Explosion rocks depot in Russian-occupied crimea

An explosion tore through a Russian ammunition depot in occupied Crimea, a week after a blast at an airbase on the Black Sea peninsula destroyed fighter craft. Some 2,000 people were evacuated from the area, Russian television reported.

An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the explosion the beginning of a series of attacks, while Russia attributed it to an act of sabotage. Neither side clarified what caused the blast.

President Vladimir Putin’s defense chief said Russia had no plans to use tactical nuclear or chemical weapons in Ukraine. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu cited Russian military doctrine as saying nuclear weapons can only be used to deter an attack.

Key developments

• Russia Unplugs Foes, Rewards Friends in Latest Market Reboot
• European Gas Surges as Heat and Drying Rivers Drive Demand
• Russian Mercenaries Seek Gold, Sow Chaos in Central Africa

On the ground

Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, was hit by Russian shelling overnight, affecting five out of nine city districts, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram. The breadth of missile attacks on the eastern city hasn’t been seen “for a long time,” he added. Fighting continues in the areas around Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as on the Kramatorsk axis, according to Ukraine’s general staff. Russian forces also shelled parts of the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, while parts of Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions in the south were also struck overnight, local authorities say on Telegram.

(All times CET)

Turkey Rebuffs Russian Claim That S-400 Deal Is Complete (3:40 p.m.) 

The Turkish government rejected a Russian defense official’s assertion that a new deal on an S-400 missile-defense system had been signed. There’s “no new development” on the status of the weapons system, Turkey’s defense procurement agency said, adding that the procedure is still in line with a 2018 agreement on the deal.

Russia’s Tass news agency earlier cited Dmitry Shugaev, head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, as saying that a new contract was signed, which included Turkish production of individual components of the system. Turkish stocks dropped as much as 2.9% following the report, while Turkey’s five-year CDS jumped by almost 40 basis points.

Estonia Dismantles WWII Monuments to Prevent Misuse by Russia (2 p.m.) 

Estonian authorities removed a Soviet-era T-34 tank from its pedestal after Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said Russia was using such monuments to foment hostility in the Baltic country.

Kallas told reporters on Tuesday that Soviet monuments had been brought back into the public eye as a reminder of Russian aggression that “opened up old wounds” after the invasion of Ukraine. The government’s push to remove hundreds of Soviet monuments cuts into the country’s cultural divide, with Russian speakers making up nearly a quarter of the population.

UN’s Ban, Colombia’s Santos to Offer Peacekeeping Advice (1:45 p.m.)

Zelenskiy’s government invited former United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon and Colombia’s ex-president, Juan Manuel Santos, for talks on conflict resolution. The two toured the towns of Bucha and Irpin outside Kyiv, where Russian forces are accused of committing atrocities in the first weeks of the war, Ukrainian television reported.

Ban, the UN secretary-general from 2007 to 2016, and Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel peace prize for his work in forging a peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, will meet with Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Tuesday, Ban’s foundation said in a statement.

Finland to Cut Ukrainian Visa Numbers (12:50 p.m.)

From September, Finland will only accept about 100 visa applications a day, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters. That’s about 10% of the average number it has been receiving daily from Ukrainians since Russia’s invasion. The decision comes as the government responds to growing calls to limit travel across the country’s eastern border.

Russia Says Depot Blast Caused by Sabotage (12:45 p.m.)

The Russian defense ministry made the assertion about the Dzhankoy depot in a statement, according to Interfax. Meanwhile, Kommersant reported explosions at another Crimean air base, close to Simferopol. Ukrainian authorities didn’t immediately confirm those blasts.

Russian Crimea Depot Explosion Continues to Detonate Ammunition (10:50 a.m.)  

The blast took place at a key transformer station and an ammunition depot near the strategically significant town of Dzhankoy in northern Crimea — and was just the beginning, Mykhaylo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelenskiy, said in televised comments.

The transformer station had been intended to carry electricity from from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in occupied southern Ukraine, and the explosion disrupted rail travel at a key point linking Crimea with Ukraine’s Kherson region. Seven passenger trains have been delayed, RIA Novosti reports citing national railway carrier.

Ukraine Says Russia Taking Millions of Tons of Grain (10:35 a.m.)

Grain and oilseed harvests in the Ukrainian regions occupied by Russian forces totaled about 20 million tons last year, including large amounts of winter-wheat and barley, according to Ukraine Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi. Harvests are now underway and Russian occupiers appear to be looting newly-collected grain, he said.

“We can predict, by analyzing the information, the volume of crimes,” Solskyi said Monday in a television interview. “The volume of abuse of the new crop is calculated in millions of tons.”

Russia Doesn’t Plan to Use Nuclear Weapons, Shoigu Says (9:28 a.m.) 

Russia’s Shoigu said the Kremlin has no plans to use tactical nuclear or chemical weapons in Ukraine. In comments in a televised speech at a security conference in Moscow, Shoigu said that from a military viewpoint, there is no need to use such weapons to achieve Russia’s goals in Ukraine.

Russian military doctrine states that the main goal of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack, Shoigu said. The nation’s “special military operation” in Ukraine signified the end of a unipolar world, he added.

© 2022 Bloomberg