Ukraine live briefing: Washington Post contributor moved to ‘punishment cell’ in Siberian prison, lawyer says
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
Kara-Murza has been placed in a tiny “punishment cell” in a maximum-security facility in Omsk after being transferred from a detention center in Moscow, his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said in a Facebook post. According to Kara-Murza’s Washington Post author page, the politician, historian and author has led diplomatic efforts to denounce Russia’s human rights abuses and contributed to the adoption of targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators in the United States.
Ukraine waged another attack in Sevastopol on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula over the weekend, according to a Kremlin-installed official, one day after a Ukrainian strike on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Russian air defenses intercepted missiles headed toward Sevastopol, the largest city on the peninsula, Gov. Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote Saturday on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. business leaders to discuss private-sector investment in Ukraine, he said Sunday. While on his trip to the United States, Zelensky said, he met with Mike Bloomberg, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. According to Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Zelensky discussed the ways in which large American businesses could contribute to Ukraine’s reconstruction after the war.
The internet is being censored in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region after a decree from its Russian-backed leader, according to an exiled Ukrainian official. Petro Andrushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s Ukrainian mayor, said Sunday that the Kremlin’s spy agency has control of web traffic in the eastern region and that a Monday-through-Friday curfew has been reinstated and demonstrations must be approved by Russian-backed authorities.
Battleground updates
A Ukrainian drone struck an administrative building in Russia’s Kursk region, regional governor Roman Starovoyt said Sunday on Telegram, adding that the roof was “slightly damaged.”
Russian airstrikes killed at least one person in the city of Berislav, in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, the governor said Sunday on Telegram. The hit comes amid an intensification of airstrikes by Russian forces in the area, said Nataliya Gumenyuk, founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab. “The enemy is attacking significantly by air,” she said.
Ukrainian forces and their armored vehicles have pushed through Russia’s main defensive line on the war’s southern front, known as the “Surovikin line,” a local commander told The Post. The line, named for the former head of Russia’s forces in Ukraine, comprises several defensive belts — and Russia has more significant defenses behind it — highlighting the slow advancement of Ukraine’s months-long counteroffensive.
Global impact
Russian consumers are probably experiencing localized diesel and gas shortages, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Sunday, noting how Moscow had suspended almost all fuel exports last week. “The shortages are unlikely to be a direct result of the war,” officials said, suggesting that there were probably multiple causes, including seasonal maintenance of refineries and an increase in demand from the agriculture sector.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated little hope of resuming a Black Sea grain deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to export grain by sea from Ukraine. After a speech at the United Nations, he described proposals to revive the deal, which Russia pulled out of this summer, as “not realistic.”
Lavrov also said he will visit Pyongyang in October. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a rare summit this month in Russia’s Far East, signaling that they will support each other in the face of broad condemnation from the West over their military and nuclear activities. In his speech Saturday, Lavrov criticized the United States and the West, accusing Washington of “whipping up hysteria on the Korean Peninsula.”
Australia is calling for changes to the U.N. Security Council to make it more representative and to constrain veto powers. Russia, as one of five permanent members with veto power, “mocks the United Nations every day it continues its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said. Canberra wants more representation for Africa, Latin America and Asia, and permanent seats for India and Japan.
From our correspondents
Western officials press Ukraine to hold elections despite war: Some officials in the West are pushing for Kyiv to hold general and presidential elections, even as it remains in the grip of war, an idea that is perplexing Ukrainian officials.
The proposal was initially raised in Europe but now has been taken up by some U.S. Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) during a visit to Kyiv last month, write The Post’s David L. Stern, Catherine Belton and John Hudson.
“The Russians are pushing for this through their secret channels,” said a Ukrainian official in the security apparatus, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “There is no situation in which it is possible to have a democratic election during the war.”
Nick Parker contributed to this report.
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