Russia Ukraine war: Russian military intel officer injured in car bomb as Kyiv hits Putin’s Crimea ferry

Ukraine struck a deal with international creditors to restructure about $20bn of national debt, bolstering Kyiv’s efforts to leverage private capital in financing its war against Russia.

The Zelensky government said yesterday that it won an agreement with investors to reduce the debt by more than a third.

The development brings the war-torn country closer to an unprecedented debt rework and comes just a week before a two-year debt suspension agreement struck in 2022 is due to run out.

“After months of engagement and hard work with our private bondholders, the IMF and our bilateral partners, we have reached an agreement in principle with the Ad Hoc Creditor Committee on the comprehensive restructuring of our public external debt,” finance minister Serhiy Marchenko said in a statement.

This was an important step to ensure Ukraine maintained the budget stability and cash resources needed to continue financing its defence, he added.

Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal said the deal would free up resources for urgent needs, including defence, social protection and recovery.

A Russian court has convicted Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva of spreading false information about the Russian army and sentenced her to six and a half years in prison after a secret trial, court records and officials said.

The conviction in the city of Kazan came on Friday, the same day that a court in the city of Yekaterinburg convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison in a case that the US called politically motivated.

Ms Kurmasheva, who worked for the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was an editor for the Tatar-Bashkir service, was convicted of spreading false information about the military, according to the website of the Supreme Court of Tatarstan.

Court spokesperson Natalya Loseva confirmed to the Associated Press that Ms Kurmasheva was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in a case classified as secret, with no details available about the nature of the accusations.

Asked about the verdict on Monday, Stephen Capus, RFE/RL president and chief executive, denounced the trial and conviction as “a mockery of justice” and said “the only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors”.

“It’s beyond time for this American citizen, our dear colleague, to be reunited with her loving family,” Mr Capus added in a statement to the AP.

Ms Kurmasheva, who lives in Prague with her husband and two daughters, was taken into custody in October 2023 and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information about the Russian military.

Later, she was also charged with spreading false information about the Russian military under legislation that effectively criminalised any public expression about the war in Ukraine that deviates from the Kremlin line.

RFE/RL was told by Russian authorities in 2017 to register as a foreign agent, but it has challenged Moscow’s use of foreign agent laws in the European Court of Human Rights. The organisation has been fined millions of dollars by Russia.

In February, RFE/RL was outlawed in Russia as an undesirable organisation.

An attack by Russian forces has damaged critical infrastructure facilities in the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said today.

No casualties have been reported in the aerial attack, the region’s military administration told parliament, but important infrastructure was damaged. No further details regarding the target of the attack were provided.

Ukraine‘s air force said on Telegram that its air defence systems destroyed seven out of the eight drones that Russia launched overnight.

Russia also launched a Kh-69 guided air missile, the air force said, but added that as a result of its forces’ countermeasures, the missile “did not reach its target”.

Russian forces are conducting drills involving Yars mobile nuclear missile launchers, Russian media reported on Tuesday, in what would be the second such exercise in less than a month.

Missile launcher crews in the Volga river basin, some 700km (435 miles) east of Moscow, were set to move over 100km (62 miles) and practice camouflage and deployment, the Interfax news agency reported.

The drills follow similar exercises in early July in at least two different regions and are taking place less than two months after Russia held tactical nuclear weapons deployment exercises alongside ally Belarus.

Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported on Tuesday that the systems, equipped with a missile with multiple warheads, can hit targets at a distance of 11,000 km. It also reported that the systems can be mounted onto truck carriers or deployed in silos.

Since invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has conducted numerous military exercises on its own or with other countries including China and South Africa.

The Russian defence ministry said its defence systems destroyed 25 attack drones that Ukraine launched overnight.

It said some 21 drones were destroyed over the Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea waters, while two each were downed over Russia’s Bryansk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine, the ministry said.

If confirmed, it would represent the second major Ukrainian drone attack on Putin’s forces in as many nights. Russia said its defences destroyed 75 Ukrainian drones targeting several Russian regions on Sunday night.