Nobel Foundation cancels Russian envoy’s invitation to prize ceremony

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7:25pm: Iran adds Russian combat trainer jets to air force

Iran‘s air force has received a batch of advanced Russian combat trainer jets to “improve the training and combat capability of the air force”, local media reported Saturday.

“A number of Yak-130 training aircraft entered the country and joined the Shahid Babaei Air Base in Isfahan” in central Iran, according to Tasnim news agency.

The agency, quoting the army’s public relations department, said the arrival of the Yakovlev Yak-130 came as part of the Islamic republic’s “arms contracts with the Russian Federation”.

Russia and Iran are both under international sanctions that restrict trade, but have over the past year forged strong ties in various sectors including military cooperation.

In March, Iran announced that a deal had been reached to buy Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia.

Ukraine and many of its Western allies have accused Tehran of supplying Moscow with weapons for use in its war against Kyiv. Iran has consistently denied the allegations.

4:30pm: Ukraine’s Zelensky says troops are ‘moving forward’, rebuffs critics

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Kyiv’s troops were “moving forward” in their counteroffensive against Russian forces, rebuffing Western officials who say that Ukraine is gaining ground too slowly.

The much-vaunted counteroffensive, which is nearing the three-month mark, has retaken more than a dozen villages but no major settlements with soldiers hampered by vast Russian minefields and defensive lines.

2:18pm: Ukraine says decision to uninvite Russian envoy to Nobel Prize ceremony is a ‘victory for humanism’

Ukraine on Saturday welcomed a decision by the Nobel Foundation to cancel an invitation to ambassadors from Russia and Moscow-allied Belarus to this year’s Nobel award ceremony in Stockholm.

“Victory for humanism,” spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry Oleg Nikolenko said on Facebook. “We thank everyone who demanded the restoration of justice. We are convinced that a similar decision should be made regarding the Russian and Belarusian ambassadors to Oslo.”

1:48pm: Peace prize committee says Russia is ‘trying to silence’ Nobel winner Muratov

The Nobel Committee in charge of the Peace Prize said Saturday that Russian authorities were trying “to silence” Nobel Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, after the journalist was added to Russia’s list of foreign agents.

“Dmitry Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his efforts to promote freedom of speech and freedom of information, and independent journalism. It is sad that Russian authorities are now trying to silence him. The accusations against him are politically motivated,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said in a statement.

1:15pm: Nobel Foundation cancels Russian envoy’s invitation to prize ceremony

The Nobel Foundation has said it is reversing its decision to invite ambassadors from Russia and Belarus to this year’s Nobel award ceremony in Stockholm, after the move sparked anger.

The Swedish foundation, which chose not to invite the Russian and Belarussian envoys last year over the war in Ukraine, had announced earlier this week that it would return to its previous practice of inviting ambassadors from all countries.

That announcement prompted the leaders of several Swedish political parties to say they would boycott the ceremonies.

Last year, the Norwegian Nobel Institute still invited all ambassadors to the Peace Prize ceremony it organises in Oslo, and the foundation said this would be the case again.

11:50am: More cargo ships from Ukraine use a civilian corridor despite Russian threats

Two cargo vessels have left Ukraine despite Russian threats and are in the Black Sea, maritime officials have confirmed.

The Anna-Theresa, a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier carrying 56,000 tons of pig iron, left the Ukrainian port of Yuzhny on Friday and is now close to Bulgarian territorial waters, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said.

A second vessel – the Ocean Courtesy, traveling under a Marshall Islands flag – left the same port on Friday with 172,000 tons of iron ore concentrate. That ship arrived at the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta shortly before noon on Saturday, according to the global ship tracking website MarineTraffic.

The two vessels sailed through a temporary corridor for civilian ships from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to the Bosporus, Kubrakov said on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. The corridor goes along the western shores of the Black Sea, avoiding international waters and instead using instead those controlled by NATO members Romania and Bulgaria.

9:20am: Russia says drones downed near border, village shelled

The Russian defence ministry said it downed two Ukrainian drones over Belgorod region, a border province that comes under regular attack from Kyiv’s forces.

Separately, the governor of neighbouring Kursk region said a village on the border had come under shelling from Ukraine, with one woman injured.

7:10am: Russia labels Nobel-winning journalist Muratov a ‘foreign agent’

Russian authorities have designated Nobel Prize-winning journalist Dmitry Muratov as a “foreign agent,” a move often aimed at critics of Kremlin policies.

Russian news agencies quoted the Justice Ministry as saying Muratov, editor of the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper and a co-laureate of the 2021 Nobel peace prize, was one of several Russian nationals added to the list.

So-called foreign agents have been subjected to police searches and other punitive measures. While Muratov is still in Russia, many on the list have left the country since the February 2021 invasion of Ukraine, dubbed a “special military operation” by the Kremlin.

The Justice Ministry said Muratov “created and disseminated material (produced by) foreign agents and used it to spread negative opinions of Russia’s foreign and domestic policies on international platforms”.

3:15am: Russia says boat destroyed trying to attack Crimea bridge

Russia‘s Defence Ministry said its forces have destroyed an unmanned Ukrainian boat being used in an attempt to attack the bridge linking the Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland.

The bridge, completed in 2018, four years after Russia occupied and annexed the peninsula from Ukraine, has come under repeated attack in Moscow’s 18-month-old full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

“On 1st September at about 11.15 p.m. (2015 GMT), an attempt was undertaken by the Kyiv regime to launch a terrorist strike with a half-loaded unmanned boat,” the ministry said on Telegram.

It said the boat had been “spotted and destroyed in time off the Black Sea coast”.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who normally say little or nothing about attacks on Russian targets but say that destroying Russian infrastructure is vital for the country’s war effort.

1:10am: Russia deploys ICBM that Putin says will make enemies ‘think twice’

The head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said the country has deployed an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that President Vladimir Putin once said will make Russia’s enemies “think twice.”

Agency head Yuri Borisov said Sarmat missiles have been placed on combat duty, according to Russian news agencies. Further details were not reported.

The Sarmat is one of several advanced weapons whose development Putin announced in 2018. The silo-based missile, capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, is intended to replace the R-36 ICBMs that are known by the NATO reporting name of Satan.

9:25pm: Ukraine seeks to expand domestic arms production

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week claimed that Ukraine has successfully used new domestically made long-range weapons, and that they hit a target 700 kilometers away.

By making his claim on his nightly address, Douglas Herbert, FRANCE 24’s international affairs commentator, explains that “Volodymyr Zelensky wants to underscore that Ukraine increasingly has the capability, not just to wage its own war…but also can use weapons of its own production.”

Zelensky did not reveal if the domestically produced weapons were used in training or combat. The purpose of the announcement, according to Herbert, was to show that Ukraine does not simply have a “blind reliance on Western providers and suppliers of weapons. The Ukrainians do have the wherewithal, they have gained a lot of expertise, specialisation throughout this war,” Herbert added.

Key developments from Friday, September 1:

Russia‘s defence ministry on Friday said it had destroyed a total of 281 Ukrainian drones over the past week as officials in Moscow and in the southwestern Kursk region reported new drone attacks overnight.

Earlier, Ukraine‘s military intelligence chief claimed that a recent drone attack on an airport in Russia that damaged several transport planes was carried out from within Russian territory.

Also on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a business forum in Italy that there can be no “sustainable peace” in Ukraine unless the country regains control of Crimea, Donbas and other territories occupied by Russia.

In Washington, White House officials said they had seen notable progress by Ukrainian forces in the south near the Zaporizhzhia area in the last 72 hours. The comments came a day after Kyiv blasted criticism of the slow pace of its counteroffensive.

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)