Ali Salajegheh said the transmission pipeline linking Iran’s Kharg island to the mainland port of Genaveh was shut off for repairs after the oil leak was detected on Sunday.
Diving teams have been dispatched to prevent oil leakage on the seabed from the pipelines and two vessels had been sent to Kharg and Genaveh’s coasts to help with the clean-up.
Over the past years, erosion of oil pipelines has caused widespread environmental pollution in the region.
In an interview in Israeli media, Smotrich was asked about the controversy caused by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir who last week said that his right to safe travel in the West Bank was “more important” than the rights of Palestinians, and that more needed to be done to ensure the security of Jewish settlers.
In response, a spokesperson for the US State Department said it “strongly condemn[s] Minister Ben-Gvir’s inflammatory comments on the freedom of movement of Palestinian residents of the West Bank”.
Speaking to Army Radio on Monday, Smotrich hit back at the US and said there was “no more moral country than Israel”.
“There is no nation that has been fighting for its survival in the face of murderous terrorism for decades in a cleaner and more careful way than the Jewish people,” he stated.
“I am not talking about the Americans and how they acted in Afghanistan and Iraq. They shouldn’t preach to us about human rights, neither to the IDF nor to us on a political level. This is unmitigated hypocrisy,” he added.
Smotrich, who also took administrative control of large sections of the occupied West Bank from Israel’s military – in a move experts say amounts to “de jure annexation” – earlier this month froze funds for Palestinian towns and Palestinian education programmes in East Jerusalem.
He is also holding up about $53m slated for educational preparatory programmes for young Palestinians, claiming that “Islamic radical cells” had taken root in Israeli colleges and universities.
Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism political alliance and one of the most far-right ministers in Israel’s government, previously said that “there was no such thing as Palestinian people”.
The terrorists, who were working in coordination with the Israeli regime, sought to carry out acts of sabotage in Kerman and other provinces across the country, the head of Kerman assembly of lawmakers Mohammad-Reza Pour-Ebrahimi, said on Monday.
He added that Kerman intelligence forces have succeeded in foiling a big plot against the country.
Late in May, Iranian intelligence forces dismantled a terrorist team affiliated with Israel in the northwestern province of West Azarbaijan and arrested its 14 members.
It came a week after Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib announced that a terror team affiliated with the Israeli Mossad spy agency had been arrested in the western part of the country.
Khatib stated that the terrorists had sneaked across the border into western Iran from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
The revelation was made by Abdel Nour in an explosive interview on news website Zat Masr, which has since been suspended in Egypt. The interview was first published last week but was later deleted. It has been shared by social media accounts run by Egyptian dissidents abroad.
In the interview, Abdel Nour, who served as a minister between July 2013 and September 2015, lambasted Sisi’s government.
He attributed the economic crisis in the country to “excessive borrowing and a lack of confidence in the government’s decisions”.
He also warned that the upcoming presidential elections, scheduled for February 2024, will be a “farce” and alleged that security services will approve the list of candidates who can run against Sisi.
On the situation of freedom of opinion and expression, he said “people in Egypt are afraid, and anyone who expresses an opinion on public affairs is arrested”.
“The evidence is that if two people meet up and want to talk about public affairs, they put their phones away, fearing surveillance,” he added.
The highly critical comments by Nour have been widely shared online by opponents of the government, as the former minister is still considered an ally of Sisi.
Abdel Nour was a leading figure in the National Salvation Front, an alliance of parties and public figures that opposed the rule of late President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected leader.
He rallied Sisi, then defence minister, to oust Morsi from power ahead of the 2013 military coup.
Abdel Nour was appointed minister in the post-coup interim government, which was accused by Human Rights Watch of committing possible crimes against humanity in the mass killing of pro-Morsi supporters, in what is known as the Rabaa massacre.
In August 2013, tens of thousands had gathered in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square to demand the return of Morsi.
Egyptian soldiers and police officers killed at least 900 people as they forcibly dispersed a protest camp in the square on 14 August.
At the time, Abdel Nour publicly supported the use of starvation and siege tactics to disperse the protests.
He reiterated his comments in the recent interview, saying that he faces charges of international crimes in the UK and South Africa as a result.
“During Rabaa, in a TV interview, I said I don’t understand why can’t we besiege the protesters and ban food and drinks from reaching them. By banning delivery of food and drinks, they would have to leave the protests,” Abdel Nour stated.
