Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

We will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning.

In the meantime, you can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below.

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• A breakthrough deal to resume exporting Ukrainian grain has been announced with the establishment of a coordination and monitoring centre in Istanbul. Turkey’s defence minister Hulusi Akar said Ankara will ensure the safety of shipments in transit and the parties will jointly check grain cargoes in ports after officials from Ukraine, Russia, United Nations and Turkey met for talks in Istanbul on Wednesday. UN chief Antonio Guterres described the talks as a “critical step forward” but said more work was needed before a deal is set to be signed next week.
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• A traffic jam of more than 130 cargo ships loaded with Ukrainian grain is waiting in the Black Sea to pass into the Danube. The ships are waiting to access exit routes through the Sulina and Bystre estuary canals to reach a series of ports and terminals in Romania from where the grain can be transported on around the world
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• Russian and proxy forces have reportedly entered the town of Siversk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to Russian media reports. State news agency Tass quoted Vitaly Kiselyov, an official from the self-appointed Luhansk People’s Republic, as saying the town could fall within a couple of days, but it was not clear what that claim was based on.
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• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has ruled out ceding territory to Russia as part of any ceasefire deal. In a briefing, Kuleba said no peace talks were under way between Moscow and Kyiv “because of Russia’s position and its continued aggression against our country”.
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• Russia has forcibly removed nearly 2 million people from Ukraine, including several hundred thousand children, since its invasion of the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian are being held in filtration camps in the temporarily Russian-occupied territories, Zelenskiy said in a video address to the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul on Wednesday.
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• The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine has risen to at least 47. According to Kyiv, the residential building was hit by Russian rockets fired from truck-borne systems late on Saturday evening. The Ukrainian emergency services initially gave a death toll of 10, but as rescue teams continued to comb through the debris that number rose.
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• Russian forces will probably focus on taking several small Donbas towns during the coming week, including Siversk and Dolyna on the approaches to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. “The urban areas of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk likely remain the principal objectives for this phase of the operation,” the British intelligence report said.
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• North Korea has officially recognised the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, the pro-Russian occupied territories in the east of Ukraine. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) becomes only the third UN member state to recognise them as legitimate authorities, after Russia and Syria. In response, Ukraine’s foreign ministry announced it has cut ties with North Korea.
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• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, called for an immediate halt to Russian deportations of Ukrainian citizens. Blinken accused Russia of “deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents and abducting others from orphanages before putting them up for adoption inside Russia”.
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• A third American national is being held captive by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, according to reports. Suedi Murekezi, 35, was arrested last month in Kherson, a Russian-occupied port city in southern Ukraine where he had been living for more than two years, his brother Sele Murekezi said.
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• A Moscow court has ordered one of the last prominent opposition figures still in Russia, Ilya Yashin, to be detained for two months pending an investigation into the spreading of “fake information” about Russia’s army. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information” about Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
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• Lithuania will allow sanctioned Russian goods to transit its territory on their way to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, its foreign ministry said on Wednesday, reversing its policy after new European Commission guidelines.
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• The global economic outlook that has “darkened significantly” following the consequences of the war in Ukraine, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund. Kristalina Georgieva said the global outlook remains “extremely uncertain” with an increased risk of recession. “The human tragedy of the war in Ukraine has worsened. So, too, has its economic impact … and it’s only getting worse,” she said. G20 finance ministers and central bank governors are preparing to meet in Bali this week.
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Russian and proxy forces have entered the town of Siversk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to Russian media reports.

State news agency Tass quoted Vitaly Kiselyov, an official from the self-appointed Luhansk People’s Republic, as saying the town could fall within a couple of days, but it was not clear what that claim was based on.

Ukraine’s armed forces said in their evening operational update that Russia had not conducted any new assaults on the frontline that includes Siversk, but that the town had been fired upon by artillery.

The Guardian has not been able to immediately verify the report.

In its latest intelligence report, the UK Ministry of Defence predicted that Russian forces will likely focus on taking several small towns during the coming week, including Siversk and Dolyna on the approaches to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.

Russian energy giant Gazprom said Wednesday it could not guarantee the good functioning of the Nord Stream gas pipeline and did not know if a “critical” turbine engine would be returned from repair in Canada.

