Putin tells African nations Russia can take Ukraine’s place as supplier of grain – as it happened
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Russian leader, wanted under international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, gives speech by video link to summit in South Africa. This live blog is now closed
Putin tells African nations Russia can take Ukraine's place as supplier of grain
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Russia would remain a “responsible supplier” of food and grain to African countries and could take Ukraine’s place as an international supplier of grain, in recorded remarks to a summit of the Brics countries in South Africa.
He said:
Russia has been deliberately obstructed in the supply of grain and fertilisers abroad and at the same time, were hypocritically blamed for the current crisis situation in the world market.
We have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that in a year under the deal, a total of 32.8m tonnes of cargo has been exported from Ukraine, of which over 70% have reached high and upper middle income countries, including the European Union … only about 3% have gone to the least developed countries, less than 1m tonnes.
I have repeatedly said that our country has the capacity to replace Ukrainian grain both commercially and as free aid to needy country’s, especially since our harvest is again expected to be perfect this year.
It is now approaching 9pm in Kyiv. Here is a summary of today’s main events:
A group of Ukrainian “saboteurs” have tried to breach Russia’s border in the Bryansk region, the regional governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. The attempt was thwarted by Russia’s defence ministry, security services and police, Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. These claims have not yet been independently verified.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Russia would remain a “responsible supplier” of food and grain to African countries and could take Ukraine’s place as an international supplier of grain, in recorded remarks to a summit of the Brics countries in South Africa. He also said Putin also said the use of US dollars in trade between Brics nations was decreasing, as the countries move towards national currencies and away from dollars in an “irreversible process of de-dollarisation”.
The international court of justice will hear Russia’s objections to its jurisdiction in a genocide case brought by Ukraine in hearings starting in September, the body said on Tuesday. Ukraine filed a case with the ICJ shortly after Russia’s invasion began on 24 February 2022, which accused Moscow of falsely applying genocide law to justify the attack, Reuters reports.
Denmark has begun training eight Ukrainian pilots in flying F-16 fighter jets as part of its commitment to donate aircraft to the country, the Danish armed forces said on Tuesday. This comes after Denmark and the Netherlands pledged on Sunday to donate F-16s to Ukraine, according to Reuters. The eight pilots have arrived at the Danish military airbase in Skrydstrup along with 65 personnel who will be trained in maintaining and servicing the jets, the Danish armed forces said in a statement. Athens also offered further military and diplomatic support during Zelenskiy’s visit on Tuesday.
The leaders of 11 Balkan and eastern European countries signed a joint declaration backing Ukraine’s territorial integrity at a summit in Athens on Monday. Signed in the presence of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, they expressed their “unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders” in the face of Russia’s aggression.
Poland’s president has said Russia is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus. Andrzej Duda said the move would shift the security architecture of the region and the entire Nato military alliance, Associated Press reports. “I was telling President [Sousa] about the implementation of the declarations by Vladimir Putin that Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons will be moved to the territory of Belarus,” Duda said. “Indeed, this process is taking place, we are seeing that.”
A prominent Russian journalist said on Tuesday that Gen Sergei Surovikin, former commander of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, had been dismissed as head of the country’s aerospace forces. There was no official confirmation of the report by Alexei Venediktov, the well-connected former head of the now defunct Ekho Moskvy radio station, but it was cited by some other Russian news outlets on social media, Reuters reports.
Ukraine said its troops had entered the strategically important south-eastern village of Robotyne, a potentially significant advance in its counteroffensive against Russia. Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, said Ukrainian soldiers were organising the evacuation of civilians, but were still coming under fire from Russian forces.
Brics leaders are meeting in South Africa for a three-day summit in Johannesburg. The Brics nations are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, hosted his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for a state visit on Tuesday.
Ukraine’s president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, met with leaders of Balkan nations and the head of the European Commission on Tuesday.
In its latest intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) makes reference to reports that a Russian bomber was destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike. The MoD tweeted that a Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire medium-range bomber was highly likely to have been destroyed at Soltsy-2 airbase in the Novgorod region, 400 miles (650km) from Ukraine’s border, on Saturday. The Russian defence ministry said that an uncrewed aerial vehicle was responsible for the attack.
Russian officials said early on Tuesday that the military had brought down four Ukrainian drones near Moscow and over the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, Reuters reported.
We will be back tomorrow with more live coverage. In the meantime, you can read reporting and analysis from Guardian journalists here.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said the international bloc is set to meet the needs of most of the world’s population on a video call addressing the Brics nations at the summit in South Africa.
We cooperate on the principles of equality, partnership support, respect for each other’s interests, and this is the essence of the future-oriented strategic course of our association, a course that meets the aspirations of the main part of the world community, the so-called global majority.
According to Reuters, the Brics nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – represent more than 40% of the world’s population.
