MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin reviewed a parade of warships and nuclear submarines in his native St Petersburg on Sunday and announced that the Russian Navy would receive 30 new ships this year.
Forty-five ships, submarines and other vessels took part in Russia’s annual Navy Day event, a traditional show of military might which takes place in the Gulf of Finland and on the River Neva in St Petersburg. Around 3,000 navy personnel also took part in a parade on land, the Kremlin said.
Putin, accompanied by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the head of the Navy, inspected some of the ships from a launch boat on the Neva before making a speech.
“Today, Russia is confidently implementing the large-scale tasks of our national maritime policy and is consistently building up the strength of our Navy,” said Putin. “This year alone, 30 ships of different classes are being added to the fleet,” he said.
He made no substantive comments on what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Four African heads of state attended Sunday’s event and five other African countries sent representatives, according to the Kremlin.
They were invited after a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg which concluded on Friday at which delegates discussed grain supplies and potential peace talks on Ukraine.
(Adds Putin quotes in paragraph 4, context, details)
MOSCOW, July 30 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin reviewed a parade of warships and nuclear submarines in his native St Petersburg on Sunday and announced that the Russian Navy would receive 30 new ships this year.
Forty-five ships, submarines and other vessels took part in Russia’s annual Navy Day event, a traditional show of military might which takes place in the Gulf of Finland and on the River Neva in St Petersburg. Around 3,000 navy personnel also took part in a parade on land, the Kremlin said.
Putin, accompanied by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the head of the Navy, inspected some of the ships from a launch boat on the Neva before making a speech.
“Today, Russia is confidently implementing the large-scale tasks of our national maritime policy and is consistently building up the strength of our Navy,” said Putin. “This year alone, 30 ships of different classes are being added to the fleet,” he said.
He made no substantive comments on what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Four African heads of state attended Sunday’s event and five other African countries sent representatives, according to the Kremlin.
They were invited after a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg which concluded on Friday at which delegates
discussed
grain supplies and potential peace talks on Ukraine. (Reporting by Reuters Editing by Andrew Osborn)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday signed a law moving the official Christmas Day holiday to Dec. 25 from Jan. 7, the day when the Russian Orthodox Church observes it.
The explanatory note attached to the law said its goal is to “abandon the Russian heritage,” including that of “imposing the celebration of Christmas” on Jan. 7. It cited Ukrainians’ “relentless, successful struggle for their identity” and “the desire of all Ukrainians to live their lives with their own traditions, holidays,” fueled by Russia’s 17-month-old aggression against the country.
Last year, some Ukrainians already observed Christmas on Dec. 25, in a gesture that represented separation from Russia, its culture and religious traditions.
The law also moves the Day of Ukrainian Statehood to July 15 from July 28, and the Day of Defenders of Ukraine to Oct. 1 from Oct. 14.
The Russian Orthodox Church, which claims sovereignty over Orthodoxy in Ukraine, and some other Eastern Orthodox churches, continues to use the ancient Julian calendar. Christmas falls 13 days later on that calendar, or Jan. 7, than it does on the Gregorian calendar used by most church and secular groups.
The Catholic Church first adopted the modern, more astronomically precise Gregorian calendar in the 16th century. Protestants and some Orthodox churches have since aligned their own calendars for the purpose of calculating Christmas and Easter.
Ukraine’s religious landscape has fractured for years. There are two branches of Orthodox Christianity in the country, one aligned with the Russian church, even as it enjoys broad autonomy, the other completely independent of it. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the branch that is separate from the Russian church, announced earlier this year that it was switching to the Revised Julian calendar, which marks Christmas on Dec. 25.
Its leadership last year allowed believers to celebrate the holiday on Dec. 25.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported on Saturday that the rival Orthodox Church, which is aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church, vowed to continue observing Christmas on Jan. 7.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters Saturday that the move “is a sign of something that has been happening for centuries” and that “has to do with the relations between the Catholic church and the Orthodox one.”
Zelenskyy on Saturday traveled to the war-torn Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, which Russia has illegally annexed, but only partially occupies, and met with members of the country’s Special Operation Forces. Zelenskyy noted in an online statement that Saturday marks their official day of recognition and also the anniversary of the deadly attack on the Olenivka prison in the Russian-held part of the region in which dozens of prisoners of war were killed.
Ukrainians hold lights during a memorial event in front of the closed Russian Embassy on July 29, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The memorial marks the one-year anniversary of the Olenivka prison attack, when dozens of Ukrainian soldiers died during an attack of Olenivka in the eastern Donetsk region during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Getty Images
Russia and Ukraine accused each other of the attack, with both sides saying that the assault was premeditated in a bid to cover up atrocities. A United Nations fact-finding mission requested by Russia and Ukraine was sent to investigate the killings, but the team was disbanded in January 2023 due to security concerns.
