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The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.
11:30 p.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin was shown in an awkward encounter with his military chief of staff on Tuesday as he inspected war games in Russia's Far East, thousands of miles from the war in Ukraine, according to Reuters.
The Zvezda military news service published video of Putin and chief of staff General Valery Gerasimov entering an observation booth, sitting down with a wide space between them and maintaining an uncomfortable silence while waiting for Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to arrive.
The body language drew scrutiny from political and military analysts on social media.
"Putin obviously doesn't even want to talk with the commander of the Russian armed forces," wrote former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt on Twitter.
10:30 p.m.: The European Union and United States have ramped up buying key industrial metals from Russia, data showed, despite logistical problems spurred by the war in Ukraine and tough talk about starving Moscow of foreign exchange revenue, Reuters reported
The metal shipments highlight the West's difficulty in pressuring Russia's economy, which has performed better than expected and seen its ruble currency surge as buoyant oil revenue has helped offset the impact of sanctions.
EU and U.S. imports of Russia's main base metal products aluminum and nickel during March-June increased by as much as 70%, official trade data compiled by Reuters from the United Nations Comtrade database show.
The total value of EU and U.S. imports of the two metals from March to June were $1.98 billion, the data showed.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in response to a query from Reuters: "Although we don't preview our sanctions actions, nothing is off the table to increase the price on Putin's unjustified war against Ukraine."
The European Commission did not provide a comment after a request.
8:33 p.m.: Britain's new Prime Minister Liz Truss on Tuesday pledged her full backing to Ukraine in a call to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, shortly after taking office.
"In her first call with a counterpart since becoming prime minister, she reiterated to the Ukrainian leader that he had her full backing, and Ukraine could depend on the U.K.’s assistance for the long term," a spokeswoman said.
They also discussed "the need to strengthen global security and the measures necessary to cut off the funds fueling (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war machine," the spokeswoman said.
Britain has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.
London has funneled military hardware, funding and training resources to Kyiv's embattled forces, now waging battles in the nation's south and east.
7:37 p.m.: Russia on Tuesday voiced regret that a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog warning of risks at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant did not blame Kyiv for shelling the Moscow-occupied site, Agency France-Presse reported.
"We regret that in your report ... the source of the shelling is not directly named," Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told a Security Council session attended virtually by Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Both sides have blamed each other for shelling, which took place again Tuesday despite the watchdog's recommendations.
"If the provocations by the Kyiv regime continue, there is no guarantee that there won't be serious consequences, and the responsibility for that lies fully with Kyiv and its Western backers and all other members of Security Council," Nebenzia said.
6:50 p.m.: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday welcomed a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog that mentioned the presence of Russian military hardware at the Zaporizhzhia plant occupied by Moscow's troops.
"The report notes the presence of Russian military hardware on the territory of the nuclear power plant, pressure on our employees there, and makes clear references to the Russian military occupation. It's good," Zelenskyy said in his daily address, Agence France-Presse reported.
Zelenskyy referred to the report's proposal for a security zone at the plant, saying if it was aimed at demilitarizing "the territory of the nuclear power plant ... then we can support" it.
6:05 p.m.: The Russian-installed commandant of a southern Ukrainian city was badly injured in a blast on Tuesday, a local official said, according to Reuters. It’s the latest in a series of apparent assassination attempts in occupied areas of southern Ukraine.
Vladimir Rogov, an official in the Russian-backed administration of the Zaporizhzhia region, initially told Reuters and two Russian agencies that Berdiansk head Artyom Bardin had died, and he blamed the Ukrainian government.
Rogov later posted a message online saying Bardin was fighting for his life after suffering major blood loss and losing a leg.
Reuters was unable to independently verify Bardin's condition.
5:10 p.m.: President Joe Biden has made a final decision against designating Russia as a state sponsor of terror, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.
Biden on Monday said Russia should not be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, a label Ukraine has pushed for amid Russia's ongoing invasion while Moscow has warned it would rupture U.S.-Russian ties.
The designation of Russia as state sponsor of terror could delay food exports and jeopardize deals to move goods through the Black Sea, Jean-Pierre said.
4:20 p.m.: Russia is burning excess natural gas because it has no capacity to store it after cutting deliveries to the European Union, the bloc's energy commissioner said Tuesday, according to Agence France-Presse.