Lawyers representing Morsi and his Freedom and Justice Party filed criminal charges against Sisi and leading members of the Egyptian government believed to be involved in the incitement and killings of protesters.
According to Abdel Nour, he and Sisi cancelled a trip to South Africa in 2015 because of their fears of being arrested there under universal jurisdiction, as South Africa is a signatory of the Rome Statute and has incorporated the treaty into its domestic legal system.
The former minister said he has also not visited the UK for years following advice from the former British Ambassador in Cairo James Watt and Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry.
“I was about to be arrested in the UK and was advised to return to Egypt quickly,” he said, referring to a planned visit to the UK in 2014.
“I travelled with the Egyptian-British businessmen association to promote Egypt and investments in Egypt,” he explained.
“The British ambassador told me ‘don’t you ever travel to the UK without informing us, because there is an order to investigate you because of that issue,” he added.
Watt told Middle East Eye he “categorically denie[s] having said anything of the sort to Mr Abdel Nour or to anyone else”.
“I was not aware of any such investigation, and I continue to believe that there was none. If I had been aware of such an investigation, it would have been entirely incorrect of me to mention it to him,” Watt said, adding, “I can only think that that Mr Abdel Nour, who I respect greatly, has misremembered.”
Then in 2015, during a conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Abdel Nour said that Sisi’s top aide at the time Abbas Kamel warned him against travelling to South Africa.
“Neither you nor Sisi are travelling to South Africa because the Muslim Brotherhood filed a lawsuit there and there was a judgement,” he added.
Russia’s state-run TASS news agency quoted Russia’s FSB security service as saying that Robert Shonov, a Russian national, had supplied information to US embassy staff in Moscow on how Russia’s conscription for the war in Ukraine was affecting political discontent inside Russia ahead of the country’s 2024 presidential election.
The charge of “cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state” carries a maximum prison sentence of eight years in prison.
“Russia’s targeting of Mr Shonov under the ‘confidential cooperation’ statute only highlights the increasingly repressive actions the Russian government is taking against its own citizens,” US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement on Monday.
Miller stated that Shonov provided services to the US Embassy in Moscow “in strict compliance with Russia’s laws and regulations”.
“We strongly protest the Russian security services’ attempts – furthered by Russia’s state-controlled media – to intimidate and harass our employees,” Miller continued, adding that Washington was aware the FSB had also summoned two diplomats working at the US embassy in Moscow in connection to the case.
Shonov, who has been under arrest since May, was employed by the US Consulate General in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok for more than 25 years until Russia in 2021 ordered the termination of the US mission’s local staff.
“Shonov’s sole role at the time of his arrest was to compile press summaries from publicly-available Russian media sources,” the State Department said following his arrest in May.
“The fact that he is being prosecuted under the ‘confidential cooperation’ law highlights the Russian Federation’s blatant use of increasingly repressive laws against its own citizens,” it added.
The FSB announced it also planned to question two US embassy employees – identified as Jeffrey Silin and David Bernstein who worked in the political department at the diplomatic mission in Moscow – who were in contact with Shonov.
Russian news agencies released undated footage on Monday distributed by the FSB showing Shonov’s detention on a snow-covered street. It also published images of Shonov testifying on camera.
The FSB said Shonov had begun handing information to the US diplomats last September about the war in Ukraine and the resulting mobilisation of Russians to fight in the war. It added that Shonov had been tasked with gauging protest sentiment ahead of presidential elections scheduled for next year in Russia.
Amnesty International said it denounced the Taliban’s latest action prohibiting female students from travelling to Dubai to start their university studies.
“This preposterous decision is a flagrant violation of the right to education and freedom of movement and demonstrates the continued gender persecution against women and girls in Afghanistan,” the rights group said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“The Taliban de-facto authorities must immediately reverse their decision and allow these female students to travel and study.”
The head of a Dubai-based conglomerate said Taliban authorities had stopped about 100 women from travelling to the UAE, where he stated he had sponsored their university educations.
Khalaf Ahmad al-Habtoor, founding chairman of Al Habtoor Group, said in a video posted on X that he had planned to sponsor the female students to attend university and a plane he had paid for had been due to fly them to the UAE on Wednesday.
