? Live: Wagner Group’s second-in-command buried quietly near Moscow

9:39pm: Turkey wants to revive Black Sea grain deal, but Russia won’t ‘bend’

Talks between Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow to revive the Black Sea grain deal did not make substantial progress, explains FRANCE 24’s international affairs commentator Douglas Herbert.

Turkey helped broker the deal, which allowed Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea, under UN auspices and would like to see the initiative revived, noted Herbert, “but they know they have to work with Russia – and Russia’s not going to bend”.

Russia withdrew from the deal in July and has said it will not resume participation until its demands, which involve Moscow’s own grain and fertiliser exports, are met.

“Critics say Russia’s real motives are to further hamper and destroy Ukraine’s economy, and to also force the West, to use this food deal, and Russia’s withdrawal from the food deal, as a blackmail of sorts in order to get the West to drop its sanctions,” said Herbert.

9:15pm: Russia destroys Ukrainian drone over Bryansk region, says defence ministry

Russian anti-aircraft units destroyed a Ukrainian drone on Thursday over the Bryansk region in the south of the country, the defence ministry said on Telegram.

Bryansk has been the target of several of Ukraine’s recent attempts to launch drone strikes on Russian territory.

7:39pm: UN chief sends Russia proposal to revive Black Sea grain deal

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday he had sent a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a “set of concrete proposals, allowing to create the conditions for the renewal” of the Black Sea grain deal.

Guterres said he had taken “into concern Russian requests” and that the proposal included “some concrete solutions for allowing more effective access of Russian food and fertilisers to global markets at adequate prices”.

The agreement helped Ukraine export more than 30 million tonnes of grain and foodstuffs in the year it remained in effect.

This helped bring down global food prices that soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ease levels of hunger in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

7:27pm: Reviving grain deal ‘critical’ for ‘global food security’, says Turkey’s FM

Turkey‘s foreign minister Hakan Fidan said on a visit to Moscow on Thursday that reviving a deal to ship Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea was “critical” for food security.

Fidan was in Moscow to prepare an informal summit between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi, expected next week.

“We underlined its critical role for global food security and stability in the Black Sea,” Fidan said during a joint media appearance with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Moscow says the agreement imposed indirect restrictions on its grain and fertiliser exports by limiting Russia’s access to global payment systems and insurance.

Lavrov repeated Russia’s position that it will return to the grain deal once its demands are met.

Turkey wants the warring sides to return to the agreement, which it helped broker, and use it as a basis for broader peace talks.

Fidan said Turkey wanted to begin a “process focused on understanding and answering Russia’s demands”.

5:15pm: Russia sees no sign of new guarantees on grain deal, says Lavrov

Russia sees no sign it will receive the guarantees it requires before resuming the Black Sea grain deal, but can return to it “tomorrow” if Western promises to Moscow are fulfilled, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

Lavrov reiterated Russia’s assertion that Western economic sanctions were hampering Russian grain and fertiliser exports.

He also said that a plan currently being discussed to supply 1 million tonnes of Russian grain to Turkey at a discounted price would be on top of the grain supplies that Russia has promised to give some African countries free of charge.

2:23pm: Ukraine reports some battlefield ‘successes’ in the south, east

Ukrainian troops have secured some new “successes” in the south and east as they try to push forward their counteroffensive against Russian forces, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Thursday.

Kyiv’s forces have been making slow progress against Russian minefields and trenches blocking a southern push intended to reach the Sea of Azov and split Russian forces.

“There have been some successes, in particular in the direction of Novodanylivka-Novoprokopivka,” Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app, referring to two southeastern villages in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Novoprokopivka lies further south of the strategic settlement of Robotyne, which Ukraine said on Monday it had liberated.

Maliar also said Kyiv’s forces were pressing on with their offensive operations south of the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian troops in May.

1:32pm: Prigozhin’s right-hand man in Wagner buried quietly near Moscow

The co-founder and military commander of the Russian mercenary group Wagner was buried near Moscow on Thursday, after dying in an unexplained plane crash that also killed his boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Dmitry Utkin, 53, whose call-sign “Wagner” gave the private army its name, was buried in Mytishchi, on the outskirts of the capital, in a ceremony cordoned off by Russian military police, according to the popular online news channel Shot.

Prigozhin had been buried on Tuesday in an equally discreet ceremony in his hometown of St Petersburg that contrasted starkly with his loud and often foul-mouthed presence on social media.

Before helping to found Wagner as Prigozhin’s shadowy right-hand man, Utkin served as a special forces officer in the GRU military intelligence service, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He fought for Wagner to support Moscow’s military campaigns in Syria and Ukraine, and was photographed in 2016 at the Kremlin with President Vladimir Putin. At the end of June, Utkin led an armed convoy of Wagner mutineers that advanced towards Moscow to back Prigozhin’s demand that the military leadership resign over its failures in what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

12:30pm: Kyiv thanks former UK defence secretary who ‘led by example’ by providing military support to Ukraine

Kyiv hailed former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace after he formally stepped down Thursday, praising him as a man who “led by example” by providing military support to Ukraine.

“He has led by example. His authority has inspired other countries to join in assisting Ukraine,” Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said, adding that Britain’s military aid “helped us to repel the first wave of Russian aggression, to begin the rearmament of the (army) with NATO-style weapons, and to launch an offensive”.

12:21pm: Six Ukrainian soldiers killed in crash of two helicopters

Six Ukrainian soldiers were killed when two military helicopters crashed on a combat mission in the Kramatorsk district of the eastern Donetsk region, state investigators said Thursday.

“Two Mi-8 military helicopters crashed during a combat mission. Six servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine died,” the State Bureau of Investigation said in a statement, adding that its probe was examining possible safety breaches during or in preparation for the flight.

