Thousands of Wagner troops arrive in Belarus after failed Kremlin coup – live

Windows have been smashed on a high-rise building in Moscow in what the Kremlin has called a drone strike on Monday, 24 July.

Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of a “terrorist” attack on the capital city.

Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that two non-residential buildings were hit at around 4am (10am GMT). (0100 GMT), adding that there was no “serious damage or casualties.”

Sobyanin added that there was no “serious damage or casualties.”

Further footage shows smashed windows on a building close to the Russian Defence Ministry.

Thousands of Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries have arrived in Belarus since the group’s short-lived rebellion, a military monitoring group said.

Between 3,450 and 3,650 soldiers have travelled to a camp close to Asipovichy, a town 230 kilometres (140 miles) north of the Ukrainian border, according to Belaruski Hajun, an activist group that tracks troop movements within the country.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko welcomed Wagner forces into the country after brokering a deal between the Kremlin and mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last month, ending the group’s failed revolt against Russian military leaders.

Satellite images show that about 700 vehicles and construction equipment have also arrived in Wagner convoys to Belarus, Belaruski Hajun said.

Mr Prigozhin registered a “real estate management company” in Belarus last week under the name Concord Management and Consulting in Belarus.

Documents analysed by independent Belarusian media outlet reform.by showed that the company’s registered address was in the same village as the Wagner mercenary camp.

Meanwhile, local officials said on Monday that the mercenaries were continuing to work with Belarusian troops, including at training grounds close to the Polish border.

“Wagner fighters who have really been in the heat of combat are passing on valuable information and experience to our servicemen,” the Belarusian Defence Ministry said in a statement.

Road traffic on the bridge linking Russia to the Crimean peninsula has been temporarily blocked, an official Telegram channel of Russian authorities said on Monday.

No reason for the halting of traffic was stated.

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged Russia to resume the internationally-brokered deal so grain can be shipped from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, saying otherwise the world’s most vulnerable among the hungry will suffer the worst consequences.

The U.N. chief made the call during a speech in Rome at the opening of a three-day food systems summit.

With the recent collapse of the Ukraine-Russia grain deal, “the most vulnerable will pay the highest price,’’ Guterres said. He lamented that there are already negative effects on global wheat and corn prices, although he cited no figures.

Frances d’Emilio reports:

Two drones have crashed into buildings in Moscow, Russian officials said, with one crashing close to the Defence Ministry in the city centre.

Nobody was hurt in the drone attack early on Monday morning, with a senior Ukrainian official said there would be more. One drone struck close to the Moscow building where the Russian military holds briefings, a symbolic blow which underscored the reach of such drones.

A third “helicopter-type drone” which was not carrying explosives fell on a cemetery in a town outside Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement in which it bombastically vowed that all those responsible would be found and punished.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed new legislation which marks the final step in outlawing gender-affirming procedures, a crippling blow to Russia’s already embattled LGBTQ+ community.

The Bill, which was approved unanimously by both houses of parliament, bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person”, as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records.

The only exception will be medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies.

It also annuls marriages in which one person has “changed gender” and bars transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The ban is said to stem from the Kremlin’s crusade to protect what it views as the country’s “traditional values”.

Legislators say the legislation is to safeguard Russia against “Western anti-family ideology”, with some describing gender transitioning as “pure satanism”.

Russia’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ people started a decade ago when Mr Putin first proclaimed a focus on “traditional family values”, supported by the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted legislation that banned any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors.

In 2020, Mr Putin pushed through constitutional reform that outlawed same-sex marriage, and last year signed a law banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among adults as well.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that extending a ban on Ukrainian grain exports by land to the European Union in September would be “unacceptable”.

“Our position is clear: blocking exports by land after September 15, when the relevant restrictions expire, is unacceptable in any form,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Russia on Monday to return to a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain in line with a proposal he made to President Vladimir Putin.

Russia quit the agreement a week ago, saying that demands to improve its own food and fertilizer exports had not been met, and that not enough Ukraine grain had reached the poorest countries under the Black Sea deal.

“With the termination of the Black Sea Initiative, the most vulnerable will pay the highest price,” Guterres told the UN Food Systems summit in Rome on Monday. “When food prices rise, everybody pays for it.”

Since Russia quit the deal and began attacking Ukrainian food-exporting ports on the Black Sea and Danube river, global wheat and corn futures have risen sharply.

“This is especially devastating for vulnerable countries struggling to feed their people,” Guterres said.

Guterres had written to Putin on July 11 in a final effort to save the deal. He proposed Russia extend it – with a daily limit of four ships traveling to Ukraine and four ships leaving – in return for connecting a subsidiary of Russia‘s Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT global payments system.

“I call on the Russian Federation to return to the implementation of the Black Sea Initiative, in line with my latest proposal,” Mr Guterres said. “I urge the global community to stand united for effective solutions in this essential effort.”

It was a month into Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces had withdrawn from around Kyiv and in their wake Bel Trew and her team stumbled on a body by an abandoned Russian camp.

His hands were tied. He had been burned and shot in the back. Soldiers said he was a teenager.

As Bel tried to find out who he was and what had happened, she uncovered a nightmare world: a nation struggling to find thousands of its missing and to identify its dead.