Gazprom started ten days of maintenance on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday as turbines are currently undergoing maintenance at a Canadian site owned by German industrial giant Siemens.

The company said in a statement, as reported by Agence France-Presse, on Wednesday:

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Gazprom does not have a single document to allow (German company) Siemens to take out of Canada the gas turbine engine currently being repaired there.

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In these circumstances, it is not possible to draw an objective conclusion about the development of the situation and ensuring the safe operation of the Portovaya station - a critical facility for the Nord Stream gas pipeline.”

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Over the weekend, Canada agreed to deliver to Germany turbines needed to maintain the pipeline, despite sanctions in place against Russia and appeals from Ukraine.

The annual work on the gas link was scheduled long in advance, but many fear Gazprom might seize the opportunity to shut off the valves.

Berlin has not provided a timetable for the return of the turbines. A government spokesman said Monday that Siemens was “planning to transport (the turbines) as soon as possible” from Canada to Germany, and then onto Russia to be installed.

Lithuania will allow sanctioned Russian goods to transit its territory on their way to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, its foreign ministry said on Wednesday, reversing its policy after new European Commission guidelines.

The new guidelines on Wednesday followed weeks of tension among Moscow, European Union member Lithuania and the European Union that tested Europe’s resolve to enforce sanctions on Russia.

Kaliningrad, which is bordered by EU states and relies on railways and roads through Lithuania for most goods, has had some freight transport from mainland Russia cut off since 17 June under sanctions imposed by Brussels.

The sanctions were designed to bar entry into the EU of certain Russian products, such as vodka and steel.

Moscow earlier said restricting overland transit of goods from Russia to Kaliningrad amounted to an illegal blockade; Lithuania said it had no choice but to enforce rules imposed by Brussels.

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This decision, which removes restrictions on a certain range of products transported by rail, is a demonstration of realism and common sense,” a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson said by email to Reuters on Wednesday. “Although we still have questions about the contents of this document.”

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Kaliningrad Governor Anton Alikhanov wrote on Telegram the new guidelines are “only the first step needed” to solve the stand-off: “We will continue to work towards the complete removal of restrictions”.

As G20 ministers and central bank governors gather in Bali this week, they face a global economic outlook that has “darkened significantly”, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

Kristalina Georgieva hinted the IMF will downgrade its expectations for global economic growth this month, saying the outlook remains “extremely uncertain” and blaming the war in Ukraine, higher than expected inflation, and the ongoing Covid pandemic.

In a statement, she said:

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It is going to be a tough 2022—and possibly an even tougher 2023, with increased risk of recession.

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The human tragedy of the war in Ukraine has worsened. So, too, has its economic impact especially through commodity price shocks that are slowing growth and exacerbating a cost-of-living crisis that affects hundreds of millions of people—and especially poor people who cannot afford to feed their families. And it’s only getting worse.

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G20 finance ministers and central bank governors are preparing to meet in Bali where they will discuss the global economy, including food security, and the impact of the war in Ukraine.

Georgieva called for “decisive action and strong international cooperation, led by the G20”.

Indonesia’s central bank governor Perry Warjiyo is cautious about the prospect of reaching an agreement over the way forward, saying: “We hope for the best, but of course prepare for the worst”.

Georgieva said that inflation has “broadened beyond food and energy prices” in that has led many central banks to increase the cost of borrowing, something she said will “need to continue”.

It’s 1am in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:

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• Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian and UN officials have established a coordination center in Istanbul to monitor grain exports, the head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenksiy’s office said on Wednesday. “Its task will be to carry out general monitoring and coordination of safe navigation in the Black Sea,” Andriy Yermak said.
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• A UNHCR survey has revealed that 65 percent of Ukrainian refugees intend to stay in their host countries for the time being. The survey cited main reasons being safety concerns, family ties and employment opportunity access.
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• At least 14 civilians have been injured after Russian missiles struck an unnamed commercial enterprise in Zaporizhizhia on July 13, the Kyiv Independent reports. Rescue workers are currently on scene where two Russian missiles severely damaged the enterprise’s facilities, local authorities said.
  
