TOP HEADLINES

• Ukraine's top military intelligence official said Russia's military offensive was slowing because of moral and physical fatigue in their ranks and Moscow's "exhausted" resource base. The remark on television by Defense Intelligence agency chief Kyrylo Budanov was one of the strongest signals by Kyiv that it believes Russia's offensive power may be waning.

• Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the slowing pace of Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine was deliberate and aimed at reducing civilian casualties. 

• Russia has launched missiles at a railroad station in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a Ukraine-focused meeting of the United Nations Security Council. "This is our life every day. This is how Russia got prepared for this UN session," Zelenskyy said over video link. There were deaths and injuries in the missile strikes, Zelenskyy said, warning that the death toll could rise.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the six-month anniversary of the start of Russia's war in Ukraine a "sad and tragic milestone". The UN chief described the six months of conflict as "devastating."

• President Vladimir Putin is betting that sky-rocketing energy prices and possible shortages this winter will persuade Europe to strong arm Ukraine into a truce - on Russia's terms. Two Russian sources familiar with Kremlin said that is the only path to peace that Moscow sees, given Kyiv says it will not negotiate until Russia leaves all of Ukraine. Another source close to the Kremlin said Moscow thought it could already detect faltering European unity and expected that process to accelerate amid winter hardship. READ MORE BELOW

• Kyiv accused Moscow of having organized illegal mass adoptions of Ukrainian children after transferring them from occupied territories to Russia. "The Russian Federation continues to abduct children from the territory of Ukraine and arrange their illegal adoption by Russian citizens," Ukraine's foreign ministry said in a statement. READ MORE BELOW

• Türkiye's business community confronted growing U.S. pressure to break off its growing ties with Russia or face potentially crippling sanctions linked to the Kremlin's offensive in Ukraine. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed to step up economic cooperation earlier this month. Official data shows the value of Turkish exports to Russia between May and July growing by nearly 50 percent from last year's figure.

• The head of Russia's state nuclear energy agency Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev held a meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi in Istanbul, to discuss an expected inspection of a Moscow-controlled atomic plant in Ukraine. Grossi and Likhachev "discussed in detail all the issues relating to the planned IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant", Rosatom said. 

• President Zelenskyy told the United Nations Security Council that Russia "should unconditionally stop nuclear blackmail" and "completely withdraw" from the Zaporizhzhia  atomic plant in Ukraine. Two employees of Ukraine's Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have been detained for passing information to Ukrainian authorities, Russia's National Guard said. 

• U.S. President Joe Biden announced $3 billion in fresh military aid to Ukraine, as it marked its Independence Day. "I am proud to announce our biggest tranche of security assistance to date: approximately $2.98 billion of weapons and equipment to be provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative," Biden said in a statement.

• British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Kyiv, hailing the "strong will of Ukrainians to resist" Russia's offensive, as the nation celebrated its Independence Day and marked the milestone of six months of war. "There's a strong will of Ukrainians to resist. And that is what (Russian President Vladimir) Putin failed to understand," Johnson said in front of reporters during a surprise visit to the capital.

IN DETAIL

Kyiv accuses Moscow of 'abducting Ukrainian children and arranging their illegal adoption'

Kyiv accused Moscow of having organized illegal mass adoptions of Ukrainian children after transferring them from occupied territories to Russia. Since the beginning of the conflict, Kyiv has been accusing Moscow of "deporting" Ukrainians, saying Ukrainians from occupied territories have been forced to go to Russia rather than other regions of Ukraine.

"The Russian Federation continues to abduct children from the territory of Ukraine and arrange their illegal adoption by Russian citizens," Ukraine's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Over 1,000 children from Mariupol," a southern Ukrainian city occupied by Russian troops, "were illegally transferred to outsiders in Tyumen, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, and Altai Krai" (in Siberia), the statement read, referring to different areas of Russia.

The foreign ministry said it had based its findings on information from local authorities in Krasnodar, a southern Russian city near Ukraine.

More than 300 Ukrainian children are "held in specialized institutions" in the Krasnodar region, according to the statement.

The ministry accused Russia of actions that "grossly violate the 1949 Geneva Convention" that establishes rules for humanitarian treatments in wartime and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It called for "all Ukrainian children, who were illegally displaced to the territory of Russia, [to] be returned to their parents or legal guardians". 

Several families from Mariupol told AFP news agency that they had been forced to go to Russia to flee the fighting.

Moscow: 'We have time, we can wait'

President Vladimir Putin is betting that sky-rocketing energy prices and possible shortages this winter will persuade Europe to strong arm Ukraine into a truce - on Russia's terms. Two Russian sources familiar with Kremlin said that is the only path to peace that Moscow sees, given Kyiv says it will not negotiate until Russia leaves all of Ukraine.

"We have time, we can wait," said one source close to the Russian authorities, who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media. "It's going to be a difficult winter for Europeans. We could see protests, unrest. Some European leaders might think twice about continuing to support Ukraine and think it's time for a deal."

A second source close to the Kremlin said Moscow thought it could already detect faltering European unity and expected that process to accelerate amid winter hardship. 

"It will be really tough if it [the war] drags into the autumn and winter. So there's hope they [the Ukrainians] will ask for peace," said the source.

There was no immediate response from the Kremlin, which denies Russia uses energy as a political weapon, to a request for comment from Reuters.