Russia-Ukraine war live: US-supplied cluster bombs ‘having an impact’ on Russian defences, Washington says

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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed Vadym Prystaiko as Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain.

Reuters reports the published presidential order gave no reason for the dismissal, but said Prystaiko had also been removed as Ukraine’s representative to the International Maritime Organization.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting the launch of Onyx supersonic missiles in the direction of Odesa, citing Ukraine’s air force.

More details soon …

The outgoing British ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, has commented on the psychological impact of the frequent air alerts in Ukraine, posting to Twitter to say “Air raid alerts several times a day that last for only around 15 minutes a time are as unnerving as those further apart but lasting longer, it turns out. They keep your stress levels at a permanent high.”

Simmons is expected to remain in her post until September.

The air alert has been extended to all of eastern Ukraine.

An air alert has been declared in Odesa region. It isn’t uncommon for air alerts to come and go during the day in Ukraine, but people in the region will be well aware that Russia has struck the port city for four consecutive days this week.

CIA head William Burns has suggested the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is biding his time over deciding what to ultimately do with Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Progozhin’s Wagner group, which Putin later claimed was state-funded, staged an aborted mutiny and march on Moscow.

In comments at the Aspen security forum, Burns said: “What we are seeing is a very complicated dance. Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold. In my experience, Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback so I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution.”

“If I were Prigozhin,” he added, “I wouldn’t fire my food taster.”

According to a BBC report, Burns confirmed at the event that the CIA had prior knowledge of the Wagner uprising.

Earlier this month Russia’s foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said that he and Burns discussed the short-lived mutiny a week earlier and “what to do with Ukraine” in a phone call in late June.

Reuters reports that Yuriy Malashko, Ukraine’s governor of the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, reported 80 Russian attacks on settlements in the region in the previous 24 hours, and said four people had been killed.

According to Russian state-owned news service Tass, the number of people in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory hospitalised after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June has risen to 166. It cited sources in the local Russian-imposed authority.

In addition to those two injuries sustained in the attack on Odesa reported by governor Oleh Kiper, state broadcaster Suspilne has reported these other incidents in its wrap-up of overnight news:

On July 20, four workers were killed and two more people were injured in an attack by Russian troops on an infrastructure facility in the Polohivskyi district of the Zaporizhzhia region, the regional authority reported.

In Kharkiv oblast, a 56-year-old woman was injured as a result of night shelling. In the Kherson region, on the night of 21 July, the Russian Federation shelled four locations. No injuries were reported.

On 20 July, Russian shelling in Donetsk region killed two people in Kostyantynivka, and two more residents of the region were injured.

The governor of Odesa has given more details of Russia’s overnight attack, saying the targets were switched from port structures to agricultural enterprises.

In a post on Telegram, Oleh Kiper said:

The Russians attacked Odesa with Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea. Trying to bypass air defence systems, the enemy directed missiles at the minimum height, using the features of the landscape.

After three consecutive nights of powerful missile and drone terror of the port infrastructure, they switched to agricultural enterprises in the region.

Two rockets hit the granaries of one of the agricultural enterprises. A fire broke out and while the fire was being fought, a second air alarm was sounded. Another rocket hit the same enterprise, damaging agricultural and rescue equipment. Fire on an area of more than 200 sq metres was liquidated.

The enemy destroyed 100 tons of peas and 20 tons of barley. Two employees of the enterprise were injured.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Russia’s navy carried out a live fire “exercise” in the north-west Black Sea, Moscow’s defence ministry has said, days after the Kremlin said it would consider ships travelling to Ukraine through the waterway to be potential military targets.

The Black Sea Fleet “carried out live firing of anti-ship cruise missiles at the target ship in the combat training range in the north-western part of the Black Sea”, Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Telegram according to AFP.

“The target ship was destroyed as a result of a missile strike,” it said.

“Also during the joint exercise, the ships and fleet aviation worked out actions to isolate the area temporarily closed to navigation, and also carried out a set of measures to detain the offending ship.”

