Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

The defense team of Brittney Griner, the U.S. basketball star jailed for nine years in Russia on drugs charges, has appealed against her conviction for narcotics possession and trafficking, Griner’s lawyer Maria Blagovolina told Reuters on Monday.

Griner, who had played for a Russian club, was arrested at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17 after cannabis-infused vape cartridges were found in her luggage.

She pleaded guilty to the charges but said she had made an “honest mistake” by entering Russia with cannabis oil, which is illegal in the country. She was convicted on Aug. 4.

The U.S. government says Griner was wrongfully detained. It has offered to exchange her for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States. 

— Reuters

Russia is likely to be at the “advanced planning” stage for a referendum to be held in the pro-Russian “Donetsk People’s Republic” in Ukraine on whether to become a part of the Russia.

It’s been widely reported and presumed by Western officials and experts that Russia would seek to try to bring the breakaway region (and its neighboring self-proclaimed “People’s Republic” in Luhansk, also in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine) into the Russian Federation at some point.

Russia has used the “defense” of these separatist regions, which it has supported since 2014 and made various attempts to “Russify,” such as the handing out of Russian passports, as an excuse for invading Ukraine. Moscow has said that the “liberation” of these territories in the Donbas is its main aim of the war and its forces occupy much of Donetsk and are trying to push into Luhansk.

The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said Monday that “it is likely that Russia is in the advanced planning stages to hold a referendum, though it is unclear if the final decision to go ahead with a vote has yet been taken.”

It noted that on Aug.11, Russian media reported that Denis Pushilin, head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), had said that the date of a referendum on the DPR joining Russia would be announced after the DPR’s “complete liberation.”

“Previously, in June 2022, investigative journalists published evidence of a DPR planning strategy for running such a referendum and for ensuring that at least 70% of votes were in favour of joining Russia,” the U.K.’s ministry said, adding that “the Kremlin will likely see the military’s failure to occupy the entirety of Donetsk Oblast thus far as a setback for its maximalist objectives in Ukraine.”

Suggestions of referenda being planned in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, or in the pro-Russian separatist regions, are widely seen as sham attempts to solidify Russia’s grip on Ukrainian territory, and have been criticized by Ukraine’s authorities and the international community.

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukrainian soldiers reportedly destroyed a base used by the shadowy Russian private military company known as the Wagner Group, or Wagner PMC, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine.

Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, said in a Facebook post translated by Ukraine state news agency Ukrinform Monday that the country’s armed forces had “successfully struck the enemy’s headquarters. This time in Popasna, where a base of PMC Wagner was destroyed.”

The number of those killed is being clarified, Haidai said. The Wagner private military company is a Russian state-backed paramilitary group, widely seen as a network of mercenaries, that are believed to have close ties to President Putin although the Kremlin denies any such links.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly sent a message of friendship to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in which he expressed his wish for Russia and North Korea to deepen relations.

North Korea’s state media outlet KCNA reported on Sunday that Putin had sent the North Korean leader a congratulatory telegram for North Korea’s Liberation Day, on Monday, in which he expressed a will to “continue to expand the comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations” between the countries.

A deepening of such ties would, Putin reportedly wrote, help “strengthen the security and stability of the Korean peninsula and the Northeastern Asian region.”

Kim then reportedly sent a reply to Putin in which he noted that a North Korean-Russian friendship had been forged in World War II with victory over Japan.

The “strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity between the two countries,” Kim said, united them against what he called “hostile forces’ military threat and provocation, and high-handed and arbitrary practices.”

The North Korean leader did not give any more detail on which countries he was alluding to, but North Korea frequently lambasts the West.

North Korea, a secretive, closed and authoritarian country, is among only a handful of states that have openly supported Russia’s war in Ukraine and officially recognized the independence of two breakaway pro-Russian regions in east Ukraine.

— Holly Ellyatt

The U.S., U.K., EU and other countries have called on Russia to immediately withdraw its military forces from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and all of Ukraine.

“We urge the Russian Federation to immediately withdraw its military forces and all other unauthorized personnel from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, its immediate surroundings, and all of Ukraine so that the operator and the Ukrainian authorities can resume their sovereign responsibilities within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders and the legitimate operating staff can conduct their duties without outside interference, threat, or unacceptably harsh working conditions,” said a joint statement published on Sunday on the website of the EU Delegation to the International Organizations in Vienna.

The statement, endorsed by 42 countries, said Russia’s control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — Europe’s largest nuclear power plant — “poses a great danger” to the international tenets regarding nuclear safety and security, as outlined by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“Deployment of Russian military personnel and weaponry at the nuclear facility is unacceptable and disregards the safety, security, and safeguards principles that all members of the IAEA have committed to respect,” the statement said.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and there was widespread consternation when Russian forces captured the unit on March 4, with reports of military equipment and ammunition being placed there.

Russian and Ukrainian forces have accused each other of shelling the power plant in recent weeks, raising fears of a catastrophic incident at the plant.

— Holly Ellyatt

Another grain ship is preparing to leave Ukraine on Monday, this time heading for Ethiopia.

Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Sunday on Facebook that more than 23,000 tonnes of wheat had been loaded onto the “Brave Commander” bulk carrier at the port of Pivdenny, and that the ship was due to leave dock on Monday.

“Today we see how the initiative on the safe transportation of grain and agricultural products, signed in Istanbul, works. On Friday, the Brave Commander, a ship chartered by the UN World Food Program (WFP), arrived at the port of Pivdenny for loading. Now we can see the ship finally preparing for its departure, carrying more than 23,000 tonnes of wheat to the people of Ethiopia,” the minister said.

Grain ships have begun to leave Ukraine tentatively following a deal between Russia and Ukraine, and brokered by the U.N. and Turkey, to allow ships bearing vital produce like wheat to be allowed to leave Ukrainian ports following a blockade of such shipping during the war which has exacerbated a rise in global food prices.

— Holly Ellyatt

Three British citizens, a Swedish citizen and a Croatian citizen who fought for the Ukrainian armed forces are expected to face a criminal trial Monday.

“The court hearing is scheduled for August 15, it will be held behind closed doors,” said Russian state news agency Interfax last week, citing a court representative.

Swedish citizen Matthias Gustavsson, Croatian Vekoslav Prebeg, and British citizens John Harding, Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy will be standing trial in the “Supreme Court of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” a pro-Russian breakaway region in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

If the court — widely seen as a kangaroo court in the West — finds the defendants guilty, they may face the death penalty.

— Holly Ellyatt