Zelenskyy described the attack as one of Russia’s “most vile and cruel crimes” in a video statement Saturday.
In a separate Telegram statement, he hailed the soldiers in the Donetsk region for “bringing closer the day when all our land and all our people will be free from the occupiers” and underscored the Special Operations Forces’ role in the recent retaking of the village of Staromaiorske in the area.
His visit to the east comes just days after Western and Russian officials said that Kyiv’s forces intensified attacks in the southeast of the country as part of Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Putin said Saturday that the intensity of Ukrainian attacks along the front line has gone down “compared to two days ago.” He reiterated that Russian forces are successfully repelling all attacks and in some parts of the front line are even mounting successful counteroffensive operations.
Russian forces on Friday struck the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro and pounded, Staromaiorske, a key village in the southeast that Ukraine claimed to have recaptured in its grinding counteroffensive, while Moscow accused Kyiv of firing two missiles at southern Russia and wounding 20 people.
The Russian missile attack in Dnipro wounded nine people in the area of a newly constructed and as yet unoccupied 12-story apartment building, as well as an unoccupied adjacent Security Service of Ukraine building.
A view of damage from the area after Russian missile struck a residential building yesterday in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Ukraine, on July 29, 2023.
Arsen Dzodzaiev/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
“Russian missile terror again,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Video showed the apartment building’s upper floors in ruins, with gray smoke billowing from them, and flames raging in the night at ground level, where shattered concrete and glass littered a courtyard.
“Windows were blown out right in front of my eyes,” one man told Reuters.
Margarita Sukhova, who owns an apartment on the ninth floor of the apartment building, told CBS News her husband was doing renovations in the apartment only one hour before the attack.
“I am shocked,” Sukhova said…”I hate this country (Russia), this people, they do nothing, they are just sitting watching TV, listening to their propaganda.”
Russia has often struck apartment buildings during the conflict, while denying it intentionally targets civilians.
The Security Service building has been targeted twice before. Dnipro’s mayor said it has been largely empty for months.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it shot down a Ukrainian missile in the city of Taganrog, about 24 miles east of the border with Ukraine, and local officials reported 20 people were injured, identifying the epicenter as an art museum.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military released footage Saturday of troops storming Russian trenches on the eastern front line near Bakhmut.
The priority though for Ukrainian forces is to push south from the Zaporizhzhia region to the sea of Azov, which is a nearly 100-mile stretch. If successful, Ukraine would cut off Russia’s land access to Crimea.
Russian missile strike hits buildings in Dnipro – CBS News
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Russian forces struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with Iskander missiles Friday, hitting two buildings, including an apartment complex. Ramy Inocencio reports from Dnipro.
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The city of Bucha became synonymous with massacre after Russia’s army killed more than 1,000 civilians in the city during a one-month occupation after capturing the region in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine.
Amid the horror, one man’s heroism saved hundreds. As the war rages on, his heroism is being memorialized with a film.
Konstantin Gudauskas has been called an angel of salvation. Thanks to a random stroke of luck, Gudauskas was a citizen of Kazakhstan who had been granted political asylum in Ukraine years ago. That meant that he kept his freedom of movement, even during the war.
He used that good fortune and freedom to drive 203 Ukrainians out of Russian-occupied territory.
Konstantin Gudauskas.
CBS Mornings
The film shows his travails, which included navigating Russian checkpoints and witnessing atrocities while delivering people from evil.
“For me it was hell,” Gudauskas said. “I saw a lot of death. There were times I’d come to evacuate a family and they would be dead. I would scream to God: ‘Why did you send me here? If my life is needed, I have to save lives.'”
Gudauskas said he buried more than 70 bodies himself, but is thankful he saved more, including famed Ukrainian composer Ihor Poklad and his wife, Svetlana Poklad. The couple hid in their cellar for two weeks as Russian troops passed outside.
“We didn’t have any water, no lights, no gas, but we adapted. The only thing that was hard to adapt to were the shellings, the missiles,” said Svetlana Poklad.
Inside one of Ukraine’s worst-hit towns
02:33
When Gudauskas arrived, Svetlana Poklad said she felt “unreal happiness.”
“I called him an angel,” she said. “He’s an angel to everyone he saved.”
Gudauskas’ has now celebrated holidays and birthdays that might have been impossible without his bravery, forging a family with those he rescued. One pregnant woman he saved even named her son after him.
“I have no children of my own,” Gudauskas said. “But I have got a lot of children that I gained during the war.”
Ramy Inocencio
Ramy Inocencio is a foreign correspondent for CBS News based in London and previously served as Asia correspondent based in Beijing.
