Three bodies recovered from school hit by Russian strike in eastern Ukraine – as it happened

It’s nearly 2am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:

• A new statement from Europol announced that the organization has no records of weapons being smuggled out of Ukraine. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation said that it has full confidence in Ukraine, especially because the country has started to implement new measures to monitor and track weapons, Euromaidan reports.
• Russia’s invasion of Ukriane has caused $5.5bn in damage to Ukraine’s environment, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to Ruslan Strelets, Ukraine’s minister of environmental protection and natural resources, there have been 2,000 recorded cases of damage to nature since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
• The US is exploring whether it can send American-made fighter jets to Ukraine, a White House spokesperson announced on Friday. Although Joe Biden’s administration has started making explorations into the possibility of providing the jets to Ukraine, the move is not something that would be done immediately, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters in a briefing.
• Emergency workers recovered three bodies from a school hit by a Russian strike in eastern Ukraine, officials said on Friday, one of a string of attacks on the nation as Russia claims that that its forces destroyed four Himars. The casualties in the city of Kramatorsk followed a barrage Thursday on a densely populated area of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, that killed at least three people and wounded 23.
• Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he has little confidence in Russia fulfilling its side of a bargain reached with Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations on resuming grain shipments from Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reports. “Canada’s confidence in Russia’s reliability is pretty much nil,” said Trudeau.
• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on Friday that Ukraine has about $10bn worth of grain available for sale in the wake of the deal. “This is another demonstration that Ukraine can withstand the war,” he said in a late-night address, Reuters reports. He said that Ukraine will also have a chance to sell the current harvest.
• Russian investigators on Friday launched a criminal investigation into a pregnant city councillor in Siberia who is one of the last allies of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny still in the country. The investigative committee said it has launched criminal proceedings against Helga Pirogova over spreading disinformation concerning Russia’s military. Pirogova is an independent member of the city council in Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city.
• On Friday, the US signed off on an additional $270m in military aid to Ukraine including four new Himar (high mobility artillery rocket) precision rocket systems. Speaking to reporters, White House spokesman John Kirby said Russia has “launched deadly strikes across the country, striking malls, apartment buildings, killing innocent Ukrainian civilians”.

That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we close our blog for today. I’ll be back tomorrow, thank you.

A new statement from Europol announced that the organization has no records of weapons being smuggled out of Ukraine.

The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation said that it has full confidence in Ukraine, especially because the country has started to implement new measures to monitor and track weapons, Euromaidan reports.

“Europol is working closely with Ukrainian officials to mitigate the threat of arms trafficking into the European Union. We have full confidence in them as they implement new measures to monitor and track these firearms,” Europol stated in a statement on Friday.

“We continue to be in close contact as the situation on the ground in Ukraine changes, and we are grateful to our Ukrainian colleagues for this. They continue to follow leads and cooperate on cases of interest for EU internal security, in spite of the continued Russian military aggression,” it added.

Russia’s invasion of Ukriane has caused $5.5 billion in damage to Ukraine’s environment, the Kyiv Independent reports.

According to Ruslan Strelets, Ukraine’s minister of environmental protection and natural resources, there have been 2,000 recorded cases of damage to nature since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

“Today, Russia is the main environmental terrorist,” Strelets said, the outlet reported.

The US is exploring whether it can send American-made fighter jets to Ukraine, a White House spokesperson announced on Friday.

Although Joe Biden’s administration has started exploring the possibility of providing the jets to Ukraine, the move is not something that would be done immediately, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters in a briefing.

“It’s not something that would be executed in the near-term,” Kirby said, Reuters reports.

Such a move would be a major increase in US support for Ukraine in its battle against Russia. So far the United States has provided $8.2 billion in security aid for Ukraine.

Earlier today, the White House signed off on the provision of four additional Himars to Ukraine, bringing the total number of high mobility artillery rocket systems provided to Ukraine up to 20.

Emergency workers recovered three bodies from a school hit by a Russian strike in eastern Ukraine, officials said Friday, one of a string of attacks on the nation as Russia claims that its forces destroyed four Himars.

