Sixth month of heroic resistance of Ukraine against Russian military invasion

Key updates on the war against Ukraine as of July 29, 2022

#ArmUkraineNow

DESTRUCTION AND LOSSES

📌 Russian invaders showed a video of a burnt-out barracks in a colony in Olenivka, where 53 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, including Azov fighters. Propagandists claim that the hut burned down as a result of rocket fire from the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the HIMARS MLRS.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated that the Russians themselves deliberately fired on the Olenivsky pre-trial detention center of the so-called “DPR”, where Ukrainian prisoners of war died. The commander of the Rocket Forces and Artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the Ukrainian troops did not shell Olenivka, as they strike only at Russian military facilities.

📌The Russian Armed Forces have deported 5,100 Ukrainian children to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion. 

📌More than 1051 children were affected by the Russian armed aggression in Ukraine. 358 children were killed, and another 693 were wounded.

📌 Russia has already destroyed at least 183 places of worship in 14 regions of Ukraine. These are churches, mosques, synagogues, educational and administrative buildings of religious communities. Among the damaged buildings are 173 Christian, 5 Muslim and 5 Jewish. The largest number of such destructions occurred in Donetsk (45), Luhansk (40), Kyiv (34), and Kharkiv (25) regions.

📌 Early in the morning on July 28, the Russians launched about 25 missiles from the territory of Belarus into the territory of Ukraine. Operational command “Pivnich” reports 9 hits on the territory of the village Chernihiv region, which fell into the forest. The air defense system also worked. Explosions were also heard in the Kyiv region, it is reported that a missile hit an infrastructure facility in the Vyshgorod district.

📌On July 23, the Russian military shelled Kropyvnytskyi, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and the Dnipropetrovsk region at night and in the morning. In Kharkiv, the central part of the city was struck. So far, it is known about one injured person. It is also known about the killed and injured in the Kirovograd region. Russia struck Mykolaiv with six missiles. There were no casualties.

📌ODESA REGION:

• On July 23, the Russians attacked the Odesa Sea Port with Kalibr-type cruise missiles. Two of the missiles were shot down by air defense, and two more hit infrastructure facilities of the port. There were no casualties and significant damage, rockets hit the pumping station, and a small fire broke out. Windows were broken in neighboring houses.

An agreement between Russia, Türkiye, the United Nations, and Ukraine, which provides for the possibility of exporting grain from the ports of Ukraine by sea, went into effect today at noon.

Half an hour before the treaty came into force, the Russians attacked one of the ports from which the grain was to be exported.

• In the morning of July 26, the Russians attacked the village of Zatoka in the Odesa region.

📌LUHANSK REGION:

• The occupational authorities have transported about 70,000 tons of grain from the Luhansk region. The two largest regional agrarian companies ‘Nibulon” and “Agroton” have almost harvested the grain, but an enterprise from the Russian region of Kuban has “nationalized” the harvest. 

📌DONETSK REGION:

• On July 24, the Russians destroyed two more schools, in Kostyantynivka and Bakhmut. In Novodmytrivka, the enemy destroyed a kindergarten.
• On July 27, the Russians again hit a private sector of Kramatorsk with the Smerch multiple rocket launchers. Part of the missile ended up right in the middle of a resident’s room. Also, they hit a hotel in Bakhmut. One man was killed. The other man was hospitalized.

• The occupation authorities have stopped providing humanitarian aid in Mariupol. “This is yet another mockery of the residents to force them to go to the humiliating and sometimes dangerous work of debris removal and city demining,” said the Mariupol City Council.
• On July 28, the Russians shelled the town of Bakhmut four times with Uragan multiple rocket launchers. At least three people killed and three wounded are known. Six apartment buildings and six private houses were damaged.

📌KHARKIV REGION:

• On July 25, the Russian military again shelled the Kharkiv region during the night. In the town of Chuhuiv, overnight shelling destroyed a school and a house of a culture where civilians were staying. Currently, it is known about the wounded 46-year-old woman and three people who are under the rubble. 
• On July 28, the invaders continue to terrorize Kharkiv. The blow fell on Gorky Park, beloved by the townspeople, where outbuildings were damaged.
• The Russian military ordered libraries in the occupied part of the Kharkiv region to make a register of all Ukrainian books published after 1991 and then destroy them.
• In the morning of July 29, Russian forces have carried out two strikes on central Kharkiv, targeting, in particular, a building of one of Kharkiv’s universities.

