Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 517 of the invasion

 

Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 517 of the invasion

 

Russia says it repelled drone attack on patrol boat in Black Sea; Ukraine claims small advance in the Bakhmut area

 

Martin Belam, Guardian staff and agencies

Tue 25 Jul 2023 09.54 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/25/russia-ukraine-war-at-a-glance-what-we-know-on-day-517-of-the-invasion

 

• The Russian ministry of defence has claimed that it destroyed two unmanned Ukrainian boats which were engaged in an attack on one of its Black Sea fleet patrol ships. In a statement the ministry said “In the course of repulsing the attack, both enemy remote-controlled boats were destroyed by fire from the standard weapons of the Russian ship at a distance of 1000m and 800m. There were no casualties. The Sergey Kotov continues to fulfill its tasks.”
• The Ukrainian military on Tuesday reported making small advances against Russian forces in parts of southern Ukraine. Andriy Kovaliov, spokesperson for the armed forces general staff, said Ukrainian troops had moved forward in the direction of the southeastern village of Staromayorske, near settlements recaptured by Ukraine last month in the Donetsk region. He said the Ukrainian troops were reinforcing the positions they had taken, and Russian forces were mounting strong resistance.
• Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that Ukraine is also claiming a territorial gain near Bakhmut having “knocked out the Russian military from positions near Andriivka in the Bakhmut direction.”
• The UN’s atomic watchdog said it saw anti-personnel mines at the site of Ukraine‘s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which is occupied by Russian forces. On 23 July International Atomic Energy Agency experts “saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers,” agency chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Monday. The statement did not say how many mines the team had seen. The devices were in “restricted areas” that operating plant personnel cannot access, Grossi said, adding the IAEA’s initial assessment was that any detonation “should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems”.
• Russian state-owned media Tass reports that Russian forces claim to have destroyed two boats and killed nine service personnel while repulsing another Ukrainian attempt to land on the occupied left-bank of the Dniepr River near the Antonovsky bridge in Kherson.
• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted to social media to say that he has spoken to Rishi Sunak and spoke to the UK’s prime minister about “Russia’s daily attempts to destroy Odesa’s historic centre and port infrastructure”. Ukraine’s president said “Ukraine urgently needs to strengthen its air defence to protect its historical heritage and continue the Black Sea grain initiative.”
• The UK Ministry of Defence has claimed in its daily operational briefing that Russia is targeting Odesa because “it believes Ukraine is storing military assets in these areas”, but claims that “Since the start of the war, Russia’s strike campaign has been characterised by poor intelligence and a dysfunctional targeting process.”
• AP reports, citing US officials, that the Biden administration is sending up to $400m in additional military aid to Ukraine, including a variety of munitions for advanced air defence systems and a number of small, surveillance Hornet drones.
• Russia said it had neutralised two Ukrainian drones over Moscow in the early hours of Monday, with one crashing close to the defence ministry in the city centre. Officials said the drones hit non-residential buildings in the capital and that there were no casualties. The attack came one day after Kyiv vowed to “retaliate” for a Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa. The White House said it does not support attacks inside Russia.
• Almost 30 ships dropped anchor near Ukraine’s crucial Izmail port terminal after Russia attacked grain warehouses on the Danube River on Monday, data showed, although it is unclear why. Monday’s pre-dawn Russian airstrikes wounded seven people and hit infrastructure along the Danube, a vital alternative route for Ukrainian grain since the year-old deal allowing safe exports via the Black Sea ended last week. Kyiv said the attack was an expansion of an air campaign Russia launched recently after pulling out of the grain deal.
• Without providing any evidence, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed the cathedral in Odesa was struck by a Ukrainian air defence missile. Peskov said “Our armed forces never strike at social infrastructure facilities, let alone temples, churches and other similar facilities, so we do not accept such accusations, this is an absolute lie.” Russia reserves the right to take “tough retaliatory measures”, the foreign ministry said, after it accused Ukraine of attacking Moscow and the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula with drones.
• A child was killed and six people wounded in a Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka, according to the region’s governor. Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, wrote on Telegram that Russian forces had fired Smerch rockets at “a local pond, where people were resting”.
• A journalist working for Agence France-Presse news agency was wounded by a Russian drone attack while reporting from a Ukrainian artillery position near the battle-torn eastern city of Bakhmut, according to AFP reporters who witnessed the attack. Dylan Collins, 35, a US citizen based in Lebanon but on assignment in Ukraine, sustained multiple shrapnel injuries in the attack in a forested area near Bakhmut. He was evacuated to a nearby hospital where he was being treated. Doctors have said his condition was not life-threatening.
• The Kremlin on Monday accused Kyiv of carrying out a “deliberate attack on journalists” in Ukraine’s south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region after a reporter for the Russian state news agency RIA was killed. The war correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev was killed in a Ukrainian cluster munition strike, according to RIA. He died from his wounds during an evacuation from a special military operation.