Ukraine updates: Kyiv seeks US security pledges

Intense Russian shelling killed at least four civilians in the southern city of Kherson, the head of Ukraine's presidential office, Andriy Yermak said. 

Another 17 people were wounded in the attacks. 

"The enemy is hitting residential neighborhoods," Yermak said. 

Kherson was freed from Russian occupation in October last year, but a large part of Kherson province remains occupied by Russian troops.

Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza has lost his appeal against a 25-year jail sentence for criticizing the war in Ukraine. 

Kara-Murza, who holds Russian and British citizenship, was found guilty of treason and spreading "false information"  in April and sentenced to the maximum penalty.

The prominent opposition figure was one of the few who stayed in Russia and continued to speak out against President Vladimir Putin's war.

He has denied all of the charges, which he has said are politically motivated.

Meanwhile, the UK government added six officials and judges involved in Kara-Murza's trial to its sanctions list. 

Russian air strikes destroyed an estimated 180,000 metric tons of grain crops in the space of nine days this month, the Ukrainian foreign ministry says.

The Russian attacks crippled significant parts of export facilities in Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk.

After it withdrew from the Black Sea grain deal that had allowed Ukraine to safely export grain, Russia conducted air strikes on Ukrainian port infrastructure several times.

Russian missiles that hit an apartment complex and a university building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih Monday killed at least six people, according to Ukrainian officials.

Scores of others were wounded as the blasts trapped residents beneath the rubble. A 10-year-old girl was among those killed along with her mother, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said. 

One of the two missiles destroyed a section of the apartment building between the fourth and ninth floors.

Dnipro Governor Serhii Lysak said 53 people were wounded in the attack, which also destroyed part of the four-story university building.

Moscow says negotiations around possible future Western security guarantees for Ukraine could risk a deteriorating security situation in Europe.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that possiblebilateral security guarantees for Ukraine would upset the principles of international relations. He said it must not come at the expense of Russia's needs.

"In our opinion, this will only lead to a further deterioration of the security situation on the European continent," said Peskov.

Russia says its own security is threatened by Ukraine's ambitions to draw closer to the West, including by joining the European Union and NATO. However, the Western military alliance NATO has repeatedly insisted that it poses no threat to Russia.

The UK Ministry of Defense says recent events have highlighted the impact that the war in Ukraine is having on the Russian population.

In particular, it observes that Russian authorities are prioritizing changes to legislation to allow more men to be rapidly drafted into the military. 

In mid-July 2023, Russia's parliament, the Duma, increased the maximum age of liability for conscription from 27 to 30.  It retained the current lower limit of 18.

While conscripts are not officially deployed in Ukraine, extra draftees free professional and mobilized soldiers from other duties inside Russia for deployment elsewhere.

"Reservists made up the Autumn 2022 'partial mobilization' and could provide a more immediate boost to the number available to fight in Ukraine."

The British report notes that this increased chance of being compelled to fight, drone attacks on Moscow, an exceptional level of domestic repression, and the recent Wagner mutiny "highlight the Russian state’s failure to insulate the population from the war."

Ukrainian armed forces last week managed to retake some 15 square kilometers (5.8 square miles) of land from occupying Russian forces, Kyiv military officials say.

Most of the territory (12.6 square kilometers) was on the front lines in southern Ukraine, a post from Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.

More than 240 square kilometers have been recaptured from Russia since the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, some eight weeks ago.

Russia still controls some 100,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014.

Russia says Ukraine's counteroffensive is not going as planned and that it was wasting billions of dollars of weapons supplied by the West.

In comments to a military conference, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Ukraine was "desperately hurling new forces" into attacks on Russian positions. However, he said, Kyiv's forces had failed to advance.

While Ukraine says it has made gradual progress against entrenched Russian forces, this has been slower than it had hoped for. 

With Ukraine under pressure to make gains after taking delivery of Western weapons, Russia has sought to portray the counteroffensive as a failure.

Russia says the Ukrainian armed forces carried out a drone attack on a government building in the region of Trubchevsk overnight.

There was damage to the roof and windows of the building, but no casualties, according to the governor of the Bryansk region Alexander Bogomaz.

The Bryansk region is north and slightly to the east of the Ukrainian border.