📌 MYKOLAIV REGION:

• On July 23, the occupiers treacherously fired rockets at one of the sleeping areas of Mykolaiv. A residential building was damaged, people were under the rubble, a 16-year-old child was injured.
• On July 24, photos of the consequences of shelling of Mykolaiv. As a result of the morning shelling of the city, five people were injured, among them a teenager. One of the city’s schools was almost completely destroyed. A lot of buildings were damaged by fire and shock waves.

On July 26, the Russian invaders struck the Mykolaiv region with 18 missiles. They fired twelve S-300-type missiles and six X-59 missiles from strategic aircraft. The Russian invaders hit a critical infrastructure facility and a motor transport enterprise in Mykolaiv.

On July 28, the invaders launched another attack on Mykolaiv. As a result of night shelling, a secondary school was completely destroyed in the city, a yacht club, a warehouse of an agro-industrial enterprise, and outbuildings were damaged. A school security guard was injured.

230 hectares of wheat crops were destroyed as a result of overnight shelling in the Mykolaiv region.

• On the morning of 29 July, Russian forces used cluster munitions to shell a district in the city of Mykolaiv. A shelling has just taken place near a bus stop. Thirteen people have been injured and five have been killed.

📌 KHERSON REGION:

• On July 26, The Mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, reported that the Russians had pulled about 80 units of equipment toward Kherson.

📌DNIPROPETROVSK REGION:

• On July 25, the Russian troops attacked the Dnipropetrovsk region several times during the night. They shelled the Nikopol district with multiple rocket launchers – six houses were damaged and a 10-year-old girl was wounded. The Russians fired two rockets at the Dnipro district. They hit an agricultural enterprise. A fire broke out there, which has already been extinguished. No one was injured.
• On July 26, the Russians fired up to 100 shells from multiple rocket launchers at Nikopol. One person was killed, and one was wounded. Russian shells damaged 11 private houses. 

In three communities in the region, the Russians hit warehouses, the private sector, and urban infrastructure. Rockets hit a transformer, leaving several villages without electricity. Eight people were injured, three schools were destroyed, and several houses were damaged.

📌KIROVOHRAD REGION

• On July 23, the Russians fired 13 missiles at the Kirovohrad region in the morning – they hit the Kanatove air base and one of the Ukrzaliznytsia facilities, killing at least three people and injuring nine.
• As a result of the rocket attack on Kropyvnytskyi on July 28, five people were killed. 25 people were injured, including 12 military personnel and 13 civilians.

📌 “Russia has essentially launched a new type of global hybrid war,” Macron said at a press conference in Benin. Macron believes that Russia is using information, energy and food as a weapon.

📌Poles spent about $2 billion on helping refugees from Ukraine — Polish Economic Institute estimates. The scale of this and its material value is difficult to estimate due to its largely unregistered nature. The results of the study showed that 77% of Poles took part in various forms of support for Ukrainians.

📌 This is how Russia’s propaganda ideas about the war against Ukraine changed. 

RUSSIAN AND BELORUSSIAN CONTEXT 

⚠️ In the Russian Federation, medical personnel are being mobilized due to a large number of wounded occupiers in hospitals – Ukrainian intelligence.

⚠️️The Russian Federation and Iran signed an agreement with Iranian repair centers on spare parts and aircraft equipment export  — a representative of the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran (CAO IRI). They also discussed the provision of repair and maintenance services for Russian aircraft.

⚠️️ The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the holding of the first large-scale strategic exercises since the beginning of the war. The Vostok-2022 strategic command and staff exercise will take place from August 30 to September 5 in the Eastern Military District.

⚠️️ Russia created concentration camps for those who refused to participate in the war against Ukraine – Russian human rights activist Oleksiy Tabalov. One of the camps for conscientious objectors was set up in the occupied city of Brianka, Luhansk region. A similar camp for the Russian military was created in the Kherson region. Photos of Russian servicemen in camps in the occupied territories were published by Russian human rights activists.

⚠️️ In the first days of the new stage of the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin used the term “denazification”. This very word was to become the key to explaining the reasons for the large-scale aggression. In fact, denazification is necessary for Russia itself.

⚠️️Ukrainian Intelligence: Russia is involving civilian pilots and other personnel of Russian state airlines in the war with Ukraine. Crews of An-124-100 and Il-76 MD civilian aircraft have repeatedly transported Russian military personnel, weapons and equipment to participate in the war against Ukraine.