The casualties in the city of Kramatorsk followed a barrage Thursday on a densely populated area of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, that killed at least three people and wounded 23.

The Ukrainian president’s office said that in the Donbas city of Kramatorsk, Russian shelling destroyed a school and damaged 85 residential buildings.

“Russian strikes on schools and hospitals are very painful and reflect its true goal of reducing peaceful cities to ruins,” Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in televised remarks, Agence France-Presse reports.

Russian officials have offered a different narrative of the attack, with defense ministry spokesman Lt Gen Igor Konashenkov saying that Thursday’s strike killed over 300 Ukrainian troops that were using Kramatorsk’s School No 23 as their base.

He also claimed that another strike destroyed a munitions depot in the southern city of Mykolaiv. Additionally, Konashenkov claimed that Russian forces destroyed four US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems between 5-20 July.

The claims could not be independently verified by Agence France-Presse.

A senior US defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity said on Thursday that Russia has not yet destroyed a single Himars but was likely to “get lucky” and do so at some point.

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Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he has little confidence in Russia fulfilling its side of a bargain reached with Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations on resuming grain shipments from Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reports.

“Canada’s confidence in Russia’s reliability is pretty much nil,” said Trudeau.

Nevertheless, he said he is “optimistic” that the grain will find its way “to places around the world where it is needed,” he said at a press briefing.

“They have demonstrated nothing but poor faith,” he said. “They have precipitated a global energy crisis (and) a global food crisis with their invasion of Ukraine, and the rest of us have been working very, very hard to try and mitigate those issues around the world.”

Trudeau said Canada and its G7 counterparts are “working closely” with Turkey, the UN and others to get up to 25 million tonnes of grain stuck in Ukraine to global markets.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced on Friday that Ukraine has around $10bn worth of grain available for sale in the wake of a deal signed with Russia earlier today to unblock supplies.

“This is another demonstration that Ukraine can withstand the war,” he said in a late-night address, Reuters reports. He said that Ukraine will also have a chance to sell the current harvest.

He went on to add that approximately 20m tonnes of last year’s harvest will be exported after the conclusion of what he called an important deal.

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Russian investigators on Friday launched a criminal investigation into a pregnant city councillor in Siberia who is one of the last allies of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny still in the country, Agence France-Presse reports.

The investigative committee said it has launched criminal proceedings against Helga Pirogova over spreading disinformation concerning Russia’s military. Pirogova is an independent member of the city council in Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city.

The 33-year-old has publicly criticized Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and faces up to three years in prison if convicted. She was briefly detained on Thursday and according to her supporters, she is four months pregnant.

“They need an internal enemy that they can easily fight,” she told AFP on Friday. When asked about how she felt, Pirogova said, “I’d like to avoid this but what can you do.”

Investigators have accused Pirogova of posting “false information” about the Russian army in mid-July, when she commented on a report on Twitter regarding the funerals of troops killed in Ukraine.

She said she wanted to “revive” the troops to punish them for their role in Russia’s offensive and then “let them go back to their graves”. She later deleted her tweet, calling it “too emotional”.

Pirogova said she wanted to shed light on to the fact that people in Russian provinces were so poor that instead of mourning their dead they admired the funeral arrangements made by officials.

“You can invite half the village!” she said in a Facebook post this week.

In March, Pirogova sparked controversy when she showed up at a council meeting wearing a blue shirt and a crown of yellow flowers - the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

“I do not support any conflict and what is happening is an immense tragedy for everyone,” Pirogova told AFP in March.

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On Friday, the US signed off on an additional $270 million in military aid to Ukraine including four new Himar (high mobility artillery rocket) precision rocket systems.

Speaking to reporters, White House spokesman John Kirby said Russia has “launched deadly strikes across the country, striking malls, apartment buildings, killing innocent Ukrainian civilians,” Agence France-Presse reports.

“In the face of these atrocities, the president has made clear that we’re going to continue to support the government of Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes,” he said.

The new aid will total the number of M142 high mobility artillery rocket Systems sent to Ukraine to 20. Himars can precisely strike targets within 80 kilometers (50 miles) - a game-changer in countering Russia.