“The Taliban government refused to allow the girls who were coming to study here – 100 girls sponsored by me – they refused them to board the plane, and already we have paid for the aircraft. We have organised everything for them here – accommodation, education, transportation, security,” he added in the video.
Al Habtoor included audio of one of the Afghan students who said she had been accompanied by a male chaperone but airport authorities in Kabul had stopped them from boarding the flight.
Laila said their scholarships were their “only hope to go abroad to continue our education”.
“This was an amazing opportunity for us, but like everything else, this opportunity was taken from us,” she told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
The 22-year-old was due to start a law degree in Dubai, having been forced to abandon her journalism studies under a Taliban government ban.
Laila added she and the other women made it to their departure gate but were turned away at the last moment by men in airport uniforms who said they had an order that those with student visas were not allowed to leave the country.
The Taliban administration has closed universities and high schools to female students in Afghanistan.
In a video posted on X, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the international community to “press the Taliban to end their violations of women’s rights”.
On Sunday, the Taliban government’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice closed the Band-e-Amir national park to women, saying female visitors were failing to cover up.
The park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site 175km (110 miles) west of Kabul, is renowned for its striking blue lakes surrounded by sweeping cliffs.
The park in Bamyan province is a popular spot for domestic tourism and is regularly swarmed with Afghans relaxing at the shore or paddling the waters in rented boats.
HRW Associate Women’s Rights Director Heather Barr told AFP the decision to ban women was “cruel in a very intentional way”.
“Not content with depriving girls and women of education, employment and free movement, the Taliban also want to take from them parks and sport and now even nature,” she said in a statement.
“Step-by-step, the walls are closing in on women as every home becomes a prison,” she added.
The minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, justified the ban, saying women were failing to wear hijabs properly.
“We must take action from today. We must prevent the non-observance of hijab,” he stated during a visit to Bamyan.
Ministry spokesman Akef Muhajir told the AFP news agency that local religious leaders requested the temporary closure because women from outside the province were not observing the hijab dress code.
Other national parks in Afghanistan remain open to all, he added.
On Sunday, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, asked in a social media post: “Why [is] this restriction … necessary to comply with Sharia and Afghan culture?”
Women have been barred from visiting parks, fairs and gyms and must cover up in public since the Taliban returned to power two years ago.
They have also mostly been blocked from working for UN agencies or NGOs. Thousands have been sacked from government jobs or paid to stay at home.
The minister made the remarks while speaking to reporters in Tehran on Monday after Iran and the United States reached a deal regarding the unblocking of some $6 billion worth of Iran’s funds illegally blocked in South Korea under the pretext of US sanctions.
South Korean media reported on August 21 that the Iranian funds were transferred from South Korea to Switzerland’s central bank last week to be sent to Iran.
Pointing to the export of Iranian gas and electricity to Iraq, Amirabdollahian said the revenues earned from such sales would be deposited to the TBI (Trade Bank of Iraq), following which the Central Bank of Iran would use that money to buy the country’s required goods.
He added that the Iranian administration, since taking office some two years ago, has carried out serious measures to release the country’s blocked assets.
“Last year, we collected 390 million pounds of Britain’s debt which were related to the period before the victory of the Islamic Revolution [in 1979],” the top Iranian diplomat stated.
Iran used the released funds in a “legal and dignified” way for the purposes it preferred, he added, dismissing the oil-for-food claims about the assets.
Britain had delayed the payment for many years citing problems faced because of foreign sanctions against Iran. However, Tehran has insisted the debt should be settled regardless of issues that exist between Iran and the West.
The money was owed to Iran over an upfront payment made by the former Shah of Iran to Britain to buy 1,750 Chieftain tanks and other military vehicles.
An explosion caused by a Russian landmine in Kherson, has killed a farmer, according to the regional administration.
“In the Novopetrivka area, the farmer was driving a tractor and working on the field. The tractor ran over a mine left by the Russian army,” Kherson’s regional authorities said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
“Many fields of the Kherson region are mined,” Kherson’s regional authorities added and reminded people to remain safe until every spot in the region has been inspected.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian mercenary Wagner’s chief, has been buried privately at a funeral near St Petersburg, according to his press service.
“Those wishing to say goodbye can visit the Porokhovskoe cemetery,” Prigozhin’s press service added in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
The Wagner chief was killed in a plane crash near Moscow last week.
