Russia has pushed ahead with a plan to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko reportedly claimed on Thursday that the transfer of some arms from Russia to Belarus had already started.
Dutch prosecutors have seized a property near Amsterdam belonging to Vladimir Putin’s former son-in-law. This is the finding of a joint investigation by the Guardian and two other media organisations. The property in Duivendrecht is owned by Jorrit Faassen, a Dutch businessman who was married to Maria Vorontsova, the elder daughter of the Russian president.
Britain is likely to immobilize Russian state assets for some time after the war in Ukraine is over, and certainly until Moscow agrees to pay compensation for the damage it caused. British officials have confirmed this. At last week’s Council of Europe summit, a digital damage register for Ukraine was established as a first step towards an international reparation mechanism for victims of Russian aggression.
The United States has long urged Ukraine not to use US-supplied military equipment for attacks on Russian territorythe top US general said Thursday after Russia raised allegations that pro-Ukrainian militias had used US armored vehicles.
Russia has signaled it will not renew the Black Sea Grains Agreement before July 17 if calls to improve its grain and fertilizer exports are not met. It made the same threat and demands in March, and then last week agreed to extend the export deal by 60 days.
Unconfirmed footage appears to show a drone speedboat attack on the Russian Navy ship Ivan Khurs in the Black Sea On Wednesday. Video appears to show at least one of the drones getting extremely close to the ship, but it remains unclear whether or not damage was sustained.
The Russian mercenary group Wagner has begun withdrawing its troops from the devastated Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and to transfer the positions there to regular Russian troops, according to its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The US said the Wagner Group may be working through Mali and other countries to cover up efforts to acquire military equipment for use in Ukraine. and accused it of supplying surface-to-air missiles to a Sudanese paramilitary.
Ukraine secured the release of 106 captured soldiers in a prisoner swap with Russia on Thursday, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff. According to reports, the soldiers, including eight officers, were captured during fighting in Bakhmut.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the ambassadors of Germany, Sweden and Denmark because of “completely no results” in the Nord Stream investigation. Several unexplained underwater explosions led to the rupture of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines connecting Russia and Germany across the Baltic Sea in September 2022. The blasts happened in the economic zones of Sweden and Denmark, and both countries said they were intentional but have not yet been able to determine who was responsible. Germany is also investigating.
Ukraine said on Thursday it shot down all 36 Iranian-made drones launched by Russia in night attacks It is claimed that the attacks likely targeted key infrastructure and military installations.
Russia has denied that a fire broke out at the Defense Ministry in Moscow. According to social media users and reports from the state news agency Tass, emergency services were called to the building. Tass initially reported a fire at the ministry early Thursday morning, but later reported there had been no fire.