Russia said Wednesday that cargo ships en route to Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea would be regarded as possibly carrying military cargo, days after scrapping a grain exports deal with Ukraine.

The Kremlin has also declared unspecified areas in the “northwestern and southeastern parts of the international waters of the Black Sea” as “temporarily dangerous for passage”.

More on the Polish troop movement from Reuters:

Poland’s security committee decided in a meeting on Wednesday to move military units to the country’s east due to the Wagner group’s presence in Belarus, state-run news agency PAP quoted its secretary as saying on Friday.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was shown in a video on Wednesday welcoming his fighters to Belarus, telling them they would take no further part in the Ukraine war for now but ordering them to gather their strength for Africa while they trained the Belarusian army.

On Thursday, the Belarusian defence ministry said Wagner mercenaries had started to train Belarusian special forces at a military range just a few miles from the border with Nato-member Poland.

“Training or joint exercises of the Belarusian army and the Wagner group is undoubtedly a provocation,” Zbigniew Hoffmann told PAP.

“The Committee analysed possible threats, such as the dislocation of Wagner group units. Therefore, the Minister of National Defense, chairman of the Committee, Mariusz Blaszczak, decided to move our military formations from the west to the east of Poland.”

People living near Poland’s border with Belarus said on Thursday they could hear shooting and helicopters after Russia’s Wagner group arrived to train Belarusian special forces, compounding their fears the Ukraine war would reach them.

Defense Minister Blasczak said earlier this month that Poland began moving over 1,000 troops to the east of the country.

Also at the beginning of July Poland said it would send 500 police to shore up security at the border with Belarus.

Another Odesa grain terminal has been hit by a Russian strike, destroying 100 tonnes of peas and 20 tonnes of barley, the regional governor, Oleh Kiper, has said.

Two people were also injured in the explosion, caused by a Kalibr missile, he said in a post on Telegram.

It was the fourth consecutive night that Moscow has launched strikes on the Black Sea port.

Poland has decided to move military formations from the west to the east of the country due to the potential threat posed by the Wagner group’s presence in neighbouring Belarus, the state-run PAP news agency has reported, citing the secretary of the country’s security committee.

“Training or joint exercises between the Belarusian army and the Wagner group is undoubtedly a provocation,” PAP quoted Zbigniew Hoffmann as saying.

Moscow likely views the Black Sea grain deal, from which it withdrew this week to international condemnation, as “one of its few remaining avenues of leverage against the west” and pulled out in order to secure concessions, the Institute for the Study of War has said in latest assessment of the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin now appears to be attempting to create a sense of urgency around its return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative by conducting intensifying strikes against Ukrainian port and grain infrastructure and threatening to strike civilian ships in the Black Sea.

Ukraine harvests most of it grain between July and August, and Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian port and agricultural infrastructure can further complicate Ukraine’s ability to free up space for newly harvested grains.

The US thinktank said it was unclear whether Russia really intended to strike civilian ships in the Black Sea as it suggested it could do this week.

But, it added, “the Kremlin likely believes the announcement will have a chilling effect on maritime activity in the Black Sea and create conditions reminiscent of the complete blockade of Ukrainian ports at the start of the full-scale invasion.”

This attempt to achieve economic concessions from the West may undermine the Kremlin’s international outreach efforts by threatening the food supplies of several countries that are the intended targets of the Kremlin’s outreach.

Russian strikes against Ukrainian port and grain infrastructure and naval posturing also continue to illustrate that the Kremlin is willing to use naval and precision strike assets to prioritize immediate economic concerns instead of operations in Ukraine that pursue the Kremlin’s overall campaign objectives.

Ukrainian forces have begun using US-supplied cluster bombs – which are banned by more than 120 countries – in the ‘”last week or so” and they are “having an impact” on Russian defences, a White House spokesperson has said.

