Ukrainian troops are pushing further into Russia’s defences in the Zaporizhzhia region, with fighting raging south of the recently recaptured town of Robotyne, the General Staff said.

A Russian drone attack damaged a Ukrainian grain storage area and a cargo complex near the Danube River, officials in Odesa said, the latest in a string of strikes by Moscow aimed at stopping Kyiv from exporting food.

Russia’s air defence downed military drones near Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a Telegram post. Ukraine said it knocked out an anti-aircraft battery in Crimea.

Latest developments

• Zelensky rejects criticism Kyiv’s forces are too thinly spread
• Ukraine says Russian drone hit grain storage near Danube
• Rouble aftershocks unnerved even Russia’s least exposed neighbour
• US backs sale to Poland of Apache helicopters in $12bn package
• Russian general missing since Wagner mutiny is removed from post

Wagner Chief Prigozhin listed aboard crashed jet – report

Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed among passengers on a private jet that crashed as it travelled from Moscow to St Petersburg, Interfax reported, citing Russia’s aviation authority.

All three pilots and seven passengers aboard the plane are dead, state-run Tass news service reported late Wednesday. It came down in the Tver region northwest of Moscow. 

Russian General Missing Since Wagner Mutiny Is Removed From Post

There was no immediate confirmation that Prigozhin was actually on board the aircraft. One person close to the Kremlin couldn’t immediately confirm if Prigozhin was on the plane, saying the Wagner leader takes precautions, including the use of a second airplane.

The crash occurred exactly two months after Prigozhin led a mutiny that posed the greatest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s nearly quarter-century rule. Putin had denounced the June rebellion as “treason” but Prigozhin escaped any retaliation by the Kremlin under a deal brokered to end the revolt as his fighters came within 200km of Moscow.

Since then, Prigozhin had seemed to upstage Putin by appearing in St Petersburg last month meeting with African officials at the same time as the president was hosting a showcase Russia-Africa summit. His Wagner fighters also avoided punishment under the deal and the mercenary group was allowed to keep some of its extensive operations in Africa.

US President Joe Biden told reporters, “I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised.”

Zelensky rejects criticism that Kyiv’s forces too thinly spread 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rebuffed criticism that Ukraine’s military is too thinly stretched and should be massed for a single attack to achieve a breakthrough of Russian lines.

Responding to a question about a report in The New York Times, in which US strategists said Ukrainian troops are too spread out and should instead be concentrated along the main front in Kyiv’s southern counteroffensive, the president said doing so could leave other cities vulnerable.

Russian efforts to break through in eastern Ukraine could succeed in cities such as Slovyansk and Kramatorsk — and even the northern metropolis of Kharkiv, which Ukrainian troops took back last autumn, if Kyiv shifted some of the roughly 200,000 troops from the area, he said.

“We aren’t giving up Kharkiv, Donbas, Pavlohrad, Dnipro,” he said during a news briefing in Kyiv.

Addressing the pace of the counteroffensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, he said soldiers often had to slog through minefields on foot to avoid damage to valuable armoured vehicles because the areas are so heavily pitted with explosives.

“Where it’s tough, it’s going to be tough,” Zelensky said during a press briefing in Kyiv. “We are at war with Russia.”

Russia relaxes foreigner dividend limits, but with big caveat

Russia is lifting restrictions on dividend payments for foreigners investing in the country’s economy, partly unwinding limits imposed soon after the Kremlin began its war in Ukraine.

Companies can now return profit to non-resident investors without restrictions, but the volume of those payments shouldn’t exceed the amount of their investment in Russia, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The previous limit on dividends was set at no more than 50% of the previous year’s profit, the ministry said.

To receive payouts, non-residents must commit capital to the Russian economy or have started investing from 1 April 2023, including into expanding production capacity and the development of new technologies.

Russia introduced restrictions on money transfers owed to investors or lenders from states it deemed “unfriendly” in March 2022, weeks after the invasion of Ukraine. Under a Kremlin decree, those payments had to be transferred to special bank accounts in roubles and were banned from moving abroad without special government permission.

Russia’s Norilsk Nickel plans to move some trading to Dubai

Norilsk Nickel has established an office in Dubai, becoming the largest Russian metals and mining firm to set up in the United Arab Emirates following the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

The company, the world’s biggest refined nickel producer and palladium miner, incorporated under the name Greenwich Holdings Limited within Dubai’s financial district last December, according to filings and corporate records seen by Bloomberg.

The new holding, which so far has a small team and a lawyer as a director, may eventually expand as Norilsk Nickel — also known as Nornickel — eyes handling some trading and administrative functions from Dubai, people familiar with the matter said.

The UAE has seen an influx of Russian businesses, commodity traders and expats seeking a haven from sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Other Russian commodities firms have also established a presence in the UAE as they seek to smooth their overseas operations. Some European and US banks and clients have shunned Russian entities, even if the companies themselves aren’t subject to sanctions.

Read more: Dubai becomes new Switzerland for traders of Russian commodities

Nornickel has avoided sanctions, but it still has faced disruptions in logistics, insurance, banking and shipping in the fallout from the war. Both the US and UK have imposed sanctions on its top shareholder and president, Vladimir Potanin.

Russia attacks Ukraine’s Danube facilities again; wheat gains

Russian drones struck Ukrainian grain infrastructure near the Danube River, the latest in a raft of attacks on the waterway that is vital for getting Ukraine’s exports out to markets now its Black Sea ports are shut.

Several crop terminals at Izmail port on the Danube were damaged overnight, curbing its export capacity by 15%, according to Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov. Some 13,000 tonnes of grain bound for Romania and Egypt were ruined, he said, and it marked the eighth attack on Ukraine ports since Russia quit the grain deal.

Nine drones were shot down, the city council said earlier.

River channels have become increasingly important to shipping the nation’s crops following the collapse of the Black Sea pact last month. More than 60% of Ukraine’s crop exports are now flowing via the Danube.

Wheat futures in Chicago gained for a second day. Still, large crops in other major shippers — including Russia itself — have kept the market under pressure this year, with prices down about 20% since the end of December.

Latvia backs away from rules to expel thousands of Russians

Latvia’s government signalled it would back away from a plan to strip permanent residency from Russian citizens after as many as 10,000 people risked expulsion from the Baltic nation for not meeting a language requirement.

Interior Minister Maris Kucinskis announced legislative changes that would extend a deadline by two years. He said the measures requiring Russian residents to demonstrate proficiency in Latvian amounted to a “political decision” approved in the heat of campaigning ahead of an October election.

“We are currently correcting mistakes that were made a year ago,” Kucinskis told Latvian TV late on Tuesday after a government meeting. The new measures still need to be approved by the Parliament in Riga.

The shift casts a light on attempts by Baltic governments to expunge Russian influence in a region long dominated by Soviet rule, where attitudes have hardened since the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

While the tension has played out in toppling Soviet monuments — an 80m-tall memorial was brought down in central Riga last year — restrictions on visas and Russian-language teaching have fallen heavily on the Russian minority, which makes up about a quarter of the population of Latvia and neighbouring Estonia.

As the original deadline approaches, scores of Russian citizens either failed to pass the language requirement or were unaware of the consequences. The rule, which includes exemptions, applied to Russians who were previously stateless or once held a Latvian passport. Many adopted Russian citizenship because they could collect pensions sooner.

Other measures in the nation of 1.9 million include blocking Russian television and restricting education to Latvian.

Estonia’s Justice Ministry last week introduced measures that would temporarily strip voting rights for local elections from the country’s approximately 84,000 Russian and Belarusian citizens. DM