Vladimir Putin addresses leaders from the Brics group of emerging economies at the start of a three-day summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. Photograph: Jérôme Delay/AP
Putin also said the use of US dollars in trade between Brics nations was decreasing, as the countries move towards national currencies and away from dollars in an “irreversible process of de-dollarisation”.
In the video from the Brics summit in South Africa, he said:
The share of US dollar export and import operations within Brics is declining. Last year, it was only 28.7% and in fact, this summit is to discuss the detail of the entire range of issues related to the transition to national currencies in all areas of economic cooperation between our five nations.
The new Brics development bank, which has already become a credible alternative to existing western development institutions, has a great role to play in these efforts.
Putin tells African nations Russia can take Ukraine's place as supplier of grain
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Russia would remain a “responsible supplier” of food and grain to African countries and could take Ukraine’s place as an international supplier of grain, in recorded remarks to a summit of the Brics countries in South Africa.
He said:
Russia has been deliberately obstructed in the supply of grain and fertilisers abroad and at the same time, were hypocritically blamed for the current crisis situation in the world market.
We have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that in a year under the deal, a total of 32.8m tonnes of cargo has been exported from Ukraine, of which over 70% have reached high and upper middle income countries, including the European Union … only about 3% have gone to the least developed countries, less than 1m tonnes.
I have repeatedly said that our country has the capacity to replace Ukrainian grain both commercially and as free aid to needy country’s, especially since our harvest is again expected to be perfect this year.
The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also said the US does not see the Brics bloc of nations turning into a geopolitical rival to the US or anyone else.
He told a briefing:
This is a very diverse collection of countries … with differences of view on critical issues.
The US does not think the conflict in Ukraine is a stalemate, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a briefing on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
He said:
We have been clear all along that this battlefield is very dynamic … there is attacking and defending taking place on both sides at multiple points along a very extended frontline.
We are seeing it [Ukraine] continue to take territory on a methodical, systematic basis.
A prominent Russian journalist said on Tuesday that Gen Sergei Surovikin, former commander of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, had been dismissed as head of the country’s aerospace forces.
There was no official confirmation of the report by Alexei Venediktov, the well-connected former head of the now defunct Ekho Moskvy radio station, but it was cited by some other Russian news outlets on social media, Reuters reports.
Venediktov said on Telegram that Surovikin had been removed by official decree, without providing any further details.
The general has not been seen in public since a short-lived mutiny on 24 June by the Wagner mercenary group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against Russia’s defence establishment.
The decision to uphold the 13-year sentence imposed on Maksym Butkevych, a Ukrainian human rights defender, after an appeal at Moscow court on Tuesday, is a grave miscarriage of justice, Amnesty International said.
Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for research, eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:
A court in Moscow has upheld the decision made during a sham trial which was held in secret, against a defendant who had limited contact with the outside world, including his lawyer, and was apparently forced to incriminate himself on video for a crime which Maksym Butkevych simply could not have committed …
In contravention of international humanitarian law, Russia has consistently denied the ICRC unimpeded and repeated access to all prisoners of war, despite its own persistent demands and those of the UN and other stakeholders. It has wilfully deprived Ukrainian prisoners of war of the right to a fair and regular trial, which constitutes a war crime, and those responsible must be brought to account.
Russia must fully abide by international law governing occupation. It must end immediately its war or aggression against Ukraine. For all victims of all crimes under international law committed by its forces in Ukraine, Russia must provide full and adequate reparation.
Before the war in Ukraine, Butkevych led a Ukrainian NGO helping refugees find protection in Ukraine. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Butkevych volunteered for the Ukrainian Armed Forces before being put in charge of a platoon. His unit was later captured on the frontline by Russian forces, according to Amnesty International.
We will hear from some of the leaders of the Brics bloc shortly, but in the meantime, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said the bloc is not meant to rival the US and the G7.
On a social media broadcast from Johannesburg, Lula said:
We do not want to be a counterpoint to the G7, G20 or the United States.
We just want to organise ourselves.
The bloc, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, will weigh expanding the group as some members push to forge it into a counterweight to the west, according to Reuters.
Poland's leader says Russia is moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus
Poland’s president has said Russia is in the process of shifting some short-range nuclear weapons to neighbouring Belarus.
Andrzej Duda said the move would shift the security architecture of the region and the entire Nato military alliance, Associated Press reports.
Duda made his comments at a joint news conference alongside the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“I was telling President [Sousa] about the implementation of the declarations by Vladimir Putin that Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons will be moved to the territory of Belarus,” Duda said. “Indeed, this process is taking place, we are seeing that.”
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has denounced Moscow’s rhetoric as “dangerous and reckless”, but said in July that the alliance hadn’t seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range.
The leaders of 11 Balkan and eastern European countries signed a joint declaration backing Ukraine’s territorial integrity at a summit in Athens on Monday.