“They’re using them appropriately, they’re using them effectively and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive manoeuvring,” White House national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

The munitions arrived in Ukraine last week and are seen by the US as a way to get Kyiv critically needed ammunition to help bolster its offensive and push through Russian frontlines.

Ukraine has pledged to only use the controversial bombs to dislodge concentrations of Russian enemy soldiers.

The deployment of the munitions comes as Kyiv reports a new attempt by Russia to return to the offensive in the north-east of Ukraine, where it says Moscow has massed 100,000 troops and hundreds of tanks.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.

Ukraine has begun using US-supplied cluster bombs – which are banned by more than 120 countries – in the “last week or so” and they are “having an impact” on Russian defences, White House national security council spokesperson John Kirby has said.

“They’re using them appropriately, they’re using them effectively and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive manoeuvring,” he said.

Washington provided the weapons to Ukraine for the first time earlier this month as Kyiv attempts to dislodge entrenched Russian forces and retake land lost in the early months of Moscow’s invasion last year.

The weapons, which disperse up to several hundred small explosive charges that can remain unexploded in the ground, are banned by many countries because of the long-term risks they pose to civilians.

In other developments:

Ukraine warned that it could target all shipping out of Russian and Russian-occupied ports and signalled its readiness to fight on the Black Sea, after Moscow’s declaration of a naval blockade and bombardment of Ukrainian ports. The tit-for-tat moves come after Russia pulled out of a deal that allowed Ukraine to export its grain via its Black Sea ports on Monday.

The UN’s atomic watchdog says it has been unable to inspect the roofs of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which is occupied by Russian forces. Ukraine accuses Russia of turning the plant into a shield for its artillery guns and dynamiting the reactor roof, turning the site into an atomic bargaining chip.

EU foreign ministers discussed a proposal for a 20 billion euro ($22.4bn) fund to pay for weapons, ammunition and military aid for Ukraine over four years. The EU also said it would prolong its sanctions against Russia by six months, until the end of January.

Wheat prices continued to climb on global markets following Russia’s withdrawal from the UN-backed grain deal. Wheat was trading almost 1.5% higher on the Chicago Board of Trade exchange on Thursday morning, while corn and soya bean prices were also rising. It followed a rise of more than 8% in wheat prices on Wednesday.

The UN security council will meet on Friday over the “humanitarian consequences” of Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal, Britain’s UN mission said.

The US imposed Russia-related sanctions against nearly 120 individuals and entities aimed at blocking Moscow’s access to electronics and other goods that aid its war against Ukraine. The new measures are designed to “reduce Russia’s revenue from the metals and mining sector, undermine its future energy capabilities and degrade Russia’s access to the international financial system,” the treasury department said in a statement.

At least three people were confirmed to have been killed during Russia’s third night of successive airstrikes on southern Ukrainian port cities, according to Ukrainian officials. A security guard was killed in Odesa and a married couple were killed in Mykolaiv. China also confirmed that its consulate building in Odesa was damaged in the latest strikes.

Russia said it was imposing restrictions on British diplomats, requiring them to give five days’ notice of any plans to travel beyond a 120km radius, due to what it called London’s “hostile actions”.

Britain removed sanctions on Oleg Tinkov, the founder of digital bank Tinkoff, days after an appeal by British billionaire Richard Branson and nine months after Tinkov, critical of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, renounced his Russian citizenship. Britain sanctioned Tinkov a month after Russia invaded Ukraine butTinkov contested that designation, routinely criticising Russia’s actions in Ukraine and offloading his stake in the bank.

Eugene Shvidler, a longtime ally of the billionaire Roman Abramovich, meanwhile launched a legal challenge against sanctions imposed upon him after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a high court case being closely watched by other sanctioned oligarchs, lawyers for Shvidler, who is reportedly worth ?1.3bn, are seeking to have his designation for sanctions declared unlawful and quashed, as well as pursuing restitution of his costs.

Ukraine’s deputy economy minister held talks with China’s vice-commerce minister in Beijing in the first high-level visit by a Ukraine government official to the country since 2019.