The Kremlin has announced that a schedule for “bilateral Russian-Chinese contacts” was being worked out and that it would give more details on any concrete events and dates in due course.
Asked about a Bloomberg report that President Vladimir Putin is preparing to visit China for the Belt and Road forum in October, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “The schedule of bilateral Russian-Chinese contacts at various levels, including at the highest level, is being coordinated.”
“We will inform you about specific events and deadlines in a timely manner,” he added.
Investigators in Germany suspect that a company there is selling electronic components used to produce Russia’s Orlan-10 drones, according to a report by the German news magazine Der Spiegel.
The Orlan drones have enabled Russia’s precise targeting of Ukrainian soldiers.
The head of the Saarbruecken-based company, identified only as Waldemar W, has been arrested, Der Spiegel reported.
South Korea has unveiled a new financial aid package of 520 billion won ($394 million) for Ukraine next year, an eightfold increase from this year.
The aid package includes support for reconstruction and humanitarian aid.
In July, President Yoon Suk Yeol also announced that his country would provide a “large scale of military supplies” to Ukraine this year.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says that he has invited Japan to join the Global Peace Summit, which Kyiv intends to hold in second half of the year.
“We appreciate the G7 declaration on security guarantees for Ukraine adopted during the Japanese Presidency. It is time to conclude relevant bilateral agreements in the framework of this declaration. We are ready to start this negotiation process with Japan as soon as possible,” he added.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that the European Union “does not take the real problems and aspirations of people living in Western Balkan countries,” into consideration.
Commenting on a recent summit between the leaders of the EU, Western Balkans and Ukraine in Athens, Zakharova added, “To continue its confrontation with Russia, the EU is ready to sacrifice the Western Balkan region’s true development and security interests in violation of one of the fundamental principles of the UN Charter.”
Kiev wants to believe that the West supports Ukraine in its desire to destroy “everything Russian,” including in Crimea, but does not understand risks of dragging others into the conflict, and therefore different points of view clash, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has said that the West supports Ukraine in everything, including Kiev’s strikes on Crimea.
“The representatives of the Kiev regime want to believe in this, and, of course, they want to do everything possible and impossible in order to drag Western countries into this conflict as deeply as possible. We understand that the countries of the West are aware of the danger of this and are aware that the costs of such involvement are inevitable. Therefore, now there is this clash of points of view, we are watching this very carefully,” Peskov told reporters when asked about Podolyak’s statement.
A recent claim by a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Western nations support Kiev’s attempts to “destroy everything Russian” increases the risk of all-out war between Moscow and NATO, former president Dmitry Medvedev has said.
Commenting on Mikhail Podoliak’s statement, the former Russian leader wrote on his Telegram channel: “If this is true, and we have no reason to doubt that it is, then it constitutes direct, legally significant proof of Western involvement in a war against Russia” and serves as a reasonable casus belli to justify corresponding actions by Moscow against “everyone in NATO states.”
Medevedev went on to warn that “the predictions of the Apocalypse are getting closer.”
Podoliak made his claims in an interview on Ukrainian TV on Monday, stating that foreign backers were increasingly supportive of all actions Kiev deem necessary in its fight against Moscow.
“A year ago, even when there were some strikes on Crimea, everyone said: ‘No, no, let’s just do without it’. Today, the absolute consensus among the countries that support us is that we can destroy everything Russian in the occupied territories,” he declared.
He further pledged to ramp up strikes deep inside Russia by “unknown drones.” Kiev does not formally claim credit for regular kamikaze drone attacks on Moscow and other Russian cities.
The campaign was detailed by The Economist on Sunday, described as partially “intended to have a psychological impact” on the Russian population, and facilitated by Western intelligence regarding Russian air defenses.
According to the British magazine, Kiev supports competing drone operators, both private and state-run. Some of the strikes “appear to be PR projects designed to bring a prototype to the attention of procurement bosses, rather than having military value,” the outlet noted.
