Turkey’s foreign minister will meet Russia’s defence chief on Friday for talks on the Black Sea grain corridor — a topic that is also expected to come up at talks next week between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s anti-graft crackdown is fuelling speculation that he may dismiss Ukraine’s defence minister. Ukraine is investigating the crash of two Mi-8 helicopters on Tuesday in the Donetsk region during a combat mission, with six service members killed.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he got “positive feedback” from the bloc’s foreign ministers about his proposal to set aside €20-billion over the next four years for military aid to Ukraine.

Latest developments

• Putin moves to seize control of Prigozhin’s mercenary empire
• Turkey’s Fidan to talk with Russian defence minister on Friday
• Zelensky may replace Ukrainian defence minister next week
• Xi planning to skip G20 summit; Putin will also be absent 
• Embattled Estonian premier says she’ll win bid to stay in power

Russia ‘agrees on further Opec+ oil export cuts’

Russia has agreed with its Opec+ partners on further cuts to its crude exports, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told Putin.

“We have agreed, but we’ll announce the main parameters next week,” Novak said at a televised government meeting with Putin.

Russia has pledged to curb its crude exports by 500,000 barrels a day in August, then taper the curbs to 300,000 barrels a day next month. On Wednesday, Novak said that Russia was discussing extending the September export reduction into October, according to media reports.

The statement from Russia, one of the two de-facto leaders of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, comes amid market expectations for Saudi Arabia to extend its one million barrel-a-day oil supply cut by one month into October.

While global crude markets are tightening as demand climbs toward record levels, this summer’s price rally has stalled on mounting concern over economic growth in China. The pullback poses risks for Riyadh, which has seen its foreign reserves slump to their lowest since 2009.

Oil prices soared to a six-month high above $88 a barrel in London last month, but have since subsided as China — the biggest importer — contends with crises ranging from youth unemployment to turmoil in its property and shadow-banking industries.

Ukraine can join Nato once borders are stable, says Czech envoy 

Ukraine can join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) when the fighting against Russia ends, its borders are stable and it can contribute to the alliance’s security, the Czech Republic’s envoy to the alliance said.

Jakub Landovsky, Prague’s ambassador to Nato, said historical precedent indicated that a peace accord between Kyiv and Moscow might not be necessary for membership, but that it would be up to Ukraine to decide when the war was over.

“The outright fluidity and hostility needs to end,” Landovsky said in an interview on Wednesday at the Foreign Ministry near Prague Castle. “But ultimately the only party responsible to answer the question of where the border should lie is Ukraine. Nobody from the outside can even comment on that.”

The 31-member alliance offered Ukraine a renewed commitment in July to eventually allow it to join, along with new security guarantees from Group of Seven nations. But that timeline remains unclear as Nato can’t admit new members that are at war, as it would automatically trigger their obligation to come to their defence.

Landovsky’s explanation of the criteria for membership, which includes ensuring Ukraine’s system of government matches those of its allies, comes amid a counteroffensive in which Kyiv’s forces are trying to sever Moscow’s land bridge to its heavily fortified bases in Crimea. The goal is to repulse the Russian invaders and take back occupied territory.

While Ukrainian officials have announced new gains, particularly in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, new calls for peace talks have intensified from countries that are amplifying Kremlin messaging.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has the closest ties with Putin among European Union leaders, urged the West to cut a “deal” with the Kremlin that shouldn’t include the return of Crimea or Nato membership.

In an interview with right-wing former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, he said Moscow surrendering Crimea was “totally unrealistic”.

Russians top home buyers from Dubai’s biggest developer

Russians are the top buyers of properties from Dubai’s biggest developer, a sign that demand from investors seeking safe havens remains strong more than a year after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Emaar Properties didn’t provide the exact percentage of Russian buyers in a first-half investor presentation, but showed them as the largest segment of the market in a pie chart. Their appetite for property in the emirate has helped to push prices to record levels.

Sara Boutros, an analyst at CI Capital, estimates that Russians accounted for about 12% of buyers in Emaar developments this year, compared with second place in 2022 and ninth in 2020. Emaar has the biggest share of Dubai’s property market with around 30% of all home sales ahead of construction and acts as a proxy for the city’s wider real estate sector.

“We expect Russian flows to remain strong for the rest of the year,” she said. “That’s mainly due to the attractiveness of the luxury segment in Dubai where rental yields are very high and investment costs are low.”

Russians also topped the list of non-native buyers in Turkey last year, purchasing about a quarter of all homes sold to foreigners.

Ukraine gets ‘Vampire’ rockets from US to combat Russian drones

Ukraine’s troops are now using a US rocket system known as the Vampire to destroy Russian drones, according to the Pentagon.

Produced by L3Harris Technologies, the weapons are carried on trucks and allow Ukraine to defeat Russian strikes, the Pentagon’s Acquisition and Sustainment Office told Bloomberg News.

“Initial Vampire systems have been delivered and are in operation by Ukrainian Armed Forces,” it said.

Four of the first 14 systems put on contract in January under a $40-million deal arrived in Ukraine midyear, according to a company newsletter to investors, with the rest to come by year-end. The Pentagon declined to provide details on the timing of further deliveries.

Short for “Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment,” the Vampire system consists of portable kits that can be installed on US government-provided vehicles. It fires BAE Systems’ Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System rockets outfitted with fuses designed to detonate near a drone. DM