"Our satellites are registering the leak of natural gas or them flaring the natural gas and this is very polluting," European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson told reporters during a visit to Indonesia.
Europe is facing an acute energy shortage this winter after the announcement on Friday of a shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline by Russian giant Gazprom.
The Kremlin has blamed the halt in deliveries on sanctions imposed by the West over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
3:27 p.m.: Italy ordered thermostats to be turned down by 1 degree Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported, as part of a European Union-wide plan to cut gas consumption, faced with spiraling prices spurred by Russia's war in Ukraine.
The temperature in industrial buildings will be set at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and in others at 19C, both 1 degree lower than current guidelines, the ministry for the ecological transition announced.
The time the heating is on is also being shortened, by one hour a day and 15 days across the year, as part of a plan to cut energy consumption by 15% between August 1 and March 31.
Hospitals, care homes, primary schools and nurseries will be exempt from the measures, as will the most northerly regions, while the cuts will be greatest in the warmer south.
2:30 p.m.: Fighting in Ukraine shifted to the south in the past week, Reuters reported, where Ukraine has started a long-awaited counterattack to recapture territory seized early in the war. Kyiv has also used the opportunity to launch advances elsewhere along the front, and officials hinted on Tuesday at a battlefield success in the east.
Several posts in social media from military bloggers and witnesses reported fighting around Balakliia, a town of 27,000 people that lies between Kharkiv and Izyum, a major railway hub city long held by Russia and used to supply its eastern forces. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.
Control of Balakliia could facilitate a Ukrainian attempt to encircle or partially encircle Izyum, said Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov.
Western military experts say Ukraine's aim appears to be to trap thousands of Russian troops on the west bank of the wide Dnipro River and cut them off by destroying their rear supply lines.
12:05 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy virtually rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday as his nation appealed for more private investment to help rebuild his country.
"Ukraine is the story of a future victory and a chance for you to invest now in projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars to share the victory with us," he said.
10:43 a.m.: The U.N. nuclear watchdog released a report Tuesday about the nuclear safety and security situation in Ukraine after his team’s visit to examine the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
8:48 a.m.: European Union efforts to address the continent's worsening energy crisis following Russia's invasion of Ukraine are expected to be unveiled next week, the European commissioner for energy told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
Many European countries have tightened their belts as energy costs soar. Russia’s state-run energy company has continued its shutdown of a pipeline carrying natural gas to Europe and the European Commission president says the EU’s electricity market "is no longer operating” amid knock-on effects from the Ukraine war.
An extraordinary meeting of the European Union’s energy ministers will be held in Brussels on Friday to discuss a bloc-wide package of solutions to the power market cost spikes, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson told AP. She said the European Commission expects the package will be adopted next Wednesday.
7:33 a.m.: Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday accused each other of shelling in the area around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Reuters reported, ahead of a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog on nuclear safety and security situation there.
The IAEA inspectors arrived at the nuclear plant September 1 and spent days evaluating damage at the site, how well safety and security systems are working, and conditions for the Ukrainian staff at the plant that has been under Russian control since the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
5:55 a.m.: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday criticized Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss for not being willing to compromise, Reuters reported.
Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Lavrov said Truss’ approach would not help Britain on the international stage.
Moscow has met Truss’ victory in the contest to replace Boris Johnson with scorn, lambasting what it sees as her anti-Russian position.
5:15 a.m.:
4 a.m.: Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s chief of staff said worsening prison conditions were threatening his health as his Anti-Corruption Foundation prepares to turn upcoming local elections in Moscow into an anti-war vote, Reuters reported.
Navalny was arrested in January last year when he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had been treated for what Western laboratory tests showed was a near-fatal attempt to poison him in Siberia with a Soviet-era nerve toxin. Russia denies trying to kill him.
He is serving 11-1/2 years in prison for parole violations, fraud and contempt of court charges which he denies.
In a post on his Twitter and Instagram accounts, each with millions of followers, Navalny wrote last week via his lawyers that he had been sent to a punishment cell for a third time in August in revenge for his political activity. The prison service did not respond to a request for comment.
The cell, two by three meters wide with table, chair and bed which is folded from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., marks a significant worsening of conditions for the opposition leader, his chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, told Reuters in an interview.