Senior Russian officials have accused the US and its allies of waging a proxy war against their nation, with Ukraine providing “cannon fodder.” Kiev relies on the West for weapons, funding, training and intelligence in the conflict, and some in Washington have declared the “strategic defeat” of Russia their goal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has never brought up the subject of anti-Russian sanctions with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron or the leaders of other countries that introduced these restrictions, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
“On my part, I can only confirm that indeed, President Putin has never touched on the subject of sanctions in his interaction with the leaders of the countries that had introduced these sanctions,” the Kremlin official said, commenting on an article in the Bild newspaper quoting a dialogue between Macron and Scholz following their March 2022 talks with Putin. The two were surprised that the Russian leader had never mentioned any anti-Moscow sanctions.
Peskov noted that not only “verbal” but also factual confirmation of ineffectiveness of Western sanctions is now obvious.
“I mean the data on the growth of our economy, on its expansion, and the World Bank’s data on Russia emerging among Europe’s leading economies,” he stated.
The Ukrainian military announced that its forces have made further progress in a part of the southern front.
The armed forces had succeeded in the Novodanylivka-Verbove direction “and [are] consolidating their positions, inflicting artillery fire on the identified enemy targets, and conducting counter-battery operations,” the General Staff said in its daily briefing.
If successful in the Verbove area, the Ukrainians would widen a wedge of territory they have taken as they push south towards the strategic hub of Tokmak, which is occupied by the Russians.
The Ukrainian military added it is continuing offensive operations south of the city of Bakhmut, consolidating their positions, while resisting Russian efforts to advance in other parts of the Donetsk region. Kyiv repelled a Russian counterattack near the village of Klishchivka, south of Bakhmut, where heavy fighting continued.
In the past 24 hours, there have been 32 battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the ground.
Lt. Gen. Serhii Naev, commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stated on Telegram that Russian forces had also strengthened their reserves in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions.
The Kremlin has confirmed there are no plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the funeral of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief who died in a plane crash months after he led a failed insurrection against Moscow.
“The presence of the president (at the funeral) is not planned,” Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a regular conference call Tuesday.
Peskov cited a lack of specific details regarding the funeral arrangements, emphasizing that such decisions are entirely at the discretion of Prigozhin’s family.
“After all, the decision on this matter is made by relatives and friends, and we cannot say anything about this,” he added.
There has been no official confirmation of the date or location of Prigozhin’s funeral, despite speculation on local Telegram channels that he may be laid to rest at Serafimovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.
The Joe Biden administration may be forced to give weaker-than-hoped-for or overly vague pledges in providing security guarantees for Ukraine, as Washington may not be able to ensure the required levels of military spending earmarked for Kiev in future years, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
According to the newspaper, Washington hopes to hold a second meeting with Kiev in the coming weeks, building on commitments made at a G7 meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius. However, there is no consensus in the White House on how detailed the pledges should be, given that a successor administration, should President Joe Biden not be re-elected in 2024, could easily rescind any pledges made, the daily said, citing anonymous officials.
Under US law, binding international agreements must be approved by a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate, which can later be revoked by another supermajority vote. Although the president can sign any international agreement, a future White House administration could terminate it on a unilateral basis. European capitals are concerned that ex-President Donald Trump could overturn any pledges Biden may make should his comeback bid to retake the White House succeed in the November 2024 US presidential election, the newspaper writes.
As a result, the Biden administration is considering a memorandum of understanding that would not require congressional approval for the United States and Ukraine to agree on. However, without credible packages of support, Russia is unlikely to be deterred from continuing the special military operation, the WSJ maintains.
Should Trump or any other future Republican president reduce US aid to Ukraine after the 2024 US presidential election, European countries would not be able to pick up the slack, according to the newspaper. Hence, concern is growing among European leaders, who are looking for ways to ensure allied defense industries can manufacture the promised military assistance to Ukraine.
Russian air defenses destroyed two Ukrainian drones in the Tula region south of Moscow early Tuesday, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement.
“The Kyiv regime’s attempt to carry out a terrorist attack using two aircraft-type UAVs on Russian Federation facilities was thwarted this morning,” the statement read.
Ukraine has not yet commented on the alleged attack.
In recent weeks, Russian officials have reported almost daily Ukrainian drone attacks and attempted attacks on Russian soil.
Kyiv often declines to take explicit credit for assaults across the border, though last month, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said the war is “returning to Russia.”
The European Union intends to begin discussions on admitting Ukraine and several other countries as early as October, European Council President Charles Michel announced on Monday.
