Kyiv advances on southern front line; Erdoğan plans to meet Putin to revive Black Sea grain deal

Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said the military advanced southeast of the town of Robotyne, which was retaken this month. Forces also recaptured about a square kilometre of ground near the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut, she said in televised remarks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to meet Vladimir Putin in Russia next week to discuss reviving the Black Sea grain deal, according to two Turkish officials familiar with the matter. Poland and the Baltic nations called on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to expel Russian mercenaries from his country and agreed on a plan to potentially shut the border in response to escalating tension.

Latest developments

• Poland, Baltics tell Belarus to expel Russian mercenaries


• Sweden charges man for transferring military tech to Russia


• Ukraine says second ship to sail from Odesa reaches Romania


• Wagner chief Prigozhin’s death confirmed by investigators

Erdoğan plans to meet Putin next week to discuss grain deal

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to meet Putin in Russia next week to discuss reviving the Black Sea grain deal, according to two Turkish officials familiar with the matter.

Erdoğan could possibly go to Russia on 8 September before travelling to India to attend the Group of 20 Summit in New Delhi, the people said. The Turkish presidency declined to comment to Bloomberg.

He wants the deal, which allowed Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea and which Russia pulled out of last month, to be restarted. Global wheat prices have since been volatile, especially after Russia targeted some Ukrainian crop-export infrastructure with drones.

Putin and Erdoğan have maintained extensive contacts following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They’ve held at least 10 telephone conversations so far this year, according to the Kremlin website, as well as a videoconference marking the delivery of Russian nuclear fuel to Turkey’s Akkuyu plant in April.

A meeting “will take place soon”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Monday, the Interfax news service reported. Peskov declined to say when it will happen.

Sweden charges man for transferring military tech to Russia

A Swedish prosecutor has filed charges against a man accused of transferring technology and equipment to Russia on behalf of its military intelligence.

The 60-year-old, who was arrested in November when special forces swooped on his house in a sleepy Stockholm suburb, acted as a node in a network set up to transfer goods to Russia’s military-industrial complex, according to prosecutor Henrik Olin. He faces up to six years in prison if found guilty.

“Russia has a need to procure Western technology, mainly electronics, as they don’t have those capabilities themselves, and there is a system for this that goes back to Soviet times,” Olin said at a news conference in Stockholm on Monday. “The suspect has been part of this system.”

The man, who ran businesses in Sweden with his wife, was working on behalf of the GRU military intelligence unit to transfer equipment including electronics, ship engines and cranes to Russia, using fake identities and concealing end-users, according to the charges. The couple moved to Sweden from Russia in the late 1990s.

Poland, Baltics tell Belarus to expel Russian mercenaries

Poland and the Baltic nations called on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to expel Russian mercenaries from his country and agreed on a plan to potentially shut the border in response to escalating tension.

In the event of an armed incident or an organised influx of migrants across the frontier, Poland and the Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — will coordinate on shutting the border with Belarus, the four nations agreed in Warsaw on Monday. They warned of the threat posed by Wagner mercenaries even after the death this month of the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“We’re expecting potential incidents — also of a military nature — carried out with the members of that group,” Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski told reporters. “We are determined to undertake joint action” at the frontier, he said, adding that the mechanisms also count for the states’ direct borders with Russia.

Authorities on Nato’s eastern flank raised the alarm in recent weeks after the mercenaries decamped to Belarus, part of a deal with Prigozhin after his failed mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in late June. Polish authorities announced the deployment of additional troops to the border, while a senior official in Warsaw called for the “complete isolation” of Belarus.

But even before Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash this month — Russian investigators confirmed on Saturday that he was on board the aircraft that went down — reports emerged that Wagner camps within Belarus were shrinking, while Ukrainian authorities said many mercenaries were returning to Russia.

“Considering that Prigozhin is no longer there, the anxiety has decreased a bit,” Latvian Interior Minister Maris Kucinskis told TV3 before the meeting.

Russia may set up unified fertiliser trader to boost pricing power

Russia is considering setting up a unified trading company to export fertilisers in a bid to increase its pricing influence on global markets.

The idea was proposed in July by UralChem’s founder, Dmitry Mazepin, two people familiar with the situation said, declining to be identified because the information isn’t public. It has since been discussed by Industry Minister Denis Manturov and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the people and another person close to the government said. No decision has been taken and it’s not clear when the proposal will be discussed again, all three people said.

Spokespeople for the government didn’t respond to requests to comment. Uralchem’s press service said it was unaware of the proposal.

Russia is the world’s largest fertiliser maker, with produce accounting for about 15% of global annual consumption. While fertiliser companies haven’t been included in international sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine due to their importance for global food security, Baltic ports have stopped handling most products, contributing to a decline in shipments. An exodus of global shipping companies, some international banks and insurers from Russia has also made it harder to send goods abroad.

Some large fertiliser makers don’t support the idea out of concern it will hurt business, two of the people said. Exports of most types of fertilisers have already recovered to their pre-war levels, so producers don’t see how the proposal will benefit them, the people said.

A unified trading company could give the government more control over export revenues and allow it to exert much greater influence over global pricing. Russia has been demanding smoother export conditions for its fertiliser producers in talks to restore a grain export deal that allowed Ukraine to ship through the Black Sea and that Moscow abandoned last month. DM