Zelensky accuses Russian forces of lighting fire at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Rheinmetall will supply battle tanks to the Czech Republic as part of a swap mechanism to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, the German defence company has announced.

The Czech army will receive 14 Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks and one armoured recovery vehicle and in turn it will send military equipment to Ukraine, the firm added in a statement.

The total value of the order is in the low three-digit million euro range and delivery will be completed by the beginning of 2026, said Rheinmetall.

Russian forces lit a fire at the site of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Radiation levels were normal, the president said, although the blaze is visible from Ukrainian-held territory.

A local official in the Ukrainian city of Nikopol said that Russian forces were rumoured to have set fire to a large number of tyres in the cooling towers, Reuters reported. Russia claimed the fire was started by nearby shelling.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog, which has a team at the vast six-reactor plant, said its experts had seen strong, dark smoke coming from the northern area of the plant following multiple explosions.

Ukraine is scrambling to ship as much grain as it can this summer, taking advantage of military gains it has made in the Black Sea area to boost exports even as Russia has attacked its ports.

Ukraine is a major global wheat and corn grower and before Russia’s invasion in 2022 the country exported about 6 million tons of grain alone per month via the Black Sea.

Grain sales are a crucial revenue source and while global prices are weak, Ukraine‘s cash-strapped farmers have little choice but to push ahead with exports because they need to fund the next winter sowing season.

Ukraine doubled food exports in July to over 4.2 million metric tons from the same month last year, according to data from Ukraine‘s UGA traders’ union, despite intensified Russian attacks on Odesa, a key Black Sea export hub, and Izmail, a major port along the Danube River taking grain into Europe.

Ukraine has not yet reported the destinations of its exports in July, but last season it exported most of its wheat to Spain, Egypt and Indonesia, with its corn mostly heading for Spain and China.

Russia has evacuated parts of a second region next to Ukraine after Kyiv sharply increased military activity near the border just days after its biggest incursion into sovereign Russian territory since the start of the 2022 war.

Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border early last Tuesday and swept across some Western parts of Russia’s Kursk region, a surprise attack that may be aimed at gaining leverage in possible ceasefire talks after the US election.

Russian officials say they have stabilised the fight but in the neighbouring Belgorod region to the south, the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said evacuations had begun from the Krasnaya Yaruga District due to “enemy activity on the border” that was a “threat”.

“I am sure that our servicemen will do everything to cope with the threat that has arisen,” Gladkov said. “We are starting to move people who live in the Krasnaya Yaruga district to safer places.”

Wagner Group fighters, part of a Russian militia that previously fought in Ukraine, have been pictured in northern Mali weeks after their unit suffered heavy damage in a fight against local forces there.

The photos show the mercenaries posing with weapons in northern Mali, where they have been working with the government to fight Islamic extremist groups. They have reportedly abused that role, allegedly killing civilians in the process and looting the country’s resources.

You can read more about that fatal battle last month here.

Ukrainian forces have “advanced” further into the bordering Russian region of Kursk less than a week after they stormed across the border, analysts have found.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, reported that they had geolocated and verified footage over the weekend that shows Ukraine has pushed further westward and northwestward in the region.

This comes despite Russian officials claiming they had stabilised the region. You can read their full statement below.

Ukrainian war tracker DeepState, known to have strong ties to the military, reports that Ukraine have now “liberated” 55 square miles of Russia, though they add that the status of a surrounding 42 square miles remains unknown.

Below we have some of the latest photos from the frontline in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s cross-border operation into the Kursk region of Russia threatens the Kremlin with a possible political crisis over casualties among conscripts, a US war think tank has said.

Moscow has increasingly relied upon conscripts to defend the Russian state border with Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War added.