Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy issues fresh corruption warning; Russia raises conscription age limit | Ukraine

The US Department of Defence announced $400m in additional security assistance for Ukraine on Tuesday, Reuters reports, including air defence missiles, armoured vehicles and small drones.

The new aid package will include for the first time U.S. furnished Black Hornet surveillance drones made by Teledyne FLIR Defence, part of Teledyne Technologies.

The Norwegian-built Hornet is being used in Ukraine through donations by the British and Norwegian governments, the company said. FLIR Unmanned Aerial Systems was awarded a $93m contract in April to provide the small reconnaissance drones to the US Army.

In addition, the weapons aid package includes munitions for Patriot air defence systems and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASMS), Stinger anti-aircraft systems, more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Stryker Armoured Personnel Carriers and a variety of other missiles and rockets.

Russia’s parliament has voted to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 from 27, increasing the number of young men liable for a year of compulsory military service.

The bill comes as Moscow seeks to replenish its forces on the frontline in Ukraine without resorting to another mobilisation – a step the Kremlin took last September which proved unpopular.

“From January 1, 2024, citizens aged 18 to 30 will be called up for military service,” the lower house of parliament said after the bill was passed in a second and third reading.

The law also prohibits conscripts from leaving the country once the enlistment office has sent them their draft notice.

The bill still has to be approved by the upper chamber and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, steps that are considered a formality:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russian invaders.

Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light – the arrests of a military recruitment official accused of mass embezzlement and of a parliamentarian accused of collaborating with Russia.
The president last month announced plans to audit military draft offices to try to eliminate corruption.

“Let me warn all members of parliament, officials and everyone working as a civil servant,” he said.

“When you spend days on end looking for weapons for the country, when everyone’s attention is fixed on whether there is artillery, missiles and drones, you feel the moral strength our soldiers have given Ukraine.

Zelenskiy, addressing members of parliament, said he would no longer tolerate those who “because of some sort of personal gain” refuse to back legislation needed for Ukraine to begin its long campaign to secure EU membership.

“I no longer want to see any such refusals,” he said. “No one wants to see that. Ukraine has no more time for that.”

Welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.

Our top stories this morning: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he would tolerate no corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russia.

Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light – the arrests of a military recruitment official accused of mass embezzlement and of a parliamentarian accused of collaborating with Russia.

And Russia’s lower house of parliament voted on Tuesday to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 from 27, increasing the number of men liable for a year of compulsory military service at any one time.

Elsewhere:

• The Russian ministry of defence has claimed that it destroyed two unmanned Ukrainian boats that were engaged in an attack on one of its Black Sea fleet patrol ships. In a statement, the ministry said: “In the course of repulsing the attack, both enemy remote-controlled boats were destroyed by fire from the standard weapons of the Russian ship at a distance of 1,000m and 800m. There were no casualties. The Sergey Kotov continues to fulfill its tasks.”

• The UK’s ambassador to the UN has said that prime minister Rishi Sunak has shared with Ukraine intelligence that Russia has laid additional mines in the Black Sea and may attack civilian shipping in the region. Barbara Woodward said the UK had information indicating “the Russian military may expand their targeting of Ukrainian grain facilities further, to include attacks against civilian shipping in the Black Sea. Our information also indicates that Russia has laid additional sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports. We agree with the US assessment that this is a coordinated effort to justify and lay blame on Ukraine for any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea.”

• The Ukrainian military on Tuesday reported making small advances against Russian forces in parts of southern Ukraine. Andriy Kovaliov, spokesperson for the armed forces general staff, said Ukrainian troops had moved forward in the direction of the south-eastern village of Staromayorske, near settlements recaptured by Ukraine last month in the Donetsk region. He said the Ukrainian troops were reinforcing the positions they had taken, and Russian forces were mounting strong resistance.

• The UN human rights chief on Tuesday called for accountability for the deaths of at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war last year in an explosion in a Donetsk region detention facility, rejecting Moscow’s claim that they were killed by a rocket. “The prisoners of war who were injured or died at Olenivka, and their family members, deserve the truth to be known, and for those responsible for breaches of international law to be held accountable,” the high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said in a statement to journalists.

• The UN’s atomic watchdog said it saw anti-personnel mines at the site of Ukraine‘s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces. On 23 July, International Atomic Energy Agency experts “saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers”, agency chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Monday. The statement did not say how many mines the team had seen. The devices were in “restricted areas” that operating plant personnel cannot access, Grossi said, adding the IAEA’s initial assessment was that any detonation “should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems”.

• AP reports, citing US officials, that the Biden administration is sending up to $400m in additional military aid to Ukraine, including a variety of munitions for advanced air defence systems and a number of small, surveillance Hornet drones.