ruzenkov, her Belarusian counterpart, in Pyongyang earlier on Tuesday.
Belarus and North Korea are both allies of Russia, which has become more diplomatically isolated since launching its invasion on Ukraine.
Moscow moved some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus last year and has held joint military exercises with the country. 
Russia also agreed a landmark pact with North Korea last month that allows either country to provide the other with military assistance if faced with an armed aggression.
Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day have killed at least four people and injured at least 17, including children, according to regional authorities. 
One of the attacks hit the office of a humanitarian organisation in Kharkiv.
Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram: “Today at 5 a.m., the Russians hit the office of the Swiss (Foundation) for Mine Action FSD with a ballistic missile.”
An industrial building, five cars, and a house were also damaged. Ihor Terekhov, the local mayor, initially reported that one person had been killed but later said the information could not be confirmed.
In Donetsk, three people were killed and three injured during a Russian attack, Vadym Filashkin, the local governor, reported.
Russian anti-Kremlin volunteers from the Freedom of Russia Legion have reportedly used drones to destroy an observation post in Belgorod.
The Russian autonomous technical observation post is worth more than $200,000, according to to a report via Telegram. 
The Telegram post included a video of the post being destroyed by a UAV flown by pilots of the Groza platoon that operates the unit’s unmanned attack aircraft systems.
The caption of the video said: “We are developing and mastering new types of weapons.”
Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, met Dmytro Kuleba, his Ukrainian counterpart, in southern China. 
The pair held talks in the city of Guangzhou, according to news agency Xinhua.
Mr Kuleba said on Tuesday that he is seeking “common ground” in talks with Mr Yi on ending the Ukraine-Russia war.
His visit is the first one to be made by a Ukrainian foreign minister since the war started in 2022.
Nearly a third of Ukrainians would accept some territorial concessions to Russia for a quick end to the war, a new poll has revealed.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology said on Tuesday that its poll of 1,067 Ukrainians in May found that 32 per cent would agree to some form of territorial concessions, more than three-fold increase over the past year.
However, it said 55 per cent remain opposed to making any territorial concessions.
Georgia’s state security service is investigating a plot by former senior officials living in Ukraine to assassinate ruling party leader Bidzina Ivanishvili, Russia’s TASS news agency cited the service as saying on Wednesday.
It provided no further details including the names of the suspects.
Two people, allegedly including a Russian military intelligence officer, were injured in a car blast in Moscow, Russia’s interior ministry said on Wednesday.
It said that the blast was caused by the detonation of an unidentified object after a man and a woman got into a parked Toyota Land Cruiser.
The victims were hospitalized, Irina Volk, a ministry spokesman, added, saying that a criminal investigation has been opened.
The man, who Russian media reported was on Ukraine’s online target list, lost his feet in the explosion, while the woman received shrapnel wounds.
Baza Telegram channel, which is linked to Russian security services, said that one of the victims was a Russian military intelligence officer.
Nearly 4,000 Ukrainian prisoners are fighting on the frontline, a senior Ukrainian official has revealed.
“There are already 3,800 convicts in the Armed Forces. Most of them have just finished their training. However, several of them have already been wounded or killed,” Roman Kostenko, the secretary of the Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence, said.
In its quest to fill the dwindling ranks of its infantry, Ukraine has turned to recruiting prisoners to join the fight against Russia.
Under a deal offered to inmates by the government, prisoners will have their remaining sentences cleared – regardless of length – if they agree to serve in the army without leave until the end of the war.
Mr Kostenko added that the army is likely to mobilise another 1,000 convicts.
We will be bringing you all the latest from the war in Ukraine.