“Ukraine – Russia”

ISTANBUL (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were due on Friday to oversee the signing of a key agreement that would allow Ukraine to resume its shipment of grain from the Black Sea to world markets and Russia to export grain and fertilizers — ending a standoff that has threatened world food security.

Last week, the sides reached a tentative agreement on a U.N. plan that would enable Ukraine to export 22 million tons of desperately needed grain and other agricultural products that have been stuck in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports due to the war. The unblocking of the grain stockpiles will help ease a food crisis that has sent prices of vital commodities like wheat and barley soaring.

Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns criticized the Russian government on Wednesday for attempting to purchase drones from Iran, suggesting that the move was an indication of the poor state of Russia’s armed forces.

“It’s true that the Russians are reaching out to the Iranians to try to acquire armed drones,” the CIA director and longtime U.S. diplomat said during his remarks at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado—confirming earlier reports that Russia had attempted to purchase drones from Tehran. Some Western experts had treated these claims with skepticism, noting Russia’s traditional role as an arms exporter to Iran rather than the opposite.

There is no intelligence that Vladimir Putin is unstable or in bad health, the director of the CIA has said.

There has been increasing unconfirmed media speculation that Mr Putin, who turns 70 this year, may be suffering from ill health, possibly cancer.

But William Burns said there was no evidence to suggest this, joking that he appeared “too healthy”.

The Kremlin has again dismissed the reports of Mr Putin’s ill-health as “nothing but fakes”.

Pro-Russia separatist forces have stepped up the forced conscription of men – including Ukrainian passport holders – in occupied areas of the Donbas region, amid mounting evidence of the scale of losses on the Russian side.

According to credible evidence from the region, forced conscription – already a feature of the Russian-backed separatists’ rule before the Kremlin’s invasion on 24 February – appeared to have picked up again in June, with checkpoints and patrols, some reportedly involving Chechen fighters allied to the Kremlin, on the lookout for men to recruit.

Anton (name has been changed) was a businessman in Ukraine. On February 24, he drove to the border with his wife and their two children to escape the Russian invasion. The trip, which usually takes only a few hours, took them almost the entire day.

But while they were still en route, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy banned men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country.

Bad press coming out of Germany’s DW? I’m shocked.

Russia appears to have shot down one of its own $40million fighter jets in the skies over eastern Ukraine, in just the latest humiliation for Putin’s military.

Footage of a flaming wreck falling from the skies over Alchevsk, in Luhansk, first emerged overnight Sunday when pro-Moscow Telegram accounts posted it – saying ‘allied forces’ had shot the aircraft down.

Russia on Monday outrageously claimed that its massive army has failed to deliver Ukraine to President Vladimir Putin because it is fighting against experimental super-soldiers, turned into “cruel killing machines” by US studies.

Two Russian lawmakers told reporters this week that the Kremlin is investigating the blood of Ukrainian prisoners of war, and has found “evidence” of experimentation, Russian outlet Kommersant reported.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal of senior officials is casting an inconvenient light on an issue that the Biden administration has largely ignored since the outbreak of war with Russia: Ukraine’s history of rampant corruption and shaky governance.

As it presses ahead with providing tens of billions of dollars in military, economic and direct financial support aid to Ukraine and encourages its allies to do the same, the Biden administration is now once again grappling with longstanding worries about Ukraine’s suitability as a recipient of massive infusions of American aid.