The White House also said that the new military package will also include 500 new Phoenix Ghosts, small and highly portable drones that detonate on their target, as well as 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition.

The majority of the aid comes from a $40bn package that Congress approved in May.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov said that he hoped that the US would provide as much as 100 Himars, arguing that they could help turn the tide of war against Russian forces.

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Here are the latest developments at a glance:

• Ukraine and Russia have signed a UN-backed deal to allow the export of millions of tonnes of grain from blockaded Black Sea ports, potentially averting a looming catastrophic global food crisis.
• The US and the UK have said they would ‘watch’ Russia closely and monitor whether it will honour the agreement, which has been described as “life-saving” by the Red Cross chief.
• The grain crisis resulting from a lasting blockade of exports from Ukrainian ports should act as a “wake-up call” for Africa, the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said.
• The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will begin an African tour Sunday, and will visit Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo Republic with the aim to forge closer ties as Moscow seeks new alliances.
  
• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview on Friday that a cease-fire with Russia without reclaiming the lost lands would only prolong the war and give Russia an opportunity to rest and rearm.
• The US believes that Russia’s military is sustaining hundreds of casualties a day in its war in Ukraine, and has lost thousands of lieutenants and captains in total.

That’s everything from me, my colleague Maya Yang will take over shortly.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said a ceasefire with Russia without reclaiming the lost lands would only prolong the war.

According to an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, he warned that a ceasefire that allows Russia to keep Ukrainian territories seized since the invasion in February would only encourage an even wider conflict, giving Moscow a much-needed opportunity to replenish and regroup for the next round of fighting.

“Freezing the conflict with the Russian Federation means a pause that gives the Russian Federation a break for rest,” the Wall Street Journal reported, citing comments by Zelenskiy.

The grain crisis resulting from a lasting blockade of exports from Ukrainian ports should act as a “wake-up call” for Africa to become self-reliant in producing cereals and fertilisers, the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said on Friday.

Ramaphosa made the remarks as Russia and Ukraine agreed on Friday a landmark deal with the UN and Turkey to unblock Black Sea delivery routes, a move that is hoped to ease global food shortages.

The South African president said the recent grain supply slump should inspire African countries to increase food production and reduce its reliance on imports, AFP reports.

At a press conference in Pretoria during a visit of Ivory Coast’s president, Alassane Ouattara, Ramaphosa said:

Do we want to continue for years to come to rely, for our grains, for our fertilisers, on that part of the world?

Or should we say this conflict is a wake-up call like Covid became a wake-up call to many of us on the African continent to start producing our own vaccines?

Many millions of people in Africa and the Middle East rely on Ukraine grain exports, and in various countries, such as Egypt and Nigeria, cereal prices have skyrocketed in recent months as supply thinned out.

Speaking alongside Ramaphosa, Ouattara said he told the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a phone call earlier this week that Africa should be prioritised as shipments resume.

Russia has in recent months struggled to sell its crops and fertilisers because of western sanctions affecting the financial and logistics sectors. Africa needs to start producing its own fertilisers, Ramaphosa said.

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The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, will begin an African tour in Egypt on Sunday, in the hope of establishing closer ties as Moscow seeks new alliances amid international sanctions against Russia because of the war in Ukraine.

In Egypt, which sources about a quarter of its wheat imports from Ukraine, Lavrov will meet Arab League members in Cairo, before he travelling to Ethiopia and Uganda, two countries whose relations with the west have come under strain, as well as Congo Republic, Reuters reports.

Egypt has significant strategic and economic ties with Russia, which has been a key source in recent years of wheat, weaponry and – until the war complicated travel – tourists.

This week, the Russian state-owned energy corporation Rosatom started long-delayed construction on Egypt’s first nuclear plant, the largest Russian-Egyptian project since the Aswan High Dam on the Nile was completed in 1970.

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Josep Borrell Fontelles, the EU chief for foreign affairs and security policy, expressed hopes the grain deal would be implemented swiftly.