WAR IN UKRAINE: July 26, 2022

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 153

  • Ukraine has said the first vessels with grain could leave its Black Sea ports "within days" under a landmark UN-brokered deal signed on Friday. "If the sides guarantee security, the agreement will work. If they do not, it will not work," Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said - BBC

  • Russia claims 2.8 million Ukrainians have entered Russia since start of invasion; Ukraine calls it forced deportation. According to Russia’s state news agency, the number includes almost 500,000 Ukrainian children. Russia claims half of the people came from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The report doesn't reveal the number of Ukrainians who left Russia. On July 13, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of deporting over 2 million Ukrainians - Kyiv Independent

  • Russian energy giant Gazprom says it will once again drastically cut gas supplies to Europe through its main pipeline due to maintenance work. The German government said there was no technical reason to limit gas supply. Meanwhile, Ukraine has accused Moscow of waging a "gas war" against Europe and cutting supplies to inflict "terror" on people - BBC

  • Meanwhile, Asia's biggest oil refiner has slashed its purchases of Russian crude this month as it was unwilling to pay higher prices other buyers elsewhere, were offering, Reuters reported. China-based Sinopec has been the largest buyer of ESPO, a type of Russian crude, in the past two months, acquiring about 20 million barrels. But in July, the company is expected to snap up fewer cargoes after offering lower bids to Russian exporters. 

  • Interview with Ukrainian journalist Kateryna Malofyeva, on the current state of Ukraine’s grain harvest. The most significant news is that unless Ukraine’s 2021 harvest is released soon, and farmers can be paid, Ukrainian farmers won’t have funds to finance the sowing of winter wheat, to be harvested in the Spring of 2023. This could be something that bi-lateral and multi-lateral financing institutions can address, but they need to do so soon - Robert Homans sitrep

  • An increase in people seeking asylum in Ireland is causing an accommodation crisis that has forced Ukrainians to be put in tents. The reason is Britain’s Rwanda policy which has triggered a surge in refugees arriving in Ireland, Dublin said on Saturday. The Telegraph said it’s a seeming admission that the deal to deport asylum seekers to central Africa is deterring people from coming to Britain.

  • Two prominent pro-Russian militia leaders in Ukraine's east may have used cover identities to travel across Russia, travel data shows. When approached by Bellingcat's reporting partner, Igor Girkin and Igor Plotnitsky did not respond to a request for comment. Read the full Bellingcat story here

  • Some take-aways from today’s Atlantic Council panel on the Ukrainian media landscape (via @Anna_Mogan on Twiiter). Watch the full panel here
    - The Kyiv Independent raised ~ £1mln at the start of the war, but most important are 6K ppl who donate monthly; donors need to move from project funding to institutional support; big issue: big money is interested more in RU media, not UA (Olga Rudenko, Editor-in-Chief, Kyiv Independent)
    - Media marathon is recognised by 90% & trusted by 60% of population - war fatigue - viewers want some entertainment content, not just reporting from frontlines (Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture of Ukraine)
    - Journalists facing lots of challenges, including self censorship, all time thinking how not to harm; Ukrainska Pravda has 5mln unique viewers abroad; ads revenues dropped to 20% in Mar, but slowly coming back (Sevgil Musaieva, editor, Ukrainska Pravda)
    - Lots of journalists have been displaced. Talks in Portugal about creating a hub for them to work remotely; Akhmetov media group leaving the market after having invested 1.5bln: 4K employees will loose jobs + loss of noticeable abroad news channel Ukraine24 (me)

Required reading..

Putin got what he wanted at the Tehran summit. But did Iran?

Iran may be getting something more important out of Moscow: a guaranteed wheat supply. Read the full Atlantic Council article here

Michael Bociurkiwukraine peace talks, ukraine, ukrainian grain, ukraine russia war, ukrainian, russia, russian war crimes, Russia war crimes, russia’s war in ukraine, russia war crimes, russia disinformation, lviv, Michael Bociurkiw, atlantic council, bellingcat, Atlantic Council, Britain, Ireland, immigration, unesco, UN, UNHCR, UNICEF, OSCE, organization for security and cooperation in europe, world health organization