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• Rare footage has emerged of Russian filtration procedure applied to Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories, Euromaidan reports. In the video, Russian occupiers can be seen asking Ukrainians to undress and examining them for patriotic tattoos on Mariupol streets.
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• Hungary has declared a “state of danger” on Wednesday due to the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s office announced a seven-point plan to tackle the energy crisis and listed the measures after a cabinet meeting.
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• Russia and Ukraine will hold new talks in Turkey next week on resolving their dispute over blocked grain exports, the Turkish defence minister said Wednesday. “It was agreed that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations should meet again in Turkey next week,” Hulusi Akar said in a statement after the first talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian delegations since March.
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That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as I hand over the blog to my colleague in Australia, Samantha Lock, who will be bringing you the latest updates. I’ll be back tomorrow, thank you.

Ukraine, the United Nations and Turkey all hailed progress at talks in Istanbul with Russia designed to resume Black Sea grain exports on Wednesday.

Officials said they have established a coordination centre in Istanbul to monitor grain exports.

The head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenksiy’s office, Andriy Yermak, said:

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Its task will be to carry out general monitoring and coordination of safe navigation in the Black Sea.

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This will ensure the export of Ukrainian grain and guarantee food security for millions of people around the world.”

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Turkey’s defence minister Hulusi Akar said an agreement would be signed next week, adding that Ankara will ensure the safety of shipments in transit and the parties will jointly check grain cargoes in ports.

However, UN chief Antonio Guterres said more work was needed before a deal was signed. Guterres told reporters in New York:

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We have seen a critical step forward. We still need a lot of goodwill and commitments by all parties.”

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A ray of hope in a world darkened by crises.

Today in Istanbul, we have seen a major step forward to ensure the export of Ukrainian food products through the Black Sea.

I salute the commitment of all those working to secure an agreement for our common humanity.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) July 13, 2022

Zelenksiy addressed the news in his latest address:

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Today in the news there are many references to the meeting in Turkey regarding the unblocking of agricultural exports from our country through the Black Sea.

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We are indeed making significant efforts to restore the supply of food to the world market. And I am grateful to the United Nations and Turkey for their respective efforts.”

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It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

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• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has ruled out ceding territory to Russia as part of any ceasefire deal. In a briefing, Kuleba said no peace talks were under way between Moscow and Kyiv “because of Russia’s position and its continued aggression against our country”.
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• Russian artillery and rockets pounded the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut overnight and into Wednesday morning. Donetsk governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said Russian forces were “constantly shelling the entire free territory of Donetsk region [with] Bakhmut district suffering the most”.
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• The Russian ministry of defence has said it caused large losses to Ukrainian forces in the last 24 hours, claiming to have killed at least 425 service personnel and shot down four planes and nine unmanned drones. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, dismissed Russia’s assertions as propaganda.
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• At least five people have been injured and one killed by Russian shelling in the region of Kharkiv, according to the daily update from the regional governor Oleh Synyehubov. He posted to Telegram this morning to say: “The terror of the civilian population of Kharkiv Region by the Russian occupiers continues.”
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• At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson. The claims of fatalities attributed to recently acquired US weapons were made by the Russian-installed administration in the town and could not be immediately verified.
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• The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine has risen to at least 47. According to Kyiv, the residential building was hit by Russian rockets fired from truck-borne systems late on Saturday evening. The Ukrainian emergency services initially gave a death toll of 10, but as rescue teams continued to comb through the debris that number rose.
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• Russian forces will probably focus on taking several small Donbas towns during the coming week, including Siversk and Dolyna on the approaches to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. “The urban areas of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk likely remain the principal objectives for this phase of the operation,” the British intelligence report said.
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• Military delegations from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey met with UN officials in Istanbul to discuss a possible deal to resume safe exports of Ukraine grain. The four-way meeting comes as exports across the Black Sea continue to be blocked by Russian warships and sea mines Kyiv has laid to avert a feared amphibious assault. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was quoted as saying that Kyiv believed a deal was “two steps away”.
  