12:01pm: Russia says it will deepen ties with North Korea, doesn’t confirm Putin-Kim letter exchange

Russia said on Thursday it intended to develop ties with North Korea, while not confirming a statement by the White House that Russian President Vladimir Putin had exchanged letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The White House said on Wednesday it was concerned that arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea were advancing actively, and said Putin and Kim had written to each other pledging to increase their cooperation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not answer directly when asked by reporters if the letter exchange had taken place.

“Moscow and Pyongyang maintain good, mutually respectful relations. We intend to develop them further. Contacts are being made at various levels,” he said, calling North Korea “a very important neighbour”.

Washington has warned before that North Korea could provide more weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine. Earlier this month the United States imposed sanctions on three entities it accused of being tied to arms deals between North Korea and Russia.

11:43am: Kremlin denies that Russia is causing hunger in Africa

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia remained a reliable grain supplier despite obstacles created by the United States and the European Union, and that food shortages in Africa were nothing to do with Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had been asked in a briefing for a response to a reported accusation by the head of Ukraine‘s Security Council that Moscow was causing hunger in Africa.

11:39am: Erdogan, Putin to meet in Russia to discuss grain deal on September 4

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Russia’s Sochi resort on September 4 to primarily discuss Black Sea grain exports, two Turkish sources told Reuters on Thursday.

The two leaders will discuss fallout from the war in Ukraine as well as a deal that allowed the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, one of the sources said.

The Black Sea grain deal, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in 2022, ended after Russia withdrew in July. Ankara has since sought to convince Moscow to return to the agreement.

11:36am: Belarus’s Lukashenko says demands for Wagner to withdraw are ‘groundless and stupid’

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that demands for the withdrawal of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group from Belarus were “groundless and stupid”, Belarusian state news agency BELTA reported on Thursday.

Wagner, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in Russia last week, relocated some of its fighters to Belarus under a deal brokered by Lukashenko after the mercenary army launched a failed mutiny aimed at ousting Prigozhin’s rivals from the Russian Defence Ministry in June.

11:32am: Kremlin says no outcome yet on its Turkey-Qatar grain export plan

The Kremlin on Thursday said that no specific agreements had yet been reached on a proposal by Moscow to ship Russian grain via Turkey to poor countries, with financial support from Qatar.

Russia said on Wednesday that it was proposing the plan as an alternative to the Turkish-brokered Black Sea grain deal that it pulled out of in July.

11:04am: Russia says two Ukrainian ‘saboteurs’ killed in incursion

Two Ukrainian “saboteurs” were killed and five captured during an incursion into the region of Bryansk, a Russian official said Thursday.

Russian regions bordering Ukraine have reported repeated shelling and attacks from Kyiv’s forces, including occasional cross-border incursions.

Bryansk governor Alexander Bogomaz said that a group of Ukrainian special forces tried to carry out a series of “terrorist acts on military and energy infrastructure facilities” on Wednesday.

“In the course of operational and combat measures in the Navlinsky district, two militants were liquidated, five were detained, three of whom were wounded,” he said in a post on social media.

The Navlinsky district is some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

6:58am: Turkish foreign minister to discuss grain initiative on Russia visit

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will host his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan for a two-day visit beginning Thursday, Moscow announced on Wednesday, after Ankara’s top diplomat held talks with Ukrainian officials last week.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says that one of the items on the agenda will be the Black Sea grain deal.

Russia pulled out of the Turkish-brokered deal, which had enabled Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports, in July.

6:37am: Russia downs drone heading for Moscow, says mayor

Russian air defences destroyed a drone approaching Moscow, the city’s mayor said on Thursday.

Air defence forces in the Voskresensky district, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) from the capital, “destroyed a drone flying towards Moscow,” mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.

He did not say where the drone had come from.

Russia’s defence ministry said in a later statement that the drone was Ukrainian.

There were no casualties or damage, according to initial reports, and emergency services were on the scene, Sobyanin said.

12:33am: Russia says it thwarted new Ukrainian attacks after planes hit at airfield

Russian officials said on Wednesday that they had thwarted new Ukrainian attacks a day after Ukrainian drones struck targets in at least six regions deep within Russia in one of the broadest volleys yet of Kyiv’s campaign to turn the tables on Moscow. One of the drone strikes, targeting an airfield far from Ukraine’s borders, destroyed military transport planes.

11:45pm, August 30: White House says Putin and Kim Jong Un traded letters as Russia looks for munitions from North Korea

The White House on Wednesday said that it has new intelligence that shows Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have swapped letters as Russia looks to North Korea for munitions for the war in Ukraine.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby detailed the latest finding just weeks after the White House said that it had determined that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a recent visit to Pyongyang called on North Korean officials to increase the sale if munitions to Moscow for its Ukraine war.

Kirby said that Russia is looking for additional artillery shells and other basic materiel to shore up its defense industrial base.

He added that the letters were “more at the surface level” but that Russian and North Korean talks on a weapons sale were advancing. The leaders exchanged the letters following Shoigu’s visit, he said.

Key developments from Wednesday, August 30:

More than 20 drones and missiles were destroyed by air defences over Kyiv, the city’s military administration said on Wednesday, describing the barrage as the “most powerful strike” on the capital since the spring.

The Kremlin on Wednesday said that the investigation into the plane crash that killed Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last week was a Russian effort, and that there could be no question of an international investigation. The Kremlin has said Russian investigators are probing all possible scenarios surrounding the death last week of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash, including premeditated murder.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the capture of Robotyne by Kyiv’s forces this week will allow them to more easily push further south towards Crimea, according to an address published Wednesday.

Read yesterday’s liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(C) France M?dias Monde graphic studio

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)