July 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia and the US are coordinating the timing for a call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in regard to a potential prisoner swap, acknowledging his government has received an official request, according to Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti.

The contact "should happen when I’m in my office," Lavrov said while on a visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Friday.

“Obviously, it is unlikely to happen today, but in the coming days we will offer our American colleagues a suitable date,” Lavrov said.

On Thursday, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Lavrov will “pay attention” to the US State Department request to speak with Blinken when “time permits," according to RIA Novosti.

Some background: Biden administration officials are frustrated that Moscow has yet to respond in a meaningful way to their “substantial proposal” to try to free two detained Americans, Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan – a deal which includes a trade for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, as CNN exclusively reported Wednesday.

That proposal was presented to Russia weeks ago, Blinken said when publicly announcing it Wednesday. Administration officials told CNN that they felt Moscow would jump at the offer, but it is now almost August and they have not received a substantive response, officials say.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov confirmed that “so far, there is no agreement on this issue.”

Frustration at Russia’s lack of substantive response to the deal was an underlying factor in the administration’s decision to publicize that an agreement from the US is on the table.

CNN's Uliana Pavlova, Kylie Atwood and Kaitlan Collins contributed reporting to this post.

A Russian ammunition depot in the southern Kherson region has been destroyed, according to Ukrainian officials.

Video and images published overnight and Friday morning on local Telegram channels indicated a major explosion in the area of Brylivka, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Kherson city.

"One of the important logistical hubs of the occupiers, the railway station in Brylivka, was destroyed in Kherson region. The Russians just brought equipment and ammunition there; everything has burned down," Serhii Khlan, advisor to the head of Kherson Civil Military Administration, said on Facebook Friday.

"People are reporting loud explosions and detonation. It is likely the oil depot was hit," Khlan added.

Satellite imagery shows a fuel storage site close to the railway in Brylivka.

Social media videos uploaded on a community Telegram channel overnight indicated multiple detonations in the area, but darkness prevented their accurate geolocation. 

Photographs published by a Ukrainian official Friday showed damage in the area of the railway station.

The official, Yurii Sobolevskyi, who is deputy head of Kherson regional council, captioned the photographs as "Brylivka now."

"I want to appeal to everyone who is forced to stay in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region ... If you were unable to evacuate (for whatever reason), please stay as far away from their military infrastructure and deployment sites as possible," Sobolevskyi said.

"The Ukrainian AF will continue to strike because there is no other way to free our people and our area," Sobolevskyi added.

A Russian missile strike Friday has injured at least three people in the residential area of Bilenke in Kramatorsk, according to the city's mayor.

Houses have suffered serious destruction and explosive unit specialists, firefighters and rescue teams are on the scene where operations are still ongoing, Oleksandr Honcharenko said on Facebook.

The nearby towns of Sloviansk and Bakhmut in Donetsk also came under heavy Russian shelling Friday, as Russian forces attempt to advance westwards through the eastern region.

Some background: On Thursday, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces made further incremental progress in Donetsk.

The Russian military had "partial success" in the direction of Vidrodzhennia-Vershyna and were entrenched southeast of the settlement of Vershyna, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian military.

Vershyna is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) southeast of Bakhmut. Earlier this week, the Russians took the nearby village of Novoluhankse and an adjacent power plant.

The General Staff assessed that Russia was focusing its main efforts on "establishing full control over the territories of Luhansk and Donetsk," and maintaining the captured southern Kherson region and parts of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Mykolaiv.

Russia was blocking Ukraine's maritime communications in the Black Sea, it added.

CNN's Tim Lister contributed reporting to this post.

French President Emmanuel Macron discussed and stressed the importance of working with Saudi Arabia to resolve Europe’s energy fears in a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday.

The French President underlined “the importance of pursuing the committed coordination with Saudi Arabia in the perspective of the diversification of European states’ energy supplies,” according to an Élysée Palace readout released Friday. 

In a wide-ranging discussion, the two also touched upon the question of human rights in Saudi Arabia.

Some background: As the war in Ukraine rages on, a gas emergency is unfolding in Europe.

This week, Russia's state-owned gas company Gazprom cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany in half, to just 20% of its capacity. A US official said the move was retaliation for western sanctions, and that it put the West in "unchartered territory" when it comes to whether Europe will have enough gas to get through the winter.

The Biden administration has been working furiously behind the scenes to keep European allies united against Russia as Moscow further cuts its energy supplies to the European Union, prompting panic on both sides of the Atlantic over potentially severe gas shortages heading into winter, US officials say.

In response to the turmoil, the White House dispatched presidential coordinator for global energy Amos Hochstein to Europe on Tuesday, officials said. He will be traveling to Paris and Brussels to discuss contingency planning with the US-EU energy task force created in March, one month after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting to this post.

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister met with Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister on Friday in Riyadh to discuss cooperation between both countries, the Saudi energy ministry said.

The meeting between Saudi Arabia’s Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Russia’s Alexander Novak covered "the latest developments in the work of the Saudi-Russian joint committee," and "opportunities for cooperation between the two countries within this framework," the ministry tweeted. 

The tweet did not specify what areas both countries plan to cooperate in. 

The meeting came after a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud on July 21, where they discussed the oil market at length and emphasized expansion of "mutually beneficial trade and economic ties," according to a Kremlin readout. 

A Russian strike near a bus stop killed five people and injured seven early Friday, according to Ukrainian officials.

Emergency services found 12 people on the ground, Vitaliy Kim, head of Mykolaiv regional military administration, said.

Close to the front lines in neighboring Kherson, Mykolaiv has been struck almost every night for the last month.

The bombardment follows attacks on the southern city early Thursday, when "powerful explosions" were heard, according to the city's mayor Oleksandr Senkevych.

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace claimed Friday that the "Russians are failing on the ground in many areas" in Ukraine.

He added that he believed the fight against Russia to be a "noble cause," characterizing the war as a "fascist state invading Ukraine."

Wallace, who has overseen British efforts to equip Ukraine with anti-tank weapons, armored vehicles and ammunition, said "everyone" believes the invasion to be "wrong" and "brutal."

Parts of the eastern Donetsk region came under heavy Russian shelling Friday, according to local officials.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said on Telegram Friday that it was a “restless night” in Sloviansk, Bakhmut, and the nearby towns of Pokrovsk and Krasnohorivka.

At least four people have been killed and five injured in Bakhmut since Thursday, Kyrylenko said. The city was hit by another airstrike overnight, damaging seven high-rise buildings and 27 houses, he added.

Five people were also injured by shelling in Pokrovsk, Kyrylenko said..

Sloviansk is partially out of power after it came under Russian shelling on Friday morning, with at least one injured, said Sloviansk Mayor Vadym Liakh.

Russian forces have been trying to advance west through Donetsk region for several weeks, but have so far made only incremental progress.

The center of Kharkiv was struck twice in the early hours of Friday, according to the northeastern city's Mayor Ihor Terekhov.

In a Telegram post, Terekhov said there were strikes around 4:09 a.m. at a two-story building and an educational institution.

The State Emergency Service is at the scene “sorting out the rubble, looking for people under them," Terekhov said. There are no reports of casualties or deaths so far.

Kharkiv has continued to come under attack by Russian forces. On Thursday, city officials said two S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles had hit the region. On Wednesday, Terekhov said the city’s industrial district was struck.