Kim Jong-un (left) and Sergei Shoigu shaking hands at the office building of the Party Central Committee in Pyongyang – STR/KCNA /KNS/AFP
Russia’s defence minister is in North Korea to secure weapons, Anthony Blinken, the US secretary of state has said.
Sergei Shoigu was this week given a personal tour of Pyongyang’s weaponry by Kim Jong-un in the first trip by Moscow’s top defence official since the break-up of the Soviet Union.
The rare visit to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Korean war armistice saw Mr Shoigu pledge to boost military ties, as he praised the North Korean military as the “most powerful” in the world.
In reference to Mr Shoigu’s visit, Mr Blinken said: “I strongly doubt he’s there on holiday,” adding, “we’re seeing Russia desperately looking for support, for weapons, wherever it can find them to continue to prosecute its aggression against Ukraine.”
“We see that in North Korea, we see that as well with Iran, which has provided many drones to Russia that it’s using to destroy civilian infrastructure and kill civilians in Ukraine.”
North Korean state media described the meeting as a “friendly talk” with photos showing Kim walking the Russian defence minister through a vast exhibition space showcasing the North’s nuclear missiles – some capable of reaching the US.
The North Korean leader appeared to have decked out his residence with giant photos of Vladimir Putin ahead of the Russian defence delegation’s arrival, signalling deeper ties between the two countries as they each face off with the United States.
Mr Shoigu’s appearance in Pyongyang signals that Russia, a UN Security Council member, has dropped any pretence of trying to keep North Korea and its nuclear weapons programme in check.
Kim Jong Un (second right) visiting the weaponry exhibition house with Sergei Shoigu (third right) and members of the Russian military delegation – STR/AFP
“The symbolism of the Russian defence minister touring a room packed with nuclear-capable missiles built in North Korea is stark and grim,” said Ankit Panda, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Russia, a historic ally of Pyongyang, is one of very few countries that maintains friendly relations with the North, while authoritarian leader, Kim, has offered unflinching support for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
It comes as Ukrainian soldiers were observed using North Korean rockets that they claim were seized by a “friendly” country before being delivered to Ukraine, the Financial Times reported.
It is believed to be the first report showing the use of Pyongyang’s arms by Ukraine against Russian forces.
The North Korean weapons were shown by Ukrainian troops operating Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems near the destroyed eastern city of Bakhmut.
Ukraine’s defence ministry suggested the arms were captured from the Russians.
“We capture their tanks, we capture their equipment and it is very possible that this is also the result of the Ukrainian army successfully conducting a military operation,” said Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister.
“Russia has been shopping around for different types of munitions in all kinds of tyrannies, including North Korea and Iran,” he added.
According to a US intelligence report last year, Russia has been buying artillery shells and rockets from North Korea.
Analysts suggest that this may have been in exchange for grain, oil and medical shipments that enable Kim to soften the impact of US-led sanctions against his nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea is banned from developing weapons that use ballistic missile technology by United Nations Security Council resolutions that have previously been backed by all permanent members, including Russia and China.
However, Mr Shoigu’s visit to Pyongyang indicates Russia is playing little heed to the latest appeals from the US state department for Moscow and Beijing to use their influence with Kim to play a constructive role in managing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
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Ukraine has passed legislation moving its official Christmas holiday to December 25, further distancing itself from the traditions of the Putin-aligned Russian Orthodox Church, which celebrates the holiday on January 7.
The bill was passed by Ukraine’s parliament earlier this month. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed it into law on Friday.
The legislation’s sponsors said its passage would help Ukraine “abandon the Russian heritage of imposing the celebration of Christmas on January 7,” and help Ukrainians “live their own life with their own traditions (and) holidays.”
Ukraine and Russia are both majority Orthodox countries, but since Russia illegally annexed Crimea and began supporting separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in 2014, a large part of the Orthodox community in Ukraine has moved away from Moscow.
Russia’s war in Ukraine further accelerated the divide between the two branches of Orthodox Christianity, especially given that the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, fully endorsed the invasion and framed it as a culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values.
The new law will effectively formalize what some churches in Ukraine had already begun practicing. A branch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine allowed its churches to celebrate Christmas on December 25 last year. Ukraine’s main Greek Catholic church said in February it was moving to a new calendar to celebrate Christmas on December 25 as well.
The decision appears to be popular. In December, the Ukrainian government launched a poll asking citizens whether the date for Christmas should be moved to December 25. Nearly 59% of the more than 1.5 million people who voted supported such a move.
Alla and Oksana, two teachers from the Zaporizhzhia region who had been forced to flee their homes, said they supported the decision to change the date. They added that they celebrated Christmas on December 25 last year and felt they would “quickly adapt.”
