Ukraine updates: Putin defies ICC arrest warrant in Mongolia

Physicist Alexander Shiplyuk, 57, is the latest scientist in Russian to be handed a hefty prison sentence following a treason conviction. The director of a top Siberian science institute and an expert in hypersonic missiles, Shiplyuk has been given a 15-year prison sentence.

Two of his colleagues, Anatoly Maslov and Valery Zvegintsev, have also been detained on similar charges. Maslov, 78, was given a 14-year sentence in May.

Lawyers for the latter two scientists said that the men did not even work on weapons development, and that they were being targeted for simply collaborating with foreign scientists on projects.

Russian President Vladimir Putin invited his Mongolian counterpart Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh to the next BRICS summit in October.

BRICS is a group of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. They are due to meet in the Russian city of Kazan.

Putin said he was eager to discuss economic cooperation with Mongolia at the meeting.

Some BRICS members have publicly called for an end to the war in Ukraine, but have done litte behind the scenes to push Putin to agree to a truce. Countries like India and Brazil have employed a loose bilateralism between Russia and the West.

Russia continued its stepped-up shelling campaign overnight, claiming two lives in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia and another in the central city of Dnipro. One of those killed in Zaporizhzhia was an eight-year-old boy.

There were 313 attacks in Zaporizhzhia area in the past 24 hours, army officials there said. 

The military said it was about to shoot down 27 of 35 armed drones that Russia launched across Ukraine overnight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet with Mongolian President Uchnaagiin Chürelsüch on Tuesday, according to the Kremlin.

Putin traveled to the country at the Mongolian leader's invitation to strengthen cooperation between the two nations, according to a Kremlin statement.

Putin landed in the country on Monday evening. This is Putin's first visit to a member country of the International Criminal Court since it issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader in 2023.

Situated between Russia and China, Mongolia has close cultural links to Moscow and important trade links with China.

It has not condemned Russia's war in Ukraine and has abstained during votes on the conflict at the UN. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet with the director of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday.

Rafael Mariano Grossi posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was on his way to the plant to continue assistance to avoid any nuclear accident.

Grossi will then travel to the Ukrainian capital city Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader said.

Grossi is visiting the nuclear plant after Ukraine and Russia last month blamed each other after a fire broke out at the plant.

There was no reported harm to nuclear safety at the time, according to the IAEA.

Zaporizhzhia is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and has been under Russian control since 2022.

The plant has not produced any power for the last two years and all six of its reactors are in cold shutdown.

In a social media post, Zelenskyy said he did not see a safe way to regain control of the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.

"It is safer for Ukraine to control the Zaporizhzhia plant, but so far, from the point of view of the battlefield, I do not see such possibilities, and those that probably exist, they are dangerous," he said. 

mk/rm (Reuters, dpa, AP, AFP)