Updated August 10, 2023 at 5:18 p.m. EDT|Published August 10, 2023 at 3:12 a.m. EDT
The co-founder of Russian technology giant Yandex called the war in Ukraine “barbaric,” a rare display of dissent among the Russian elite. He has lived in Tel Aviv since 2014.
President Biden asked Congress to approve $20.6 billion in additional funding for Ukraine on Thursday. Of that sum, $13 billion will be allocated to military aid. Since the beginning of the invasion, the U.S. has committed more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
“I am categorically against Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine,” Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh told the Bell, a news outlet focused on Russia, adding that he had friends and family in Ukraine and was “horrified by the fact that every day bombs fly into the homes of Ukrainians.” Volozh co-founded the company, which provides search and a variety of other online services, in 1997, and helped lead it to become one of the most prominent Russian tech companies, earning billions in the process. He resigned from his posts in the company last year after being placed under European Union sanctions. In his statement, he described himself as a “Kazakhstan-born Israeli entrepreneur,” but said he felt a “share of responsibility” for Russia’s actions.
Yandex has been accused of censoring content about the conflict to comply with Russian law.
Russian officials said early Thursday that air defenses shot down two drones flying over Moscow, the latest in a spate of drone attacks apparently targeting the Russian capital. The Russian Defense Ministry said 11 drones were also intercepted near the city of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014. Kyiv has not officially claimed responsibility for the recent wave of attacks, although Ukrainian officials have maintained that targets in Russia are part of the war. A spokeswoman for Ukraine’s armed forces in the south said Thursday that the destruction of resources and reserves in Russia “fits into the logic and tactics of warfare.”
Nine drones targeting Crimea crashed into the Black Sea after being downed by electronic warfare systems, while air defenses shot down two others, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Telegram. There were no reports of deaths or casualties, it added. The Washington Post could not independently verify the claims.
An unidentified buyer purchased dozens of German-made tanks from a Belgian dealer, to be refurbished and sent to Ukraine, The Washington Post reported. “I am glad they will finally join the fight for freedom,” the private dealer, Freddy Versluys, said of the Leopard 1 tanks. He did not disclose the price paid for the tanks, and it was not immediately clear when the tanks would be sent to Ukraine. Versluys, chief executive of the defense company OIP Land Systems, bought the tanks years ago when the Belgian army sold them as part of cost-cutting measures, The Post reported.
The director of a pyrotechnics company was detained after a warehouse explosion in the Moscow region, which Russian authorities said injured nearly 60 people and killed one person, a spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee said Thursday. Officials investigating Wednesday’s blast are looking into a breach of industrial safety regulations for hazardous manufacturing facilities, Olga Vrady said.
Two months after Ukraine went on the attack, with little visible progress on the front, a bloody summer across the country and a slow counteroffensive are fraying the narrative of Ukrainians’ endless perseverance, Post journalists report from Ukraine.
A strike in Zaporizhzhia city killed at least one person, according to local officials, with at least nine people injured when a local hotel was hit Thursday. “Once again, the target of a Russian terrorist attack was a civilian infrastructure object,” Yuriy Malashko, the head of the Zaporizhzhia region civil-military administration, wrote on Telegram.
Russian forces are pressing their offensive operations in Kupyansk in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar and a spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry said separately.
The Ukrainian military spokeswoman said destroying resources in Russia “is an active component” of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. In response to questions about drone attacks targeting Crimea, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s armed forces in the south, Nataliya Humenyuk, said that any Ukrainian involvement in such operations would only be revealed “after the victory.”
Poland will have up to 10,000 troops at the border with Russian ally Belarus to support border guards, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said Thursday. He said about 4,000 soldiers will support the national border agency, while an additional 6,000 will be in reserve.
Canada, the United States and Britain announced sanctions on Belarus. Canada imposed sanctions against nine people, including the head of Belarus’s state television network; the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned eight individuals and some state-owned enterprises; and Britain imposed sanctions on Belarusian defense organizations and other foreign military suppliers.
Germany will provide Ukraine with two additional Patriot air defense launchers, Berlin has announced, as part of a fresh military package for Kyiv. The aid includes dozens of reconnaissance drones, 100 machine guns and ammunition.
Songs of war: The Ukrainian musicians merging art and propaganda: Ukrainian musicians are on a mission to put their music on the map, revive the country’s folk tradition and keep national spirits high after 18 months of war, Francesca Ebel and Konstiantyn Khudov report.
They also are trying to erase the influence of Russian-language music and artists: Russian music is now banned on local radio, and singers who performed in Russian are rereleasing their songs in Ukrainian, they write.
“During the Soviet Union, Ukrainian music was depreciated. They made it seem uncool and ugly,” folk singer Maria Kvitka said. “I want to see its rebirth.”
