Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

2/2 © Reuters. Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, Iran July 19, 2022. President Website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS 2/2

(Reuters) - The top official in Russian-annexed Crimea said on Wednesday that the FSB security service had broken up what he described as a six-person terrorist cell of a banned Islamist group, a day after explosions rocked one of Russia's military bases there.

FIGHTING

* Two civilians were killed and seven wounded in shelling by Russian forces in the last 24 hours, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, said on Telegram.

* Russia's Black Sea fleet based in annexed Crimea has installed a new commander, RIA news agency cited sources as saying on Wednesday, after Russian military bases on the peninsula were rocked by explosions in the past nine days.

* Ukrainian technicians at the Russian-held nuclear power plant hit by shelling work under the barrels of Russian guns and face huge pressure, but they are staying on to make sure there is no Chornobyl-style disaster, one of them said.

* Reuters could not confirm battlefield reports independently.

DIPLOMACY

* Wary of frustration among some countries that the war is consuming too much global attention nearly six months in, Western diplomats face difficulty in trying to sustain international resolve to isolate Russia diplomatically.

* U.N. Secretary-General Guterres will meet Ukrainian President Zelenskiy in Lviv in western Ukraine to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, along with finding a political solution to the conflict, a spokesman said.

* North Korea and the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine will develop "equally beneficial bilateral cooperation", Donetsk leader Denis Pushilin said in a letter to Kim Jong Un, North Korean state media reported on Wednesday.

ECONOMY

* Ukraine expects five ships to arrive at its Chornomorsk Black Sea port on Wednesday for loading with more than 70,000 tonnes of agricultural products, the largest convoy so far under a U.N.-brokered grain export deal.

* Russia forecasts its average export gas price will more than double this year to $730 per 1,000 cubic meters before gradually falling until the end of 2025, as pipeline gas exports decrease, an economy ministry forecast seen by Reuters showed.

* Ukraine's state nuclear power company Energoatom said Russian-based hackers carried out a three-hour attack on its website but had not caused significant problems.