Day 580 of the Invasion of Ukraine: Russia hits Izmail

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Day 580 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

• Russia struck the Danube port of Izmail from the air
• BBC: Russia seeks to regain seat on UN Human Rights Council
• Moscow declared the head of the international court in The Hague as wanted

Russia struck the Danube port of Izmail from the air

Two people were injured after a Russian airstrike overnight on the key Ukrainian grain export port of Izmail, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram that a port building, storage facilities and more than 30 trucks and cars were damaged in the attack, which lasted more than two hours.

Izmail is a key Danube port to which Ukraine shifted grain exports after Moscow unilaterally pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Corridor deal in July. Since then, the city has been subject to numerous air attacks, mainly targeting its port infrastructure.

Ukraine's military said it shot down 26 of the 38 Iranian strike drones it said were fired by Russia overnight Tuesday.

Separately on Tuesday, a Russian missile strike also damaged a local enterprise in the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said.

Russia said it had repelled several attacks from Ukraine overnight, including against Sevastopol in Crimea, as well as in the Kursk and Belgorod regions bordering Ukraine.

A drone attack by Ukraine against Russia's Kursk caused a power outage in about seven settlements in the region, its governor Roman Starovoit announced.

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defense systems had destroyed a drone launched by Ukraine over Kursk at around 5: 30 a.m.

BBC: Russia seeks to regain seat on UN Human Rights Council

Russia is seeking to regain its seat on the UN Human Rights Council in the upcoming elections in October, seen as an important test of its place on the international stage, the BBC reports.

Russian diplomats are conducting an intensive campaign to restore their country's membership in the Human Rights Council, British public media reported, citing a document circulated among member states of the world organization.

In its position, Moscow pledged to find "appropriate solutions to human rights problems" while also wanting to stop the international human rights body from becoming "an instrument that serves the political will of a group of countries".

Human Rights Watch Deputy European Affairs Director Rachel Denber commented:

"This is definitely a cynical move. Russia is no more eligible for membership in the Council now than it was a year ago when it was expelled because of its atrocities in Ukraine. If anything has changed in that time, it is only towards badly."

The UN General Assembly expelled Russia from the Human Rights Council in April last year following revelations of the killing of civilians by Russian troops in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

On October 10, a vote will be held for two seats in the UN Human Rights Council, allocated to countries from Central and Eastern Europe, with the other two candidate countries being Bulgaria and Albania. The mandate is three years.

In recent weeks, new evidence of human rights violations on the Russian side has been presented by Eric Moss, chairman of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, as well as by the special rapporteur of the world organization Mariyana Katsarova, who drew attention to the "systemic suppression" of civil society in Russia.

Moscow declared the head of the international court in The Hague as wanted

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia has declared the president of the International Criminal Court, Piotr Hofmanski, wanted, Politico reported, citing the ministry's online database.

It is not specified what Hofmanski is wanted for, but it is stated that he is "wanted under an article of the Criminal Code", reports the Russian news agency TASS.

Along with Hofmanski, the ministry also added Vice President of the Court Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza and Judge Bertram Schmitt to the wanted list.

According to Politico, Moscow is retaliating against the Hague-based court, which last March issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the forced transfer of children to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has said it does not recognize the court's authority and responded to the arrest warrant by opening its own criminal case against the court's prosecutors and judges.

Russia has since put several officials at the International Criminal Court on its wanted list, including British prosecutor Karim Khan and judges Tomoko Akane and Rosario Salvatore Aitala, who issued the warrants against Putin and Lvova-Belova.

Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the 123-member court, which deals with crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and genocide.

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