Russia-Ukraine war live news: First grain shipment leaves Odesa; Moscow moving troops towards Kherson, Zelenskiy says | Russia

Isobel Koshiw reports for us from Kyiv:

The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, carrying 26,000 tons of corn, has left the port of Odesa, destined for Lebanon. It is the first departure since the start of the Russian invasion, according to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry.

“Ukraine together with our partners has taken another step today in preventing world hunger,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said in a statement on Monday.

Kubrakov stressed that Ukraine had done “everything” to restore the ports and said the lifting of the blockade would give Ukraine’s economy $1bn in foreign exchange revenue.

Ukraine’s infrastructure minister said 16 loaded vessels had been stuck in Ukraine’s ports since the Russian invasion began, and officials planned for the ports to regain full transport capacity in the coming weeks.

But the world is watching to see if Russia sticks to its side if the bargain, after an attack on Odesa port a week ago.

Russia agreed to allow grain ships to leave Ukraine and to not attack them, in a deal signed on 22 July in Istanbul. But less than 24 hours later, the veracity of the deal was cast into doubt when Russian forces struck Odesa port.

When questioned by Turkey’s defence minister, Russia at first denied it was involved in the attack. But the next day it issued a statement saying it had struck a Ukrainian vessel carrying western weapons that was in the port. Ukraine’s authorities rejected Russia’s explanation.

Read more of Isobel Koshiw’s report from Kyiv: Grain ship leaves Ukraine port for first time since Russia blockade

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged civilians to evacuate the frontline Donetsk region, the scene of fierce clashes with the Russian military, as Kyiv called on the Red Cross and UN to gain access to its soldiers being held by Moscow’s forces.

Ukraine’s president warned in his daily address that hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of children, were still in the region’s battleground areas, with the Donetsk governor saying six civilians were killed and 15 wounded on Friday.

He asked those who knew people still in the Donbas region – especially those with children – to speak to them about leaving. “Many people refuse to leave .. but it really needs to be done … The sooner it is done, the more people leave Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said.

“Leave, we will help,” Zelenskiy said. “At this stage of the war, terror is the main weapon of Russia.”

A mandatory evacuation notice posted on Saturday evening said the coming winter made it a matter of urgency, particularly for the more than 50,000 children still in the region.

“They need to be evacuated, you cannot put them in mortal danger in the winter without heating, light, without the ability to keep them warm,” Kyiv’s Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said in a statement.

Russia is likely re-allocating a significant number of its forces from the northern Donbas sector to southern Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.

The latest intelligence report reads:

Over the last four days, Russia has continued to attempt tactical assaults on the Bakhmut axis, northeast of Donetsk, only managing to make slow progress.

Russia is probably adjusting the operational design of its Donbas offensive after failing to make a decisive operational breakthrough under the plan it had been following since April.

It has likely identified its Zaporizhzhia front as a vulnerable area in need of reinforcement.”

Russia appears to be stepping up its offensive on regions in Ukraine’s south.

The mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv said two people were killed and three wounded after rockets pounded two residential districts on Sunday night.

Oleksandr Senkevych said the strikes were “probably the most powerful of the entire time [of the war]”.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, also addressed the attack in his latest national address:

Today, one of the most brutal shellings of Mykolaiv and the region over the entire period of the full-scale war took place. Dozens of missiles and rockets… The occupiers hit residential buildings, schools, other social infrastructure, and industrial facilities.”

The Russian attack also reportedly took the lives of Oleksiy Vadaturskyi, 74, and his wife Raisa, the founder of one of the largest Ukrainian agricultural companies ‘Nibulon’.

An adviser to the Ukrainian president has said he believes the leading Ukrainian agricultural magnate Oleksiy Vadatursky was deliberately killed when a missile struck their home in the southern city.

Mykhailo Podolyak said a missile hit the businessman’s bedroom, which he said “leaves no doubt” it was a targeted attack.

The first ship to export Ukrainian grain will depart from Ukrainian ports at 8.30am today, according to the Turkey’s Ministry of Defence.

The ministry issued an announcement at 7.30am local time, saying: “The first ship from Ukrainian ports will depart today at 8:30.”

The first ships will arrive in Istanbul port on Wednesday 3 August en route to Africa, according to CNN.

Britain will now require foreign companies holding UK property to identify their true owners in an official register as part of a crackdown on Russian oligarchs and corrupt elites laundering illicit wealth.

The register of overseas entities, which becomes active from today, is part of a wider economic crime law enacted this year in an effort to stop the flow of illicit Russian cash into London following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

It will seek to ensure criminals cannot hide behind secretive chains of shell companies, and support government efforts to root out Russian oligarchs using property in Britain to hide dirty money, the business ministry said in a statement. Junior business minister Martin Callanan said:

To ensure we are free of corrupt elites with suspicious wealth, we need to know who owns what.