Enlargement “is no longer a dream,” Michel told the officials from Albania, Bulgaria and former Yugoslav states gathered at the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia.
“As we prepare the EU’s next strategic agenda, we must set ourselves a clear goal. I believe we must be ready, on both sides, by 2030 to enlarge,” Michel stated, adding, “This is ambitious, but necessary. It shows that we are serious.”
The bloc’s leaders will discuss enlargement at the next European Council meeting, said Michel, where they “will take a stand on the opening of negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.” That meeting is scheduled for October.
Moscow’s forces in the Kherson region lack artillery and ammunition support, according to several prominent Russian military bloggers.
Roman Saponkov, a Russian blogger who has over 70,000 subscribers, wrote Friday that troops in the Kherson region messaged him about their lack of artillery support.
“The brigade commander and the chief of the reconnaissance battalion are sending our guys in without artillery support, without drones — poor guys are being killed in packs,” Saponkov posted.
Visioner’s Channel, another Russian blog, posted Sunday that Russia’s 205th brigade is facing “an alarming signal of crisis in the army and the country.”
“The main problem of the Russian Ministry of Defense is well known,” the blog noted, referencing the lack of ammunition.
“After the disaster with Prigozhin, there was confidence that now, at any rate, things would start to move forward and that changes would begin. But the third month has gone by, yet there is still nothing,” the blog noted, referencing the incident when late Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin slammed Russian officials over the lack of ammunition months before his death.
Another Russian blog, Republic, discussed “the growing problems in the Russian army” in a telegram post on Monday.
“The 205th brigade of the Russian Armed Forces that is fighting in the Kherson region was ordered to occupy islands on the Dnipro River; the servicemen responded by saying that they lacked ammunition, food, artillery support and reconnaissance,” the blog post said.
The Russian Ataman Fund, a charitable foundation that provides financial support for soldiers on the frontline, wrote in a Telegram post Sunday it hopes the supply problem in Kherson will be sorted out so the Russian service members “will be able to defend their homeland with everything they need.”
“Otherwise, there will be trouble,” it added.
“Powerful players” are expected to arrive on Ukraine’s arms market, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a news conference on Monday, according to Ukrainian-state news agency Ukrinform.
“By the end of this month or at the beginning of September, there will be good news about powerful players arriving on Ukraine’s arms market. Several agreements will be signed,” Reznikov stated.
Ukraine plans to hold an industrial defense forum around the end of September or the beginning of October, he continued, adding, “The participation of about 50 powerful players of the arms market is planned.”
Reznikov said that Ukraine has “significantly increased the production of domestic weapons,” such as 155 mm artillery shells that have already passed tests.
“The contract is being executed. The first orders are already in place, we will immediately transfer them (artillery shells) to the Armed Forces. And we plan to increase the number for their production,” he added.
Reznikov noted that while the 125 mm artillery shells are still currently being tested, there are difficulties with producing 122 mm artillery shells.
Ukraine has several missile and anti-missile programs and is discussing “how to use the funds more appropriately in this direction,” Reznikov said.
“A lot of money is needed so that these programs can be put into effect in 2024-2025. That’s why we are having a discussion: whether to spend money and buy shells now from foreign manufacturers or invest it (at home) and have missiles approximately in a year,” he explained.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed Reznikov’s comments in his nightly address on Monday, noting that Ukraine is “maximizing production capacity” of domestic weapons.
“Artillery made in Ukraine. Shells made in Ukraine. Drones, missiles, armored vehicles. We are maximizing production capacity. Ukraine can do it. Funding is available. Our defense industry will yield better results,” Zelensky stated.
A Ukrainian commander in the Bakhmut area has stated it is critical to prevent the Russians from establishing proper defenses in the area.
Maksym Zhorin, deputy commander of the 3rd Assault Brigade, said on his Telegram channel that “one of the most important tasks in the Bakhmut sector is to keep up the momentum of advance in order to prevent the enemy from taking measures to create its own defense system. The kind of efforts the enemy has already made, for example, in the Zaporizhzhia sector,” where Ukrainian forces are struggling to break down layers of Russian fortifications and minefields.
“Naturally, there are mines in our sector, and we hit them almost every time during assault operations. There are also fortifications that they have time to construct,” Zhorin continued, adding, “However, we still do not allow them to build a strong system here, as we constantly either knock them out of their positions or inflict damage, preventing them from taking the required actions.”