“Suddenly, three weeks ago, they started to dramatically worsen his conditions, which actually poses an enormous threat to his health, because no normal person could spend a long time in that ‘special’ cell,” he said in Vilnius, Lithuania, where most of Navalny’s organization has been based since its operations were banned in Russia.
“And for Alexei, who had just survived the poisoning, it is especially dangerous,” said Volkov, who keeps in touch through lawyers, adding that Navalny is still “mentally and physically very fit.”
Volkov said the team had no idea what President Vladimir Putin was thinking and tried not to think about it. “The fact that Putin is losing (the war), and is getting less and less predictable, makes the situation more dangerous,” he said.
Both the Kremlin and Putin say Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is going to plan, necessitated by the United States using Ukraine to threaten Russia through NATO enlargement and the persecution of Russian-speaking people.
Ukraine and its Western allies say those are unjustified pretexts for an unprovoked war of conquest.
3:25 a.m.: Kharkiv region’s governor said three people died Tuesday as a result of rocket fire in the region during the past day, including an elderly woman who died this night in Kharkiv city, Reuters reported.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is close to the Russian border and has been under constant shelling throughout the Russian invasion, which Moscow calls a “special military operation.”
“That night, the enemy once again launched a rocket attack on Kharkiv,” governor Oleh Synehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “In the Industrial district, a two-story building was damaged and a private residential building, in which a 73-year-old woman was staying, was destroyed. Unfortunately, she died,” he said.
Two men died amid shelling in the village of Zolochiv, north of Kharkiv.
In a separate message, the governor reported a new rocket attack, but gave no details.
Tuesday morning, an air raid alert was issued throughout Ukraine and the authorities reported explosions in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, denies deliberately targeting civilians. Its attacks have devastated Ukrainian towns and cities.
2 a.m.:
1:30 a.m.: U.S. intelligence has assessed that Moscow is buying artillery ammunition from North Korea, The New York Times reported, on the heels of reports that the Russian military has begun using Iranian-made drones.
U.S. government officials told The Times that the purchases showed sanctions had begun to bite and reduce Russia’s ability to sustain its invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow has called a “special military operation.”
The Times report said the recently declassified intelligence provided no details about what was purchased, beyond saying that the items included artillery shells and rockets. Russia was expected to buy more such gear, The Times reported.
Last month, a U.S. official told Reuters that Russia’s Iranian-made drones had suffered “numerous failures.” The official said Russia most likely planned to acquire hundreds of Mohajer-6 and Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Ukraine recently launched counteroffensives in several locations, including around Kherson, which Russia has occupied since early in the invasion. In preparation for those attacks, Ukrainian forces struck Russian supply areas, including those containing artillery and ammunition.
Officials have said Western sanctions are limiting Russia’s ability to replace vehicles and weapons destroyed in Ukraine.
1 a.m.: The head of the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog is set to release a report Tuesday about the nuclear safety and security situation in Ukraine after his team’s visit to examine the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi will also brief the U.N. Security Council on his team’s findings, the IAEA said.
The IAEA inspectors arrived at the Zaporizhzhia plant September 1 and spent days evaluating damage at the site, how well safety and security systems are working, and conditions for the Ukrainian staff at the plant that has been under Russian control since the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Both Russia and Ukraine have accused the other side of being responsible for shelling in the area of the power plant. The attacks have raised international concern about the prospect of a nuclear disaster.
The IAEA said two of its experts remain at the power plant to “observe the situation there and provide independent assessments.”
12:30 a.m.: Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 1 will not resume gas supplies until Siemens Energy repairs faulty equipment, Gazprom’s Deputy CEO Vitaly Markelov told Reuters on Tuesday.
“You should ask Siemens, they have to repair equipment first,” he said on the sidelines of Eastern Economic Forum in Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok, when asked about when the pipeline could start pumping gas again.
12:15 a.m.: Russia has raked in $158 billion (158 billion euros) in energy exports in the six months following its invasion of Ukraine, with the EU accounting for more than half, a think tank said Tuesday, according to Agence France-Presse.
The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air called for more effective sanctions against Moscow after the invasion sent oil, gas and coal prices soaring.
“Surging fossil fuel prices mean that Russia’s current revenue is far above previous years’ level, despite the reductions in this year’s export volumes,” said the Finland-based organization.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
