Ukraine Daily

Saturday, July 23

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Russia’s war against Ukraine

Rescuers clear debris from a heavily damaged building in central Vinnytsia on July 15, 2022, a day after a Russian missile struck the city. (Getty Images)

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Ukraine, Russia sign separate agreements with Turkey, UN on grain passage through Black Sea. The agreements envision the use of three Ukrainian ports - Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Yuzhne - to export grain under the supervision of Ukraine, the UN, and Turkey. The agreement doesn’t envision a Russian presence in these ports nor those it allows Russia to escort Ukrainian grain out of the country.

UK Defense Ministry: Russia uses air defense for ground attacks due to lack of missiles. Air defense systems have relatively small warheads that can pose a significant threat to troops in open terrain and light buildings, but are unlikely to penetrate fortified structures. According to UK’s Defense Ministry, there is a high probability the weapon will miss its intended targets and cause civilian casualties, since the missiles are not optimized for ground attacks and the system crews will be poorly trained for the missions.

Russian proxies claim to have blocked Google in occupied parts of eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin-backed proxies in the occupied parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Oblast claimed that the work of Google there was blocked due to its “harassment of Russians, imposition of lies and disinformation,” Russian state-controlled news outlets reported. According to the sources of the Kyiv Independent in the occupied Donetsk, Google can be accessed there, but the access has disappeared in the previous days. Earlier, Russia’s proxies in Luhansk Oblast also announced they were blocking Google.

General Staff: Ukrainian forces repel Russian assault toward Verkhnomianske, Siversk. Ukraine’s military reported that Russian forces fired on villages in Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts. Ukrainian forces also repelled another Russian advance on Vuhlehirsk power plant in Donetsk Oblast.

Zelensky: Freezing the war won’t make Russia give up claims on former Soviet republics. President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Wall Street Journal that the pause would only give Russia a break for rest. “It is a cachalot that has swallowed two regions and now says: Freeze the conflict,“ he said. But in two or three years, it will seize two more regions and will demand to freeze the conflict again, Zelensky added.

Minister: Russia’s war caused $5.5 billion in damage to Ukraine’s environment. According to Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Minister Ruslan Strelets, 2,000 cases of damage to nature have been recorded since Russia’s all-out invasion began on Feb. 24. “Today, Russia is the main environmental terrorist,“ he said.

Armed Forces report destroying Russian artillery division (VIDEO). The Airborne Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine released a video showing an aerial attack that they say destroyed eight 152-mm howitzers Msta-B, personnel of the division, vehicles, ammunition and fortifications of the Russian military in an unspecified location in Ukraine.

Fitch Ratings downgrades Ukraine’s LTFC to ‘high’ risk of default. Credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings forecasts that Ukraine’s economy will shrink 33% in 2022 with a modest recovery of 4% in 2023. It cites Russia’s war as a great stressor on Ukraine’s economy. Ukraine’s rating dropped from a “C” to a “CCC” for its Long-Term Foreign Currency rating, with “default” as the next and lowest possible rating.

Institute for the Study of War: Russian forces conduct localized ground attacks on frontline villages. The U.S. think tank reported on July 22 that Russian forces conducted ground attacks east of Siversk, north of Kharkiv, east and south of Bakhmut, and near the Kherson-Mykolaiv oblast border. Russian forces reportedly failed to advance northwest of Donetsk.

Read our exclusives here

Kyiv Independent defense reporter Illia Ponomarenko inspires custom-designed LEGO figurines. Check it out here.

It’s been nearly a month since U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, had their long-awaited debut in Ukraine, but their combat record is already extensive. Read our story here.

After 10 days of waiting to see if Russia would resume gas supplies through the Nord Stream pipeline, the main route of gas transport from Russia to Germany, following scheduled maintenance and fears among European leaders that gas flows would be cut indefinitely, Russian natural gas began flowing on July 21, although at a reduced volume. Read our story here.

Ukraine and Russia on July 22 signed agreements to resume exports of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, a deal aimed at unblocking crucial grain exports and easing fears of a looming global food crisis. Read our recap here.