“Ukraine should be a civilized European country,” Alla said. “This should be the norm for us.”
Vitalina and Pavlo, a couple from Lviv visiting Kyiv, supported the decision but said the transition would be harder for the parents.
“Celebrating December 25 is logical. This is how Europe celebrates. We celebrated in December this year and there was nothing difficult about it. We want to be closer to Europe and to the world,” Pavlo said.
Tetyana, an Orthodox Christian from Kyiv, said the date was not important for her, but was ready to support the move because of its symbolic value.
“If necessary, we will celebrate on December 25. It is no longer about religion, it is more a sign of statehood. Let it be so. I support the president and my country,” she said.
The new law will also change the dates of several Ukrainian holidays that are celebrated on the same day as religious festivities.The Day of Ukrainian Statehood – the country’s independence day – will move from July 28 to July 15, while the Day of Defenders of Ukraine, when Ukraine honors its veterans and war dead, will move forward to October 1 from October 14.
Two children were among nine people injured when Russian missiles hit two buildings the central city of Dnpiro late Friday, Ukrainian officials said.
Blaming the attack on “Russian missile terror,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that a building belonging to Ukrainian Security Service was hit along with a modern 12-story apartment building.
“We will do everything to bring Russia to full punishment for aggression and terror against our people,” he added.
Alongside images showing part of one building reduced to rubble and debris strewn in the street below, Regional Gov. Serhii Lysak said in a Telegram post that two children aged 14 and 17 were injured. Seven others, including two 20-year-old women were also injured, he said.
“Doctors say that everything is satisfactory,” he added. “Will be treated at home.”
Dnpiro Mayor Borys Filatov said on his own Telegram channel that the destruction around the buildings was “extensive” and that authorities would work to dismantle debris and assess the losses.
He said that the missiles which struck were Iskanders — short range ballistic missiles which can travel up to 310 miles. NBC News could not independently verify this claim.
Filatov added that both buildings were largely empty and the residential building was scheduled for sale.
Russia, which began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, says it does not target civilian sites.
It did not immediately comment on the strike which came a day after after the Kremlin accused Kyiv of firing two missiles at a city southern Russia.
The Russian defense ministry said it shot down a Ukrainian missile above Taganrog, about 24 miles east of the border with Ukraine. Debris fell on the city, the ministry added, alleging the missile was part of a “terror attack” by Ukraine. Officials in the city reported that 20 people were injured.
Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s secretary of the national security and defence council, blamed Russian air defence systems for the explosion.
In a later post on Friday, Russia‘s Defense Ministry said it downed a second Ukrainian missile near the city of Azov, which like Taganrog is in the Rostov region. It added that debris fell in an unpopulated location.
Elsewhere, prominent Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said in a Telegram post that an explosion had hit a major oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, around 850 miles northwest of Taganrog.
Security services had detained the person behind the refinery explosion as he was trying to leave Russia, he said. Describing the suspect as “an employee” at the refinery, Khinshtein added that he had previously “moved to Russia from Ukraine.”
(Reuters) – Ukrainian soldiers were observed using North Korean rockets that they said were seized by a “friendly” country before being delivered to Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
Ukraine’s defence ministry suggested the arms were captured from the Russians, the newspaper said.
The United States has accused North Korea of providing arms to Russia, including alleged shipments by sea, but has not offered proof and North Korean weapons have not been widely observed on the battlefields in Ukraine.
North Korea and Russia deny conducting arms transactions.
The North Korean weapons were shown by Ukrainian troops operating Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems near the destroyed eastern city of Bakhmut, site of lengthy brutal fighting, the report said.
Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu made a rare visit to Pyongyang this week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, the first visit by Moscow’s top defence official since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.
During the visit, Shoigu was photographed viewing banned North Korean ballistic missiles with leader Kim Jong Un at a military expo in Pyongyang, signalling deeper ties between the two countries as they each face off with the United States.
(Reporting by Josh Smith and Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by William Mallard)
An explosion rocked the center of the Russian city of Taganrog near the border with Ukraine Friday, injuring several people, state media reported.
The cause of the blast was not immediately known, and there were conflicting reports about how many people were injured.
Alongside images of rubble and a damaged building posted on it’s Telegram channel, the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti quoted Rostov Regional Governor Vasily Golubev as saying four people had been injured.
However, in a separate post it quoted unnamed emergency service officials as saying seven people had been injured.
Elsewhere, prominent Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said on his Telegram channel that an explosion rocked a major oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, around 850 miles north of Taganrog.
Preliminary information suggested it was caused by an explosive device, he said, adding that no one was injured and the damage was not serious.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
Henry Austin
Henry Austin is a London-based editor for NBC News Digital.
