Russia-Ukraine war: ex-US Marine freed in prisoner swap injured fighting in Ukraine; UN rejects Moscow claim on prison massacre – as it happened

In an expected move, Russia’s lower house of parliament voted on Tuesday to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 years from 27, increasing the number of men liable for a year of compulsory military service at any one time.

The new legislation, which comes into effect on 1 January, means men will be required to carry out a year of military service, or equivalent training during higher education, between the ages of 18 and 30, rather than 18 and 27 as now.

The law also bans men from leaving Russia from the day they are summoned to a conscription office. In April, Reuters notes, legislation was passed allowing conscription summonses to be served online instead of in person.

Moldova’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would summon Russian ambassador Oleg Vasnetsov for an explanation of media reports that equipment has been installed on the Russian embassy’s rooftop that could be used for spying.

Reuters reports the ministry said: “We consider espionage or foreign interference in the internal affairs of Moldova to be absolutely unacceptable, which represents a direct challenge to the sovereignty and national security of the Moldovan state.”

The Insider media outlet and television channel Jurnal TV said 28 satellite dishes, masts, and transmitting and receiving devices had been installed on the embassy and a neighbouring residential building used by diplomats and technical personnel.

The embassy and Moscow did not immediately comment on the ministry statement or on the media report and Russia has denied repeated Moldovan accusations of meddling in its affairs. Russia has troops stationed in the breakaway Transnistria region of Moldova, which borders Ukraine.

Germany and France on Tuesday opposed a push to extend restrictions on sales of Ukrainian grain exports in five eastern European countries that have enraged Kyiv, according to AFP.

Brussels struck a compromise in April that allowed Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to prohibit sales on their local markets while keeping transit routes open for Ukrainian grain to cross their territories.

The measures are currently set to run out in mid-September, but the five countries have called for them to be prolonged to the end of the year.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday branded any extension “absolutely unacceptable and frankly anti-European”.

Kyiv’s opposition was echoed by EU countries including Germany and France at a meeting of the bloc’s agricultural ministers in Brussels on Tuesday.

German agriculture minister Cem Ozdemir said the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, needed to make clear any extension was “not possible”.

He insisted that Poland’s internal political disputes ahead of elections later this year should not be played out “on Ukraine’s back”.

France’s agricultural minister, Marc Fesneau, said:

There can be no unilateral measures, no individual adventures, only a collective response to the challenge of destabilising the markets.

A spokesperson for the commission said Brussels was working “very intensively” with the five EU member states and Ukraine to try to find a solution.

Spokesperson Miriam Garcia Ferrer said:

These measures are targeted and temporary. They were put in place for a very specific situation of logistical bottlenecks and facilitation of trade that was happening in these bordering countries.”

A Russian fighter jet flew within a few meters of a US drone over Syria and fired flares at it, striking the American aircraft and damaging it, the US military said Tuesday.

A senior air force commander said the move on Sunday was an attempt by the Russians to knock the MQ-9 Reaper drone out of the sky and came just a week after a Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to a US surveillance aircraft carrying a crew in the region, jeopardizing the lives of the four American crew members, according to AP.

Lt Gen Alex Grynkewich, the head of US Air forces Central, described it as a close call. In a statement, he said:

One of the Russian flares struck the US MQ-9, severely damaging its propeller.

We call upon the Russian forces in Syria to put an immediate end to this reckless, unprovoked, and unprofessional behavior.

Grynkewich said one of the crew members operating the drone remotely kept it in the air and flew it back to its home base.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Tuesday accused the west, and in particular the US, of trying to sabotage its showcase Russia-Africa summit later this week by pressuring African countries not to take part.

The summit, which will take place in St Petersburg on Thursday and Friday, will be attended by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who is expected to hold intensive one-on-one talks with individual African leaders focusing on everything from trade to security, arms deals, and grain supplies, Reuters reports.

Forty-nine African delegations have confirmed their participation, around half of whom will be represented by their heads of state or government, Russian diplomat Alexander Polyakov was cited as saying by the state Tass news agency earlier this month.

But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the west was doing its best to wreck the Russian event.

He said:

Virtually all African states have been subjected to unprecedented pressure from the US, and French embassies on the ground have not been sleeping either along with other western missions who are also trying to do their bit to prevent this summit from taking place.

