Russia-Ukraine latest updates: Putin announces new naval doctrine

The Turkish presidential spokesman has said he is hopeful that the grain export deal signed between Turkey, the United Nations, Russia, and Ukraine can pave the way for peace talks.

“I don’t want to sound overly optimistic, but it’s not unlikely that this grain supply deal will open the door to a ceasefire, prisoner swap, and fresh peace negotiations if it is implemented well,” Ibrahim Kalin said in a televised interview.

Kalin said that a war in which both sides suffer defeat and the entire globe suffers harm would have no winner, pointing out how the war impacts every aspect of life worldwide, ranging from the cost of energy to commodity and food prices.

He also noted that ships from the ports of Odesa are loaded and ready to go, but inspections, coordinated corridors, and delivery of the shipments are still being arranged. Kalin stressed that if everything goes well the ships may depart in two days at the latest.

Keep reading:

• Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 158
• Russia pummels Ukraine’s Mykolaiv, killing major grain exporter
• Ukraine’s Zelenskyy announces evacuation from Donetsk region
• Ukraine says dozens of Russian soldiers killed in the south

Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, said that there is a “very high likelihood” that grain ships will be allowed to leave Ukraine to reach Istanbul, Turkey.

“The Turkish presidential spokesperson said those ships have a very high likelihood to leave tomorrow,” said Hendren, adding that a captain he had spoken to said he had been told to prepare to follow a pilot ship on Monday to go to Istanbul through the newly created safe channels.

The long-awaited departure of tonnes of grain would take place more than a week after Russia and Ukraine agreed to allow vessels to leave from three Ukrainian ports in a move that would alleviate grain shortages across the world.

The Ukrainian navy is expected to guide the ships out of the Black Sea coast due to the presence of mines. Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations will operate a joint coordination centre where ships will be tracked and inspected as they enter the Bosphorus strait.

United States Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink has condemned the attack on the Olenivka detention facility, calling it “unconscionable”.

“As are reports of barbaric treatment of Ukrainian POWs [prisoners of war] by Russia’s forces,” Brink said on Twitter.

“We will continue to pursue accountability and give Ukraine what it needs to defend itself against Moscow’s horrific aggression,” she added.

The attack on the detention facility in Olenivka is unconscionable, as are reports of barbaric treatment of Ukrainian POWs by Russia’s forces. We will continue to pursue accountability and give Ukraine what it needs to defend itself against Moscow's horrific aggression.

— Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) July 31, 2022

Her comment comes after a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in a separatist-held area of the eastern Donetsk region was attacked on Thursday, killing at least 50 people. Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for the attack.

Although Vladimir Putin announced a new naval doctrine set to boost Russia’s maritime presence, the Russian navy will struggle to compete with the US and NATO fleets, an analyst has told Al Jazeera.

“The Russian navy, surface navy at least, is outnumbered four to one by NATO European members alone and by far more by the American navy – so in terms of numbers, there is no contest,” said Anatol Lieven, senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft.

“Where Russia is equal to the US is in nuclear weapons, which is why President Putin repeatedly emphasises Russia’s missile technology because this is the one area in which Russia is still a superpower,” he added.

“The Russian navy has always been considered to have had a relatively high morale and good commanders, but it cannot realistically fight NATO … The only area where the navy is actually in action is in the Black Sea and Russia cannot reinforce the navy in the Black Sea.”

Russian forces have fired up to 50 shells in residential areas of Nikopol, a city in southern Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko has said on its Telegram channel.

One person was wounded in the attack, Reznichenko said. One house was completely destroyed, he said, adding that a school, kindergarten and several city institutions were also damaged.

Two other districts of the Dnipropetrovsk region were “set on fire” amid Russian shelling, read the post.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it is still waiting to access prisoners of war (POWs) who were injured in an attack on a prison camp in Olenivka, in the separatist-held region of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

“To be clear, our request to access the POWs from Olenivka yesterday has not been granted,” the ICRC delegation in Ukraine said on Twitter.

“Granting ICRC access to POWs is an obligation of parties to conflict under the Geneva Conventions.”

To be clear, our request to access the POWs from Olenivka penal facility yesterday has not been granted.

Granting ICRC access to POWs is an obligation of parties to conflict under the Geneva Conventions.

— ICRC Ukraine (@ICRC_ua) July 30, 2022

But the Russian Defence Ministry has said that Moscow has invited the ICRC to visit.

The ICRC, which is strictly neutral, is authorised to visit prisoners of war under international law. However, formally, delegates first need the consent of the party holding the POWs before they can visit.

Zelenskyy has called the death of Oleksiy Vadatursky, the founder and owner of agriculture company Nibulon, “a great loss for all of Ukraine”.

He said in a statement the businessman had been in the process of building a modern grain market involving a network of transhipment terminals and elevators.

Keep reading:

• Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 158
• Ukraine’s Zelenskyy announces evacuation from Donetsk region
• Ukraine says dozens of Russian soldiers killed in the south
• Russia’s Gazprom cuts of gas supplies to Latvia

President Vladimir Putin has signed a new naval doctrine which cast the US as the main rival and set out Russia’s global maritime ambitions for crucial areas such as the Arctic and in the Black Sea.

Speaking on Navy Day in St Petersburg, founded by Tsar Peter the Great, Putin praised Peter for making Russia a great sea power and increasing the global standing of the Russian state.