“It will be a significant problem if we provide the enemy with time and opportunity to dig in and plant mines,” he added.
Ukrainian forces have made slight progress to the south and north-west of Bakhmut in recent weeks, but are yet to threaten Russian supply lines into the ruined city.
On Sunday, Ukrainian officials announced its military is still on the offensive in the Bakhmut direction, and continues to advance “meter by meter”. Illya Yevlash, head of the press service of the Eastern Military Grouping said over the past day, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions 590 times, using multiple rocket launchers and cannon artillery of various calibers.
A total of 14 combat engagements took place on Saturday, Yevlash continued, adding, “The enemy is resorting to counterattacks, trying in vain to regain lost ground.”
“Enemy tactics remain virtually unchanged” in the Bakhmut area, he said.
“First come the assault units, consisting of convicts who try to storm the positions, sometimes even without the cover of heavy equipment; followed by regular army soldiers, who are taken better care of by the Russian army,” he stated.
The Russian Ministry of Defense says it deployed two fighter jets to intercept a United States Air Force MQ-9 “Reaper” and RQ-4 “Global Hawk” unmanned aerial vehicles near the Crimean peninsula.
The drones were detected by Russian forces that were monitoring equipment flying over the southwestern part of the Black Sea, the Russian defense ministry said on Telegram.
Two Russian fighter jets were deployed to avert a “possible violation of the state border” and to “counter any radio-technical reconnaissance,” the defense ministry noted.
“As a result of the actions of on-duty air defense forces, the United States Air Force reconnaissance UAVs changed their flight path and left the areas where air reconnaissance was being conducted,” the defense ministry added.
Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Garron Garn told CNN the US “will continue to fly routine missions over the Black Sea as permitted by international law to ensure freedom of navigation and maneuver in the region.”
Ukrainian authorities have ordered a mandatory evacuation of children from two districts of the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region that are under persistent shelling by the Russians.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told Ukrainian television that the evacuation of children from the Vasylivskyi and Pologivskyi districts is now mandatory. Altogether more than 50 children are still thought to live in the districts.
There was also a compulsory evacuation of a community in the Kupiansk district of Kharkiv region, which has seen intense Russian bombardments in recent weeks.
More than 1,400 civilians, including over 340 children, have been evacuated from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk and its surrounding areas this month, Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region military administration, said Monday.
Ukraine announced its troops have liberated the southeastern settlement of Robotyne and are trying to push further south in their counteroffensive against Russian forces.
Ukraine’s military says it has broken through the most difficult line of Russian defences in the south and will now start advancing more quickly, a commander who led troops into Robotyne told Reuters last week.
“Robotyne has been liberated,” Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar was quoted as saying by the military.
The settlement is 10km (6 miles) south of the front-line town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region. It is on an important road leading to Tokmak, a Russian-occupied road and rail hub.
Ali Salajegheh said he visited the lake two weeks ago and that the situation there was better.
He added that the National Headquarters of Lake Urmia has been set up and now it has 700 million cubic meters of water.
According to the head of the Iranian Environment Protection Organization, water is going to be released from several dams into the lake in September.
Salajegheh stressed that All necessary measures have been put in place and good decisions have been made to cap unauthorized wells and do appropriate cultivation.
Over the past weeks, images of Lake Urmia on the verge of dying, has raised the alarm among many including environmentalists.
Also on the receding of the level of the Caspian Sea water, he said no single country is to blame for this phenomenon. Salajegheh also said all five littoral countries of the sea, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan Republic, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, share the blame.
He however noted that the countries are ready to take measures to prevent the situation from worsening.
Rouhani added that from 2013 to 2020, the number of phases that were completed at the South Pars gas field rose from 10 to 27.
Rouhani claimed that from 2013 to 2020, the number of rigs installed in South Pars jumped by 236% from 11 to 37. This, according to the former president, increased Iran’s gas output by 2.5-fold.
His remarks were apparently meant to criticize President Ebrahim Raisi’s handling of the Iranian economy.
On Monday, President Ebrahim Raisi however defended his own job performance, saying his administration does not tie its actions to what he called “the smile” of others.
He made the remarks while launching a new phase of the Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf after a 20-year hiatus.
The Raisi administration has come under fire over rising inflation that has shot up prices in Iran.
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