Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

(Reuters) – Ukraine’s president called on the West to impose a blanket travel ban on Russians, an idea that has found support among some EU member states but angered Moscow which pressed on with a fierce military offensive in eastern Ukraine.

FIGHTING/DIPLOMACY

* Russia’s defence ministry said an explosion at a Russian military airbase in Crimea on Tuesday had been caused by a detonation of aviation ammunition, and that there had been no casualties, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

* The Kremlin on Tuesday dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s call for a Western travel ban on all Russians as irrational, saying that Europe would ultimately have to decide if it wanted to pay the bills for Zelenskiy’s “whims”.

* Anti-aircraft defences around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant will be strengthened following days of reported shelling on the site, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted a Russian-installed separatist official as saying.

* Russia continued to focus on reinforcing its defences in southern Ukraine over the weekend, while also maintaining attacks on Kyiv’s positions in the Donetsk region in the east, Britain said.

* Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that Russian forces had destroyed an ammunition depot near the central Ukrainian city of Uman storing U.S.-made HIMARS missiles and M777 howitzers.

Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports.

* U.S. President Joe Biden was due on Tuesday to sign documents endorsing Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, the most significant expansion of the military alliance since the 1990s as it responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

ECON0MY

* Ukraine has gained the necessary approval from holders of its GDP warrants to its request for proposed changes to the securities, preliminary results of a vote released in a filing on Tuesday showed. The government launched a proposal in July to change conditions on its $2.6 billion of outstanding GDP warrants, a derivative security that triggers payments linked to economic growth.

* Two more grain-carrying ships left Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port on Tuesday, Turkey’s defence ministry said, as part of a deal to unblock Ukrainian sea exports, bringing the total to leave the country under a safe passage deal to 12.

* Russian airlines, including state-controlled Aeroflot, are stripping jetliners to secure spare parts they can no longer buy abroad because of Western sanctions, four industry sources told Reuters.

* Ukraine has suspended Russian oil pipeline flows to parts of central Europe since early this month because Western sanctions prevented it from accepting transit fees from Moscow, Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft said on Tuesday.

(Compiled by Nick Macfie)