In the Rostov region, Governor Vasily Golubev reported an incident involving a drone in a settlement of Daraganovka.

Golubev said a house and car were damaged but that no one was injured.  

Russia — which also reported drone attacks on Moscow on the weekend — has been waging a full-scale war against Ukraine since February 2022, attacking residential areas and infrastructure with massive missile and drone strikes. 

Border regions in Russia have repeatedly complained of attacks from the Ukrainian side, although casualties and damage have been minimal compared to the Russian destruction in Ukraine. 

Kyiv has not officially admitted any involvement in the attacks.

The head of Russia's mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, says the organization is not currently recruiting fighters but is likely to start doing so again.

Wagner's future, and that of Prigozhin, has been unclear after a brief mutiny against the Russian defense establishment in late June.

The Kremlin said he and some of his fighters — who fought in some of the toughest battles of the Ukraine war — would leave for Belarus.

However, Prigozhin attended a meeting with Putin five days after the mutiny and was photographed last week in Saint Petersburg, where President Vladimir Putin hosted African leaders.

"Today we are defining our next tasks, whose outline is becoming clearer and clearer. Undoubtedly, these are tasks that will be carried out in the name of the greatness of Russia," a voice sounding like Prigozhin's said in the message published on Grey Zone, a Telegram channel affiliated with Wagner.

The Kremlin has previously said Wagner fighters who did not take part in the June mutiny would be able to transfer to the regular army. 

Prigozhin appeared to allude to this in his voice message, saying that "unfortunately" some of his fighters had moved to other "power structures." He added that they were now looking to return.

Saudi Arabia is preparing ahead of a Ukraine-organized peace summit in early August in the Red Sea port of Jeddah. 

The summit would seek to find a way to start negotiations about ending the war started by Russia, although no Moscow representative has been invited. 

Ukraine says the peace plan could also provide a framework for preventing new conflicts elsewhere.

"The Ukrainian Peace Formula contains 10 fundamental points, the implementation of which will not only ensure peace for Ukraine but also create mechanisms to counter future conflicts in the world," Ukraine presidential office head Andriy Yermak said in a statement.

"We are deeply convinced that the Ukrainian peace plan should be taken as a basis, because the war is taking place on our land."

The formula stipulates the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those deemed responsible for the aggression, and security provisions for Ukraine.

Yermak said the points had been "discussed individually and in groups with representatives of more than 50 countries on an almost weekly basis."

Russia's Foreign Ministry has said dialogue on prospects for a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine war will continue with China, Brazil and its African partners. 

The statement came after last week's Russia-African summit in Saint Petersburg, at which some African leaders urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war.

The leaders also urged Putin to resume a deal that kept grain flowing from Ukraine but emerged with little to show.

Ukraine begins talks with the United States this week on security guarantees ahead of its eventual accession to NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office that talks with the US would revolve around obtaining bilateral security commitments.

"Security guarantees for Ukraine will be concrete, long-term obligations ensuring Ukraine's capacity to defeat and restrain Russian aggression in the future," said office head Andriy Yermak. "These will be clearly drafted formats and mechanisms of support."

The pledges should encompass defense support and financing as well as further sanctions against Russia, Yermak said. He added that Ukraine was also working on bilateral agreements with its other allies.

NATO's Vilnius summit in early July offered support to Ukraine in countering Russia's 17-month-old invasion, but no timeline for accession.

At the time, the lack of a chronological plan was described by Zelenskyy as "unprecedented and absurd."

However, G7 nations present in the Lithuanian capital agreed for each to negotiate agreements with Kyiv to provide guarantees for Ukraine to bolster its military.

Two Russian missile strikes have hit the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, the Ukrainian interior ministry said in a statement.

Footage from the city that was circulated on social networks showed a gaping hole in the side of a nine-story residential building and a fire inside.

It is believed that at least one person was killed, with more likely trapped under rubble.

"The enemy conducted a missile strike on Kryvyi Rih. All the necessary agencies are working at the scene now," the interior ministry said, urging people to stay in air raid shelters.

A four-story educational building was also hit. 

The steel-producing city of Kryvyi Rih, in southern central Ukraine, is the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

rc/wr (dpa, Reuters, AFP, AP)