We are lifting the curtain and cracking down on those criminals attempting to hide their illicitly obtained wealth.”

Foreign entities that already own land in the UK that is within the scope of the register will have six months to comply by identifying their beneficial owner to Companies House.

The register will apply to property bought since January 1999 in England and Wales, and since December 2014 in Scotland.

Those not complying with the new rules could face sanctions including fines of up to £2,500 ($3,043) per day or five years in prison.

The register has been described as a significant provision of the economic crime law, with a Transparency International official in March calling the step a “seismic change” that will force foreign property ownership into the open.

The law was brought in in March as the government faced calls to do more to make it harder for those close to Russian President Vladimir Putin to launder dirty money through property in London, long dubbed by some as “Londongrad”.

Russia is moving large numbers of troops to Ukraine’s south for battles against the country’s forces through the newly occupied territories and Crimea, according to Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence.

If Russia won, it would try to capture more territory, said Vadym Skibitsky. “They are increasing their troop numbers, preparing for our counteroffensive [in Ukraine’s south] and perhaps preparing to launch an offensive of their own. The south is key for them, above all because of Crimea,” he said.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy corroborated these reports in his latest national address, saying Russia was relocating troops from the east to the south of Ukraine in order to push towards Kherson’s regional capital as well as the Zaporizhzhia region.

“Now the Russian army is trying to strengthen its positions in the occupied areas of the south of our country, increasing activity in the relevant areas,” he said, adding that “strategically, Russia has no chance of winning this war”.

Russian troop movements come in response to Ukraine’s declared counteroffensive to liberate the southern occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian forces have retaken dozens of villages and towns along the border, according to the region’s military governor, Dmytro Butrii, and are pushing towards Kherson’s regional capital.

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

I’m Samantha Lock and I will be bringing you all the latest developments for the next short while.

According to multiple Ukrainian officials, Russia is moving large numbers of troops to Ukraine’s south where battles are expected to intensify.

From today, Britain will now require foreign companies holding UK property to identify their true owners as part of a crackdown on Russian oligarchs and corrupt elites laundering illicit wealth.

It is 8am in Ukraine. Here is everything you might have missed:

• Russia is moving large numbers of troops to Ukraine’s south in preparation for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence. “They are increasing their troop numbers, preparing for our counteroffensive [in Ukraine’s south] and perhaps preparing to launch an offensive of their own,” Vadym Skibitsky said. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia was relocating some of its troops from their positions in the east to the south in order to push towards Kherson’s regional capital as well as the Zaporizhzhia region.

• Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been urged to evacuate the frontline eastern Donetsk region, the scene of fierce clashes with the Russian military. More than 50,000 children are still in the region, according to local officials. “They need to be evacuated, you cannot put them in mortal danger in the winter without heating, light, without the ability to keep them warm,” Kyiv’s ministry of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories said in a statement.

• Russia claims five people were injured after a Ukrainian drone strike on its Black Sea fleet headquarters, prompting officials to cancel festivities planned for Navy Day. “Early this morning, [Ukraine] decided to spoil our Navy Day,” said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the head of the local Russian administration in Sevastopol in Crimea. “An unidentified object flew into the yard of the fleet headquarters. According to preliminary data, it was a drone. Five people were injured.”

• Russian strikes hit the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv early on Sunday, wounding three people and damaging homes and schools, according to the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Senkevych. Zelenskiy described the strikes as “probably the most brutal” on the city and region of the entire war.

• Russian shelling on Mykolaiv reportedly killed one of Ukraine’s wealthiest men, Oleksiy Vadatursky, and his wife, Raisa. Vadatursky headed the grain production and export business Nibulon, which included a fleet of ships for sending grain abroad. A presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Vadatursky was specifically targeted and his death was “not an accident, but a well-thought-out and organised premeditated murder”.

• Two-hundred Russian marines from the 810th naval infantry brigade refused to return to fight in the southern regions of Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s defence ministry intelligence directorate.

• Ukraine’s harvest this year could be half its usual amount because of the Russian invasion, Zelenskiy claimed. “Ukrainian harvest this year is under the threat to be twice less,” the Ukrainian president said in comments likely to intensify fears of global hunger.

• The first grain-exporting ship could leave Ukraine’s ports on Monday, a spokesperson for the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said. Speaking in an interview with broadcaster Kanal 7, Ibrahim Kalin said the joint coordination centre in Istanbul would probably complete the final work on the exporting routes very soon.

• Britain will now require foreign companies holding UK property to identify their true owners as part of a crackdown on Russian oligarchs and corrupt elites laundering illicit wealth. The Register of Overseas Entities will seek to ensure criminals cannot hide behind secretive chains of shell companies or use property in Britain to hide dirty money, the business ministry said in a statement on Monday.