Russia-Ukraine war – latest news: Kyiv’s forces will enter Crimea ‘soon’ as Putin courts North Korea

Saudi Arabia announced that it will host peace talks among Western countries, Ukraine and key developing countries including India and Brazil next month.

It comes as Europe and Washington Intensify efforts to consolidate international support for Ukraine’s peace demands, the Wallstreet Journal reported.

The meeting would bring senior officials from up to 30 countries to Jeddah on Aug 5 and 6.

Over 100 mercenaries belonging to the Russian-linked Wagner group in Belarus have moved close to the border with Poland, the Polish prime minister said Saturday.

Mateusz Morawiecki said at a news conference that the mercenaries had moved close to the Suwalki Gap, a strategic stretch of Polish territory situated between Belarus and Kaliningrad, a Russian territory separated from the mainland.

Poland is a member of both the European Union and NATO, and it has worried about its security with Russian ally Belarus and Ukraine on its eastern border.

Those fears have grown since Wagner group mercenaries arrived in Belarus since the group’s short-lived rebellion earlier this summer.

Amid the ravages of war, Sergey, a seasoned Wagner mercenary, found himself grappling with the relentless violence that has become a way of life and death on the front line. The savage conflict, the sense of betrayal from the Kremlin, and rumours of plots, all combined to create an atmosphere of uncertainty and dread.

At the end he decided to abandon the Wagner group and the savage, meat-grinding combat of Donbas where corpses piled up, and towns and cities were razed.

With the future of the mercenary group in the balance after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed march on Moscow and fear of future retribution, Sergey cannot forget the terrible things he witnessed in the months of bloody conflict.

The railroad was between occupied Crimea and the Kherson region.

Around 12 Storm Shadow long-range missiles were intercepted by air defences, according to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed acting head of the Kherson region administration.

He said on Telegram: “All the missiles were shot down by our air defence.

“Once again, it is the civilian infrastructure that is being struck by the enemies.”

A month on from the Wagner Group’s extraordinary attempted mutiny against Russia’s military establishment – which saw its fighters leave their posts in eastern Ukraine, occupy the city of Rostov-on-Don and march on Moscow before a last minute peace deal was agreed – the mercenary group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appears to be back in his homeland.

Under the terms of the truce brokered between Mr Prigozhin and Vladimir Putin by Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko on 24 June, the former was said to have agreed to resettle in Belarus while his troops were ordered to report to camps in that country before either rejoining the Russian military or stepping away altogether without fear of prosecution.

It subsequently emerged that Mr Prigozhin – a former felon who emerged from prison to build up a lucrative catering business and was nicknamed “Putin’s chef” before he formed Wagner – had attended a face-to-face meeting with Mr Putin at the Kremlin five days after the aborted coup, rather than making his way to Minsk as agreed, deepening the mystery surrounding the affair.

The official state holiday for Christmas Day in Ukraine has been changed from 7 January to 25 December, in an effort to move away from Russian tradition.

As more Ukrainians began to celebrate Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar on 25 December, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law a parliamentary bill that made the cultural shift official.

The bill, signed by Zelensky on Friday (28 July), is said to “abandon the Russian heritage of imposing Christmas celebrations.”

A 9-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother have been called as witnesses in a criminal case against their mother after she was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army.

Lidia Prudovskaya and her two children were summoned by investigators in the northern Russian region of Arkhangelsk on Friday to give testimony in the case, Russian news outlet Sota reported.

Prudovskaya previously faced administrative charges on similar allegations after sharing anti-war posts on Russian social media platform VKontakte in September 2022.

Discrediting the Russian military is a criminal offense under a law adopted after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. The law is regularly used against Kremlin critics.

In April, Russian authorities petitioned to restrict the parental rights of a single father convicted of discrediting the army following an anti-war sketch drawn by his daughter at school.

Alexei Moskalyov, 54, was sentenced to two years in prison for social media comments he had made criticizing Moscow’s war in Ukraine, while his daughter Maria was placed in an orphanage.

The 13-year-old was later moved to live with her mother.

Vladimir Putin lauded North Korea’s “unwavering support” for the “special military operation” in Ukraine as Russia joined China in Pyongyang to celebrate the hermit kingdom’s 70th anniversary of the Korean War truce.

Mr Putin sent defence minister Sergei Shoigu who was seen alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and held one-on-one talks with him, reported the Korean nation’s state media.

Mr Putin sent his congratulatory message wherein he lauded “the DPRK’s unwavering support for [Russia’s] special military operation” in Ukraine.

Kyiv’s forces are set to enter Russian-occupied Crimea “soon”, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence directorate has said.

Speaking to Ukrainian news site TSN, Kyrylo Budanov said that troops could begin their military operation to liberate Crimea shortly, although he did not give a specific timeframe.

Crimea has been under occupation by Moscow since 2014 and is a key target of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which appears to be ramping up after months of slow progress.

Russia has received around 30 peace initiatives on Ukraine through official and unofficial channels, the TASS news agency reported on Saturday, citing Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.