Ukraine’s richest man doesn’t want to be called an oligarch anymore. For that, he’s ready to publicly distance himself from politics and relinquish his sway over the domestic media market. Read our story here.

The human cost of Russia’s war

Zelensky: Ukrainian casualties fall to 30 killed soldiers per day. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 100 to 200 soldiers had been killed per day during the peak of hostilities in May and June. Currently, the number of wounded Ukrainian soldiers amounts to 250 daily, he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Russian attack on southern Dnipropetrovsk Oblast kills 1, injures 9. According to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Valentyn Reznichenko, Russian troops launched “a massive rocket attack” and shelled Nikopol twice, killing at least one and injuring another person. Eight more people are injured due to missile strikes on Apostolove, a city between Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih.

3 people killed, 23 injured by Russian shelling of Kharkiv. According to Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov, at least three people were killed and 23 injured by Russia’s shelling on July 21. Five of the wounded are in intensive care.

General Staff: Russia has lost 39,000 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24. Ukraine’s General Staff reported on July 22 that Russia had also lost 1,704 tanks, 3,920 armored fighting vehicles, 863 artillery systems, 251 multiple launch rocket systems, 113 air defense systems, 188 helicopters, 221 airplanes, 713 drones, and 15 boats.

3 bodies found under rubble following Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk. According to the State Emergency Service of Donetsk Oblast, the bodies were discovered under the rubble after Russian forces attacked Kramatorsk with Iskander missiles on July 21, destroying a school.

International response

US announces $270 million military aid package for Ukraine, including HIMARS. The package includes four HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, up to 580 Phoenix Ghost drones, and 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, according to John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications.

EU imposes sanctions against 57 Russian individuals, structures. The 7th package of sanctions includes the mayor of Moscow Serhiy Sobyanin, First Deputy Director of the Federal Security Service Serhiy Korolev, Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard Viktor Strygunov, and organizations like the state bank Sberbank, against which the sanctions were extended, the FORSS group of companies operating in the shipbuilding markets, the rocket and space industry enterprise Kvant, and the Avlita company operating ports.

Official: US may supply fighter jets to Ukraine. John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said that the Pentagon had already started evaluating the possibility of such a move. If the decision is made, Ukraine will not receive the planes in the near future because special training for pilots is required, he said.

Scholz: Germany no longer sees Russia as reliable gas supplier. Russia resumed the flow of natural gas through the Nord Stream pipeline via the Baltic Sea to the EU on July 21 after a 10-day outage. However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that supplies remained unreliable because Russia had limited the pipeline’s capacity to 40%. The moves were interpreted by critics as part of Russia’s efforts to blackmail and intimidate the EU.

Russia adds 5 EU countries to ‘unfriendly’ list. The Russian government included Greece, Denmark, Slovenia, Croatia and Slovakia in the list of “unfriendly countries.” The document limits the number of employees of diplomatic missions of these countries that they can hire in Russia. In March 2022, a few days after the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government compiled a list of “unfriendly countries,” which included a number of European Union states, the United States, the UK, Japan and about 20 other countries.

Lithuania resumes transit of goods to Kaliningrad. Lithuania lifted a ban on rail transport of sanctioned goods to and from Russia’s exclave on July 22, reports Reuters, citing Russian state-controlled media. The EU allowed Russia to continue the transit by rail of sanctioned goods destined for Kaliningrad through the bloc’s territory last week, adding that the transported goods must be inspected. Lithuania suspended the transport of some goods to Russia’s exclave in June due to European sanctions.

In other news

Imagine Dragons become ambassadors for Ukraine’s United24. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on July 22 that the band Imagine Dragons will promote funds supporting medical assistance to Ukraine. The band will start by fundraising for ambulances. According to Zelensky, Imagine Dragons visited Ukraine for the first time in 2018.

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Today’s Ukraine Daily was brought to you by Olga Rudenko, Natalia Datskevych, Oleksiy Sorokin, Oleg Sukhov, Anastasiia Lapatina, Teah Pelechaty, Alisa Soboleva, and Sergiy Slipchenko.

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