8️⃣5️⃣ years ago, the first Arctic convoy – codenamed Dervish – arrived in Arkhangelsk.

The convoy set sail from Liverpool on 12 August 1941, stopping briefly in Iceland before reaching the USSR. It carried ammunition, aircraft and other essential supplies under the Lend-Lease programme.

This marked the beginning of a vital wartime lifeline to the Soviet Union. Between August 1941 and May 1945, 78 convoys crossed the Arctic seas from Britain, Iceland and North America to the USSR. More than 1,400 vessels delivered over 4 million tonnes of vital cargo.

Crews faced blizzards, drifting ice, freezing temperatures and the constant threat of German air and naval attacks along the 2,000-mile route to the northern Soviet ports.

The price was high. More than 3,000 Soviet, British, American and other Allied seamen lost their lives in these perilous voyages.

Thousands of sailors, pilots and other servicemen displayed extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice in some of the harshest conditions of the conflict. Their bravery forged a bond between our nations at one of the most difficult moments of the Second World War.

The memory of all those who risked everything in the fight for Victory will never fade.

🎨 On this day in 1840, Russian artist Pavel Brullov was born.

Known for his stunning landscapes and captivating scenes of everyday life, he came from a prominent artistic family – his father was architect Alexander Brullov, while his uncle was the celebrated painter Karl Brullov.

Interestingly, Brullov was both a member of the Peredvizhniki (often called the Wanderers in English), who challenged the established academic art system, and a full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

After graduating from Saint Petersburg University with a degree in physics and mathematics, Brullov travelled extensively in Europe. He lived in Italy, France and England, where he also studied art history.

🎙Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova on Russia-UK relations

💬 Russia-UK relations have been in a deep crisis for a long time.

Political dialogue is frozen, there are no intergovernmental contacts, and diplomatic communication is limited to technical and routine matters. Economic ties have been almost entirely severed, as have cultural and academic exchanges. All of this is compounded by anti-Russian rhetoric from the British side, including through the British media.

The British side is solely responsible for this state of affairs. For a number of years – or, rather, decades – London has deliberately taken destructive steps and has itself been loudly advertising them.

This includes the illegitimate campaign to impose sanctions, launched well before 2022; the dismantling in 2024, amid the European security crisis, of military-diplomatic channels of communication through the expulsion of our defence attaché on a contrived pretext; and the launch in 2025 of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which introduced a discriminatory enhanced-tier regime for those seeking to engage with the Russian state.

All this has been accompanied by an entirely destructive policy on Ukraine, pursued at the cost of Ukrainian lives and the interests of British citizens [...]

By continuing along its current course, the United Kingdom is widening and deepening the conflict, acting in breach of its international legal obligations and contributing to the spread of dangerous military technologies across the continent and around the world.

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🎙 Excerpt from statement by Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Hunger and Conflict

💬 A significant factor destabilising the global food market – one that our Western colleagues prefer to gloss over – is the imposition of illegal unilateral restrictive measures that circumvent the Security Council [...]

Against this backdrop, attempts to hold Russia responsible for volatility in global food prices are wholly untenable. It is even more strange to hear such accusations now, when the Kiev regime is stepping up drone attacks against civilian vessels in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, using unmanned systems and intelligence provided by NATO and EU countries.

In July alone, more than one hundred such attacks were recorded against commercial vessels carrying Russian agricultural products. These strikes by the Ukrainian troops make no military sense and violate international law. They have already caused delays in supplies of grain, oilseeds and feed crops to international importers [...]

Since our Western colleagues are so enthusiastically championing the protection of global trade routes, they should rein in their protégés in Kiev, who are adding fuel to the fire of the food crisis.

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🎙 Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova on Britain's involvement in the Ukraine conflict

💬 The latest developments leave no doubt that all steps taken by the British government are geared towards achieving a single long-term objective – inflicting what they themselves call a “strategic defeat” on our country.

It is all doomed to fail, but London is fully implicated in this.

We have repeatedly warned that Ukrainian strikes against Russian territory using British weapons may be met with attacks on any British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond its borders.

Those responsible for war crimes, including crimes against the civilian population of our country, will be punished in accordance with their deeds. Inevitable retribution will also reach their accomplices and instigators.

We call on all residents of the United Kingdom to consider the inevitable catastrophic consequences of the hostile actions of their own authorities.

As for the British leadership, we urge it once again to carefully assess the situation and immediately, decisively and unambiguously abandon its hostile and aggressive policy, which can only prolong the agony of the Kiev regime and create the risk of the conflict being taken to an entirely new level.

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🏛 An exhibition titled “Crimean Gold: ‘Civilised’ Europe Plunders Russian Treasures” is currently on display at the Consular Section of the Russian Embassy in London.

The exhibition was prepared by the Russian Military Historical Society and focuses on unique Crimean artefacts discovered during archaeological expeditions and kept for many years in the region’s largest museums.

❗️Today, these exhibits are being illegally withheld by Ukraine and its Western allies.

In 2013, four Crimean museums temporarily loaned more than 580 items to the University of Bonn and the Allard Pierson Museum in the Netherlands for the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea”. After Crimea became part of Russia, Ukraine claimed ownership of the collection. Dutch courts ruled that the historical artefacts should be “returned” to Ukraine, rejecting an appeal by the Crimean museums.

🎙 Excerpt from a briefing by Russian MFA Spokesperson Maria Zakharova:

Representatives of the leadership of foreign museums grossly violated their contractual obligations to serve the political interests of unfriendly countries.

At the same time, the corrupted Kiev regime plans to put the Crimean gold into financial and economic circulation. Russia’s historical heritage may soon end up in the collection of a wealthy Western collector or, for example, in the hands of another Ukrainian oligarch-lawmaker.