After inspecting the navy, Putin made a short speech in which he promised what he touted as Russia’s unique Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, cautioning that Russia had the military clout to defeat any potential aggressors.

The new 55-page naval doctrine sets out the broad strategic aims of the navy, including its ambitions as a “great maritime power” which extend over the entire world.

As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 158th day, we take a look at the main developments.

Read more here.

The founder and owner of one of the largest Ukrainian agriculture companies, Nibulon, Oleksiy Vadatursky, and his wife were killed in a Russian attack on the Mykolaiv region, Governor Vitaliy Kim has said.

The governor said on Telegram that the couple were killed in their home in Mykolaiv city, which was shelled overnight and on Sunday morning.

Nibulon, with its headquarters in Mykolaiv, specialises in the production and export of wheat, barley and corn, and it has its own fleet and shipyard.

Authorities in Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv say widespread Russian bombardments overnight killed at least one person as Moscow continues to pummel the sprawling front line.

“Mykolaiv was subjected to mass shelling today. Probably the strongest so far,” Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych wrote on Telegram.

“Powerful explosions were heard after one in the morning and around five in the morning.”

The governor of the region – where Ukrainian forces are looking to launch a major counteroffensive – said according to preliminary information one person had been killed and two wounded in the attack.

The possibility of the first grain-exporting ship leaving Ukraine’s ports on Monday is high, a spokesperson for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

In an interview with broadcaster Kanal 7, Ibrahim Kalin said the joint coordination centre in Istanbul would probably complete the final work on the exporting routes very soon.

Russia and Ukraine are top global wheat suppliers, and the UN-brokered agreement they signed in Istanbul last week is intended to ease the food crisis and reduce global grain prices that have risen since the Russian invasion.

Ukraine has denied carrying out a drone attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea, that Russian officials said wounded six personnel.

Sergiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the coastal Odesa military region, dismissed claims that Ukraine was behind the attack as “sheer provocation”.

“Our liberation of Crimea from the occupiers will be carried out in another way and much more effectively,” he wrote on Telegram.

President Vladimir Putin has said the Russian navy would receive hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles within the next few months and that the area of their deployment would depend on Russian interests.

Speaking on Russia’s Navy Day in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg, Putin praised Tsar Peter the Great for making Russia a great sea power. Putin did not mention Ukraine directly.

But the Kremlin chief said he had signed a new navy doctrine, the details of which were not published, and touted the Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles as unique in the world.

“The delivery of these [missiles] to the Russian armed forces will start in the coming months,” Putin said. “The Admiral Gorshkov frigate will be the first to go on combat duty with these formidable weapons on board.”

“The key thing here is the capability of the Russian navy … It is able to respond with lightning speed to all who decides to infringe on our sovereignty and freedom.”

Zelenskyy has said Ukraine’s harvest could be half its usual amount this year due to the Russian invasion.

“Ukrainian harvest this year is under the threat to be twice less,” suggesting half as much as usual, he wrote in English on Twitter.

“Our main goal — to prevent global food crisis caused by Russian invasion. Still grains find a way to be delivered alternatively,” he added.

Ukraine, a key global supplier of grains, has struggled to get its product to buyers due to a Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

Zelenskyy has warned that thousands of people, including children, were still in the region’s battleground areas, with six civilians killed and 15 wounded on Friday, according to the Donetsk governor.

“There’s already a governmental decision about obligatory evacuation from Donetsk,” Zelenskyy said, underscoring authorities’ calls to leave the besieged region in recent weeks.

“Leave, we will help,” Zelenskyy said. “At this stage of the war, terror is the main weapon of Russia.”

Official Ukrainian estimates put the number of civilians still living in the unoccupied area of Donetsk at between 200,000 and 220,000.

Keep reading:

• Ukraine’s Zelenskyy announces evacuation from Donetsk region
• Ukraine says dozens of Russian soldiers killed in the south
• Russia’s Gazprom cuts of gas supplies to Latvia
• Sixteen ships loaded with grain ready to leave Ukraine’s Odesa

A drone attack on the Russian fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol wounded five people, the Russian-annexed city’s Mayor Mikhail Razvozhayev has said.

“This morning, Ukrainian nationalists decided to spoil the Day of the Russian Fleet” being celebrated on Sunday, he said on Telegram, adding that five people, including employees of the army staff, had been wounded.

All festivities had been “cancelled for security reasons”, he said, asking residents of the city to remain indoors “if possible”.

Huge celebrations are due to take place in Russia, including a naval parade in Saint Petersburg that will be attended by President Vladimir Putin.

Russian gas producer Gazprom says its supply of gas to Europe through Ukraine via the Sudzha entry point was seen at 42.2 million cubic metres (mcm), up from 42.1mcm a day earlier.

An application to supply gas via the Sokhranovka entry point was rejected by Ukraine, Gazprom said.

The Ukrainian government has decided on a mandatory evacuation of people in the region around the eastern city of Donetsk, the scene of fierce fighting with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

In a late-night address, Zelenskyy also said the hundreds of thousands of people still in combat zones in the larger Donbas region needed to leave.

Russia has invited experts from the UN and the Red Cross to investigate the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners in a jail held by Moscow-backed separatists, the defence ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry said it was acting “in the interests of conducting an objective investigation” into what it called an attack on the jail earlier in the week.

The separatists put the death toll at 53 and accused Kyiv of hitting the prison with rockets. Ukraine’s armed forces denied responsibility, saying Russian artillery had targeted the prison to hide the mistreatment of those held there.