Russia attacks Kharkiv region with drones, UK Parliament considers recognising PMC Wagner as terrorist organisation

The Ukraine war has been on for 517 days. Russia attacked Ukraine’s Kharkiv region overnight. Russia has charged sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky with calls for terrorism, he has been transported to a jail in Syktyvkar.

The UK Parliament has suggested recognising PMC Wagner as a terrorist organisation. The US has promised to provide Ukraine with another military aid package worth $400 million, Politico says the West has yet to approve a plan on teaching Ukrainian pilots how to use F-16 fighters.

Russians registered a total of 21,326 companies in Georgia, three times more than they did in the last 27 years.

Find out what happened overnight in Novaya Gazeta Europe’s 26 July round-up.

Ukraine’s Kharkiv region was attacked by Shahed kamikaze drones, says local official Mykola Baksheev

“There were hits against industrial facilities, which started a fire. Our rescuers are working on it,” Baksheev wrote. According to him, a fighter of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is also in the sky over the town of Pervomaiskyi. No casualties have been reported.

Explosions rocked the Kharkov region overnight, and an air raid alert was announced in the Kharkov and Sumy regions of Ukraine.

Sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky was charged with incitement to terrorism, transferred to Syktyvkar

The FSB has charged sociologist and political scientist Boris Kagarlitsky with incitement to terrorism online, TASS reports citing lawyer Sergey Yerokhov. Kagarlitsky is facing up to seven years in prison.

The lawyer noted that Kagarlitsky pleads not guilty. “[He] never supported or justified terrorism. The purpose of all his speeches was an attempt to show the real problems that the Russian state is facing,” the lawyer said. According to Yrokhov, the case of Kagarlitsky is being investigated by the Federal Security Service of Russia in the Komi Republic, hence his transfer to Syktyvkar.

UK Parliament suggests recognising PMC Wagner a terrorist organisation

Lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs Committee urged more targeted sanctions on what it said were a “web of entities” beneath the Wagner Group, and added the group should be labelled as a terrorist organisation by the UK and proscribed, Reuters reports.

“In the wake of the attempted coup last month, the future manifestations of the Wagner Network are uncertain,” said Alicia Kearns, chair of the committee. “In the ten years since the Wagner Network’s formation, the UK Government has lacked a coherent strategy and efforts to meaningfully tackle Wagner have been non-existent,” she said.

Kearns said that the British government had a “dismal lack of understanding of Wagner’s hold beyond Europe, in particular their grip on African states.”

The UK sanctioned Prigozhin in 2020 and the Wagner Group as a whole in March 2022.

US to provide Ukraine with military aid package worth $400 million

The United States will provide Ukraine with a new $400 million military aid package, according to the Pentagon.

The package will include additional munitions for Patriot air defence systems and NASAMS Systems, as well as for HIMARS systems, the agency notes. Other items are Stinger anti-aircraft systems, artillery and mortar rounds, 32 Stryker armoured personnel carriers, and other things.

This package was earlier announced by AP.

Politico: West has yet to agree on a training plan for Ukrainian F-16 pilots

Western partners have yet to even agree on a plan to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the discussions, Politico says.

Denmark and the Netherlands are leading a coalition of 11 nations to support the training, but so far no country has publicly committed aircraft to the program.

One training proposal that has been discussed involves bringing Ukrainian pilots to Arizona in the US. That idea has had little traction, according to two of the US officials and a European official. Another plan involves sending US military pilots to Europe to train the Ukrainians somewhere outside of that country.

Aerospace contractor Draken International has begun recruiting retired military pilots to train the Ukrainians, according to one of the US officials and a job posting that was since taken down. This effort will take place at a facility that’s being built in Romania and is envisioned to be a regional F-16 training centre.

Another training centre will also be set up in Denmark, European officials said.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov earlier said that the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16 aircraft would begin in August. Politico also reported that a coalition of 11 countries had agreed to start training F-16 pilots for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but the US did not approve the programme.

Russians established over 20 thousand companies in Georgia over last 1.5 years

Russian citizens have registered 21,326 companies in Georgia between March 2022 to June 2023, as per Transparency International Georgia.

“After the war in Ukraine [had started], Russian citizens registered 21.326 companies in Georgia, which is three times more than what they did in the past 27 years,” Transparency says.

Russian citizens register an average of 1,300 companies per month in Georgia. They established 8,788 companies between January 1995 and February 2022.