Krasnodar Krai
Russia rattles the nuclear sabre again, as Ukraine devastates its munitions
Russia has tailored its nuclear response doctrine to the specific threat of the long-range attacks it faces from Ukraine, even as Kyiv's forces demonstrated during the past week the devastating effect such attacks can have on Moscow's conventional war effort. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently "outlined the approaches" to a new edition of the Fundamentals of State Policy on nuclear weapons use, wrote his right-hand man, deputy head of the National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, on Telegram on Wednesday. "A massive launch and crossing of our border with enemy aerospace weapons, including aircraft, missiles and UAVs, can under certain conditions become the basis for the use of nuclear weapons," he wrote. "Aggression against Russia by a non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the support or participation of a nuclear-weapon country, will be considered a joint attack," Medvedev added. These threat profiles are exactly tailored to describe Ukraine, which gave up nuclear weapons in 1994, but is supported by nuclear-armed states the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and which has been forbidden to use Western-supplied weapons to attack deep inside Russia.
Watch: Huge explosion at Russian arms depot
Footage shot from the road shows a huge explosion at an arms depot near Tikhoretsk in Russia. Ukraine said munitions from North Korea had been among those it was targeting. The governor of the Krasnodar region confirmed it came under Ukrainian drone attack on Friday night. He said debris from a drone had sparked a fire, which "spread to explosive objects" and caused detonations. Residents nearby had been evacuated, and nobody was reported injured.
Ukrainian attack on ferry kills one in Russian port
One person has been killed and others wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on a ferry at port in southern Russia, the regional governor has said. Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev said the ferry had caught fire at Port Kavkaz but there was no risk of it spreading. The port lies a few kilometres from the Kerch bridge, which enables road and rail travel between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. "Unfortunately there are injured and dead among the crew and port staff," Mr Kondratyev said. He added that emergency services were on the scene.
Russia suffers setbacks as Ukraine braces for tough month on battlefield
Russia has suffered multiple diplomatic and judicial blows during the past week over its war on Ukraine, despite President Vladimir Putin's high-profile visits to North Korea and Vietnam and Moscow's claims that it is founding a "Eurasian security architecture that will replace the discredited Euro-Atlantic security arrangements". Putin signed a "comprehensive strategic treaty" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 19, incorporating what he said was a defensive alliance. South Korea's government condemned the agreement. Its national security adviser, Chang Ho-jin, declared that Seoul would reconsider lifting a ban on arms supplies directly to Ukraine. Until now, South Korea has only sold weapons to Ukraine's allies.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 848
Ukraine's energy ministry has said that overnight Russian drones and missiles have attacked the country's energy transmission systems in southern and western Ukraine. Two energy workers have been injured as a result of these attacks on Zaporizhia Oblast. Ukraine has said it was dispatching reinforcements to an embattled strategic hilltop town of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region, a vital flashpoint whose capture could accelerate Russian advances deeper in the industrial territory. The Ukrainian military has launched a wave of drones that struck three oil refineries inside southern Russia overnight, a security official said on Friday. Russian regional authorities in the Krasnodar region said four people were injured, including oil refinery workers, as a result of drone strikes.
Large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea cuts power, burns refinery
Fox News' Greg Palkot on the latest from the war in Ukraine as more weapons are sent from U.S. A massive Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea early Friday caused power cutoffs in the city of Sevastopol and set a refinery ablaze in southern Russia, Russian authorities said. The drone raids marked Kyiv's attempt to strike back during Moscow's offensive in northeastern Ukraine, which has added to the pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces who are waiting for delayed deliveries of crucial weapons and ammunition from Western partners. Ukraine has not commented on the attack or claimed responsibility for it. The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, another 44 over the Krasnodar region and six over the Belgorod region. It said Russian warplanes and patrol boats also destroyed six sea drones in the Black Sea.
Russian drone attack in Ukraine after oil refinery targeted
Russia has blamed Ukraine for setting ablaze one of its oil refineries, while Kyiv has accused Moscow of launching dozens of overnight strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles for the second day running. The targeting of the fuel facility on Thursday occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region, Russia's TASS news agency reported citing local emergency services. A fuel reservoir was on fire, it said, but gave no further details. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught fire near a bridge linking Russia's mainland with the occupied Crimean Peninsula. "A second turbulent night for our emergency services," Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram, confirming tanks with oil products were set ablaze.
AI-enabled harvesters reap 720,000 tonnes of crops - Agriculture Post
Russia: Cognitive Agro Pilot, an autonomous AI-based driving system for farming equipment which was designed by Sber and its ecosystem member Cognitive Pilot – has succeeded in industrial use across 35 regions of Russia when reaping the 2020 harvest. From June to October 2020, over 350 New Holland, John Deere and CLAAS autonomous combines equipped with Cognitive Agro Pilot system farmed over 160,000 hectares of field and harvested more than 720,000 tonnes of crops. With the help of Cognitive Agro Pilot as many as 590,000 metric tonnes of grain crops such as wheat, soybeans, barley, oats, sorghum, buckwheat, among others, were harvested over 130,000 hectares, and some 130,000 metric tonnes of row crops and roll crops (corn, sunflower, etc.) were harvested over 30,000 hectares in Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kursk, Belgorod, Tambov, Penza, Rostov, Tomsk, Kurgan, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk and Stavropol regions. Thanks to the use of Cognitive Agro Pilot, this harvesting season stakeholders were able to save – on fuel and other related materials, shorter harvesting time (machine hours), equipment depreciation, extended active use of equipment before capital expenditures, fewer human errors, optimisation of business processes, and other parameters. According to the estimates of project members, in the next three years, every 10th harvester in Russia may become autonomous.