Drones strike Moscow towers; Saudi Arabia set to host peace effort

Ukrainian drones damaged two office tower buildings in Moscow and triggered the temporary closure of one of the city’s airports, the Russian Defence Ministry said. Two of the unmanned aircraft were downed by electronic jamming, while a third drone was shot down, the ministry said.

One person was injured and Vnukovo airport later reopened, Tass reported. Ukraine hasn’t commented.

Russia’s military said it also downed 25 drones over Crimea. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

Saudi Arabia is set to host talks between Ukraine, some key backers and developing nations including India and Brazil early next month, as Europe and the US intensify attempts to consolidate support for Kyiv’s peace demands, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Latest developments

• Prigozhin upstages Putin as he schmoozes, lauds Africa coup


• Don’t ask Ukrainians to shake hands with Russians: Andreas Kluth


• Poland says Wagner mercenaries may try to cross from Belarus


• Naftogaz CEO lobbies in Washington to protect Ukraine’s energy


• Key Ukrainian grain route to boost capacity amid Black Sea risks

Drone attacks hit Moscow business towers, force airport closure

Drones hit two office towers in Moscow’s prestigious business district and prompted the temporary closure of one of the city’s international airports during an overnight attack that Russia blamed on Ukraine.

Two drones that hit buildings in the Moscow City development were brought down using electronic jamming, while a third was shot down by air defences in the Moscow region, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a Telegram statement on Sunday. Ukraine hasn’t commented.

Vnukovo airport halted operations for several hours before later resuming work, the state-run Tass news service reported. It was the second time this month that flights at the airport had been disrupted over a drone assault, following an incident on 4 July.

Russian plan for Turkey’s gas hub is still on agenda, says Putin 

The idea of creating a gas hub in Turkey is still on the table and yet if it’s established, it would be an electronic trading platform rather than a physical facility to store large volumes of Russian gas, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin came up with the plan to establish a major gas-trading hub in Turkey last October after its energy relations with the West reached their lowest point in decades following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Back then, Putin talked about potentially building additional Black Sea links toward Turkey to make this route Russia’s main westbound gas-export facility.

The idea was actively discussed in the months after, with Turkey nurturing the ambition to become the regional gas trade centre with its own price index. Yet its implementation, which according to Putin’s initial estimations could take just months, seems to have stalled recently.

“It’s still on the agenda,” Putin said late on Saturday at a briefing in St Petersburg, Russia. “It’s about creating an electronic trading platform; we are not going to store massive volumes of gas there,” he said. Putin didn’t specify if that approach would mean a lower scale of Russian gas trading at the hub than initially envisioned.

Banks are untold story of Ukraine’s survival, even state banks

When Sergii Naumov took over as chief executive at one of Ukraine’s biggest state banks before Russia’s invasion, his job was to privatise it. Now he’s glad he didn’t get the chance.

The role of Ukraine’s banking system is one of the less-told stories of the nation’s resilience. It survived the loss of assets to occupation, power outages and a 30% collapse in GDP without bank runs, service interruptions or any significant closures. State-controlled lenders like Naumov’s Oschadbank have played a part.

“Generally, when you have this state-owned economy it is not good, but during the war it helped,” says Naumov. “We know what our mission is.”

Before the war, the state-run lenders that control about half the system’s assets were seen as part of the country’s problem. They were notorious for poor governance and backroom deals with their government owners.

Now they’ve become an important source of funding for an economy under assault, pushing subsidised loans and helping to fund a cash-strapped state, even as private lenders pulled back to reduce their exposure to risk.

Whereas overall bank credit to households and private sector companies contracted last year, Oschadbank increased lending by 11%, and by 81% for small- and medium-sized companies. They’d loan more, as there is plenty of liquidity in the system, according to Naumov, but in a brutalised economy with high interest rates, demand for credit is low and all but non-existent for mortgages.

The financial sector as a whole has been profitable since the start of the war. And with dividend payouts banned for private lenders, those banks have added to their cash buffers. The weighted average of capital adequacy ratios across the sector is up by three percentage points, to 14.3% — well above the 10% requirement stipulated by the Ukrainian central bank.

Some of that liquidity is also channelled to finance the state budget, supplementing the aid Ukraine receives from international donors.

Saudi Arabia ‘to host meeting on conflict in Ukraine’ 

Saudi Arabia is set to host talks among Ukraine, some of its key backers and developing nations including India and Brazil early next month, as Europe and Washington intensify attempts to consolidate support for Kyiv’s peace demands, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Read more: G7 tells Global South just peace requires Russia to leave Ukraine

The meeting would bring senior officials from as many as 30 countries to Jeddah on 5 and 6 August, the newspaper said, citing diplomats involved in the discussions. It comes as the war with Russia appears to have reached a stalemate with neither side gaining significant territory in recent months.

The UK, South Africa, Poland and the EU are among those that have confirmed attendance, and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is also expected to come, the Journal reported.

Poland says Wagner mercenaries may try to cross from Belarus

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned that Wagner mercenary forces may attempt to enter his country from neighbouring Belarus along with illegal migrants, the latest sign of potential tensions between the two nations.

The possibility of such a move by the private Russian military company has alarmed the government in Warsaw, which sent additional troops to reinforce Poland’s eastern border. It’s also planning to expand a wall there to prevent illegal crossings.

“We have information that more than 100 of Wagner mercenaries have moved in the direction of Suwalki Gap, near Grodno” in western Belarus, Morawiecki told reporters in Gliwice on Saturday. He described it as a step toward a “hybrid attack on the Polish territory.”

Read more: Putin warns Poland over ‘aggression’ against ally Belarus

Poland, a member of both the European Union and Nato, sits in a strategic position geographically, with Russia’s war in Ukraine unfolding directly to its east. While it has been one of Kyiv’s biggest supporters in the conflict, Poland has shown no intention to take unilateral, unprovoked military action.

Wagner chief’s ‘exile’ is anything but as he schmoozes, lauds Niger coup

As Putin was welcoming African heads of state to a summit in St Petersburg, renegade warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin stole the limelight in the president’s home city, schmoozing with visiting officials and lauding a military coup in Niger.

The Wagner mercenary group leader was supposed to go into exile in neighbouring Belarus under a deal to end last month’s armed mutiny that shook Putin’s rule and killed about a dozen air force crew as his troops advanced to within 200km of Moscow.

Instead, he’s been travelling freely in and out of Russia and was invited to talks with Putin in the Kremlin with his top Wagner commanders only days after the revolt.

Late on Friday evening, he praised Putin for organising the summit, hailing his Africa outreach with no mention of the recent tensions at home. “I believe that the forum went well and we should see the results from it in the near future,” he told Afrique Media television, according to a transcript posted on his Telegram channel.

Russia offers countries of the region economic ties and “security export,” he said, just hours after Wagner announced it was sending a new deployment of mercenaries to the Central African Republic. He cited that country, Mali and Niger as among those “which are becoming more and more independent”.

Prigozhin’s presence in St Petersburg, which is also his native city, as Putin hosted the Russia-Africa Summit seemed calculated to upstage the showcase event.

While Russia joined other powers in calling for the release of ousted Niger President Mohamed Bazoum, the mercenary leader welcomed last week’s military coup as “a declaration of independence” in an audio statement on a Telegram channel linked to Wagner. “It’s getting rid of the colonisers,” Prigozhin said. DM