In essence, they do not accept the sovereign right of African states to independently determine their partners for cooperation and mutual interaction in various fields.

The US president, Joe Biden, hosted a US-Africa leaders summit in Washington last year, seeking to bolster alliances amid growing Russian and Chinese presence on the continent.

Speaking in April after Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, complained the west was trying to wreck this week’s Russia-Africa summit, the US state department said that Washington “[doesn’t] want to limit African partnerships with other countries. We want to give African countries choices.”

Anton Gerashchenko, official adviser and a former deputy internal affairs minister in Ukraine, posted about a trial that has started in Russian Rostov-on-Don, over 18 “Ukrainian defenders”.

In the tweet, he said:

They [the people on trial] look so thin and exhausted.

According to Geraschenko, they are accused of forcible seizure of power and change of the constitutional order of the DPR, as well as participation in the activities of a terrorist organisation.

Two former defence workers were sentenced in Russia to 17 and 13 years in prison for treason on Tuesday after being found guilty of passing military intelligence to Ukraine and planning to blow up railway lines, the Kursk regional court said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The couple, who were formerly married, were arrested last month by the FSB Security Service in the Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine, and accused of handing over technical documents and models used in the manufacture of weapons systems for Russia’s air force.

In a statement announcing their arrests, the FSB had said the pair, identified as RA Sidorkin and TA Sidorkina, had been involved in plans to blow up railway lines in the Kursk and Belgorod regions that are used to supply Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

It said it had seized more than 4kg (9lb) of plastic explosives, four detonators, military design documentation and $150,000 (£116,000) in cash.

Sidorkin, 50, was additionally charged with illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, and sentenced to 17 years. Sidorkina, 41, was sentenced to 13 years.

Unilever, which has faced criticism for over a year for remaining in Russia, said on Tuesday that it could abandon, sell or retain its operations there but the “least bad” option is to “pursue our business but in a highly constrained manner”, Reuters reports.

The Russian state this month took control of French yoghurt maker Danone’s Russian subsidiary along with Carlsberg’s stake in a local brewer.

Unilever CEO, Hein Schumacher, said:

The first option is to abandon our business. We feel that, in effect, that could result in it being nationalised, given all of the developments that have recently taken place.

The second option is to sell the business, but the reality is, we have not found a viable solution that meets our stated objectives.

None of the options are actually good, but the final option of operating our business in a constrained manner is the least bad and that is where we are.

Schumacher said Unilever has not been in touch with the Russian government in the wake of its moves on Danone and Carlsberg.

The company, which owns the Knorr soup and Dove soap brands, employs over 3,000 people in Russia. In March 2022 Unilever became the first major European food company to stop imports into and exports out of Russia after the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Unilever said at the time it would not invest further in Russia and would also stop all media and advertising spending there, adding that its Ukrainian operations had also stopped.

However, it continued to supply its everyday essential food and hygiene products made in Russia to people in the country, while saying it would not take any profit from those sales. All earnings made in Russia stay there, the company said.

Unilever had said in February “there is a risk” that it may have to stop doing business in Russia, and that it might have to take a loss or write down its assets there.

Former CEO Alan Jope said at the time “volumes in our Russian business are down significantly, by double digits”.

Russia and China are sending government delegations to North Korea this week to join commemorations of the signing of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean war 70 years ago.

The conflict, launched by North Korea in an attempt to conquer South Korea, brought in forces from the newly created People’s Republic of China aided by the then Soviet air force, while South Korea, the US and troops from various countries under the direction of the UN battled to repel the invasion.

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central news agency said a Russian delegation led by defense minister Sergei Shoigu will also make a “congratulatory visit” to the country to mark the anniversary of the armistice, AP reports.

The price of Russia’s flagship Urals oil blend averaged $56 (£43) a barrel in the second quarter and traded almost 30% below the benchmark Brent blend, the Russian central bank said in its review on Tuesday.

It was also about 29% below the average price in April-June 2022.

According to Reuters, the Group of Seven leading western economies, along with the EU and Australia, agreed in December to ban the use of western-supplied maritime insurance, finance and brokering for seaborne Russian oil priced above $60 (£47) a barrel as part of western sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine.

Russia, for its part, banned companies and individuals from including oil price cap mechanisms in their contracts.

The central bank said:

Oil exports were constrained by the embargo and price cap of some countries.