Signed in the presence of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, they expressed their “unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders” in the face of Russia’s aggression.
The document was signed by the leaders of Serbia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Croatia, as well as Greece, which was hosting the event.
The presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, also attended the summit, AFP reports.
The leaders also expressed their “support and appreciation for the earnest efforts by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in setting out the principles for peace in line with the UN charter”.
Denmark has begun training eight Ukrainian pilots in flying F-16 fighter jets as part of its commitment to donate aircraft to the country, the Danish armed forces said on Tuesday.
This comes after Denmark and the Netherlands pledged on Sunday to donate F-16s to Ukraine, according to Reuters.
The eight pilots have arrived at the Danish military airbase in Skrydstrup along with 65 personnel who will be trained in maintaining and servicing the jets, the Danish armed forces said in a statement.
Denmark will supply Ukraine with 19 F-16 jets and will deliver the first six jets at the end of the year.
The Netherlands, which has 42 F-16s, has yet to decide how many jets it will supply.
Denmark has 43 F-16s, but for safety reasons will not disclose how many of them are active, the Danish statement added.
The international court of justice will hear Russia’s objections to its jurisdiction in a genocide case brought by Ukraine in hearings starting in September, the body said on Tuesday.
Ukraine filed a case with the ICJ shortly after Russia’s invasion began on 24 February 2022, which accused Moscow of falsely applying genocide law to justify the attack, Reuters reports.
In a preliminary decision in the case in March last year, the court ordered Russia to cease military actions in Ukraine immediately. The rulings of the ICJ, also known as the world court, are binding, but it has no direct means of enforcing them.
The hearings on jurisdiction will start on 18 September, with submissions from Russia and a response from Ukraine the following day.
Thirty-two other nations, including the UK, Canada and Australia, will give their views on the case in the hearings which wrap up 27 September.
Activists demonstrate at Innesfree Park in the Sandton area of Johannesburg, South Africa as leaders of the Brics nations meet for a summit.
The protesters are calling for an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will discuss expanding the bloc as some members push to forge it into a counterweight to the west, according to Reuters.
An activist holds a sign referring to Russia’s foreign affairs minister. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Members of Amnesty International South Africa, the Ukrainian Association of South Africa and the Helen Suzman Foundation take part in the protest. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Protesters hold up placards. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
The protesters also called for an end to the crackdown on anti-war protesters in Russia and an end to the civil war in Ethiopia.
Luxembourg has joined the G7 declaration of support for Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
The country’s president thanked Luxembourg and its people for their “unwavering support” in a tweet:
I am grateful to Luxembourg for joining the G7 Declaration on security guarantees for Ukraine. I thank Luxembourg and its people for their unwavering support for Ukraine, which is based on shared democratic ideals and the common interests of our Euro-Atlantic family 🇱🇺🇺🇦
A group of Ukrainian “saboteurs” have tried to breach Russia’s border in the Bryansk region, its governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
The attempt was thwarted by Russia’s defence ministry, security services and police, Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. These claims have not yet been independently verified.
Here is a picture of the supersonic bomber Ukraine reportedly destroyed in a drone strike over the weekend (see earlier post at 06.10).
Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that a Ukrainian drone had targeted a military airfield in Russia’s Novgorod region, causing a fire and damaging one warplane.
Ukraine has not acknowledged the strike and rarely comments on attacks on Russian territory.
A Russian warplane on fire at Soltsy airbase in the Novgorod region in north-western Russia. Photograph: AP
Ukraine said its troops had entered the strategically important south-eastern village of Robotyne, a potentially significant advance in its counteroffensive against Russia. Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, said Ukrainian soldiers were organising the evacuation of civilians, but were still coming under fire from Russian forces.
Brics leaders are meeting in South Africa for a three-day summit in Johannesburg. The Brics nations are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, hosted his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for a state visit on Tuesday.
Ukraine’s president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, met with leaders of Balkan nations and the head of the European Commission on Tuesday.
In its latest intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) makes reference to reports that a Russian bomber was destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike. The MoD tweeted that a Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire medium-range bomber was highly likely to have been destroyed at Soltsy-2 airbase in the Novgorod region, 400 miles (650km) from Ukraine’s border, on Saturday. The Russian defence ministry said that an uncrewed aerial vehicle was responsible for the attack.
Russian officials said early on Tuesday that the military had brought down four Ukrainian drones near Moscow and over the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires:
Residents stand next to debris following a drone attack in Krasnogorsk in the Moscow region. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Army and municipal workers set up damaged Russian military vehicles along Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv. Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA
Volodymyr Zelenskiy (4th R) meeting with Andrej Plenković (3rd L), Croatia’s prime minister, on the sidelines of the Ukraine-Balkans summit in Athens, Greece. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Pres Service/AFP/Getty Images