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• North Korea has officially recognised the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, the pro-Russian occupied territories in the east of Ukraine. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) becomes only the third UN member state to recognise them as legitimate authorities, after Russia and Syria. In response, Ukraine’s foreign ministry announced it has cut ties with North Korea.
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• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has called for an immediate halt to Russian deportations of Ukrainian citizens. Blinken accused Russia of “deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents and abducting others from orphanages before putting them up for adoption inside Russia”.
  
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• A third American national is being held captive by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, according to reports. Suedi Murekezi, 35, was arrested last month in Kherson, a Russian-occupied port city in southern Ukraine where he had been living for more than two years, his brother Sele Murekezi said.
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• A Moscow court has ordered one of the last prominent opposition figures still in Russia, Ilya Yashin, to be detained for two months pending an investigation into the spreading of “fake information” about Russia’s army. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information” about Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
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Russia has forcibly removed nearly 2 million people from Ukraine, including several hundred thousand children, since its invasion of the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian are being held in filtration camps in the temporarily Russian-occupied territories, Zelenskiy said in a video address to the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul.

In comments translated by Ukrinform, Zelenskiy said:

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Just imagine this number – 2 million people. That’s how many of our people have already been taken to Russia.

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Among those who had been forcibly removed from Ukraine and taken to Russia were “several hundred thousand children”, Zelenskiy said. He continued:

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No one will name the exact numbers at the moment – all these deported people are deprived of means of communication, their IDs have been taken from them, they are being intimidated and taken them to remote areas of Russia, so that it will be as difficult as possible for them to return home to their Motherland.

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Young women were among those being held in so-called filtration camps in occupied territories, he said:

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Young women disappear there. I believe you all understand what’s happening to them there.

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Ukraine’s foreign ministry has announced it has cut ties with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), most commonly referred to in the west as North Korea, over its recognition of two pro-Russian occupied territories in the east of Ukraine.

It comes after North Korea said it has officially recognised the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, becoming only the third UN member state to recognise them as legitimate authorities, after Russia and Syria.

In a statement, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said:

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We consider this decision as an attempt by Pyongyang to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

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It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

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• Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has ruled out ceding territory to Russia as part of any ceasefire deal. In a briefing, Kuleba said no peace talks were under way between Moscow and Kyiv “because of Russia’s position and its continued aggression against our country”.
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• Russian artillery and rockets pounded the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut overnight and into Wednesday morning. Donetsk governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said Russian forces were “constantly shelling the entire free territory of Donetsk region [with] Bakhmut district suffering the most”.
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• The Russian ministry of defence has said it caused large losses to Ukrainian forces in the last 24 hours, claiming to have killed at least 425 service personnel and shot down four planes and nine unmanned drones. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, dismissed Russia’s assertions as propaganda.
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• At least five people have been injured and one killed by Russian shelling in the region of Kharkiv, according to the daily update from the regional governor Oleh Synyehubov. He posted to Telegram this morning to say: “The terror of the civilian population of Kharkiv Region by the Russian occupiers continues.”
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• At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson. The claims of fatalities attributed to recently acquired US weapons were made by the Russian-installed administration in the town and could not be immediately verified.
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• The death toll from a weekend Russian missile attack on a residential apartment block in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine has risen to at least 47. According to Kyiv, the residential building was hit by Russian rockets fired from truck-borne systems late on Saturday evening. The Ukrainian emergency services initially gave a death toll of 10, but as rescue teams continued to comb through the debris that number rose.
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• Russian forces will probably focus on taking several small Donbas towns during the coming week, including Siversk and Dolyna on the approaches to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. “The urban areas of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk likely remain the principal objectives for this phase of the operation,” the British intelligence report said.
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• Military delegations from Ukraine, Russia and Turkey are meeting UN officials in Istanbul to discuss a possible deal to resume safe exports of Ukraine grain. The four-way meeting comes as exports across the Black Sea continue to be blocked by Russian warships and sea mines Kyiv has laid to avert a feared amphibious assault.
  
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• North Korea has officially recognised the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, the pro-Russian occupied territories in the east of Ukraine. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) becomes only the third UN member state to recognise them as legitimate authorities, after Russia and Syria.
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