DEFENSE UPDATES

📌 On July 28 the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reports that Turkish warships (2 frigates and a submarine) have entered the Black Sea. Corridors for grain ships officially announced.

📌On July 27, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the villages of Andriivka and Lozove in the Kherson region. Four enemy strongholds near Andriivka, Bilohirka, and Blahodatne were hit.  The Ukrainian Armed Forces also struck the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson during the night. The occupation authorities announced that traffic on the bridge was blocked. The Antonovsky Bridge is important as it allowed the Russian military to transport weapons and equipment.

📌 The US Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling on the State Department to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism due to its actions in Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, and Chechnya. The Senate resolution is advisory in nature, but puts pressure on the Joe Biden administration to include Russia on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, writes The New York Times.

📌Russia’s GDP fell by 4.9% in June, — Ministry of Economy of the Russian Federation. The decline in the economy is accelerating, in May it was 4.3%, and in April — 2.8%.  In general, GDP in the second quarter decreased by 4%.

📌 The White House said more than 75,000 Russians were killed and wounded in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “We’ve been told that more than 75,000 Russians have either been killed or more than 80% of their ground forces are bogged down and tired,” Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin told CNN.

📌 Estimated losses of the Russian Federation Army in Ukraine:

📌European Union extended sanctions against Russia for another six months. “The Council of the European Union decided today to extend the restrictive measures currently in force in relation to certain sectors of the Russian economy for a period of six months, until January 31, 2023,” a press release said.

📌32 Ukrainian volunteer drivers were released from captivity. They were delivering humanitarian aid to civilians from Zaporizhzhia to Mariupol and were captured by the Russian military. They were illegally detained for more than three months in the occupied village of Olenivka, Donetsk region.

📌On July 28,  the President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda arrived in Kyiv.

📌According to Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Tanja Fajon, the delegation arrived in Kyiv to express political and practical support for Ukraine and its courageous people. Tanja Fajon also visited Irpin, which was under the occupation of the Russian invaders.

📌On July 27 the Joint Coordination Center for the export of grain from Ukraine took place in Istanbul. Along with the representatives of Türkiye, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation, the UN diplomats worked in the Coordination Center. With the help of the Center, it was planned to inspect vessels that will take part in the grain export from the three Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea – Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi.

📌 The Armed Forces of Ukraine have worked out simultaneously on two important logistical facilities for the invaders in the south – the Antonovsky Bridge and the railway bridge.

📌Ukrainian military intelligence publishes leaflets that local partisans put up in temporarily occupied Kherson. They have inscriptions about HIMARS and that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are near.

📌Latvia has applied to the International Court of Justice to participate in the case of Ukraine against Russia on genocide — the judge of the European Court of Human Rights from Ukraine Hanna Yudkivska.

📌Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed 50 Russian ammunition depots with the help of HIMARS. “This cuts off their logistics chains and makes it impossible to conduct active military operations and cover our armed forces with heavy artillery shelling,” Oleksiy Reznikov said.

📌Russia lost at least $17 billion worth of equipment during the full-scale invasion.

📌On July 22, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN signed an agreement on grain exports. Control over the ports “Odesa”, “Chernomorsk” and “Yuzhny” remains with the Ukrainian side. The presence in these ports of other ships, except for those that are designed to ensure the export of grain and related food products and fertilizers, is not provided. The grain agreement will be valid for 120 days with the possibility of extension. It will allow unblocking three Ukrainian ports.

PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT OF UKRAINE

📌 Italy expects to completely phase out Russian gas from 2024, said the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani – ANSA.

📌Baykar will give Bayraktar to Ukraine for free, for which the Poles raised money. “22.5 million zlotys, which were intended for the drone, will go to humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and

1.8 million zlotys, which were collected in excess of the required amount, will be transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Serakovsky said.

📌 The world’s largest chemical concern BASF has closed its projects in Russia and Belarus, the company reports. Assets in the amount of 51 million euros were depreciated, as well as provisions for liabilities to customers, suppliers, and employees in the amount of 27 million euros.

📌 The United States will transfer six F-22 Raptor fighters from Alaska to Poland, writes Stars and Stripes, citing the US Air Force.

📌Deputy official representative of the German government Christiani Hofmann said that the latest IRIS-T air defence systems will be delivered to Ukraine before the end of this year.

📌The Poles launched a fundraiser for three evacuation helicopters for Ukraine. The first announced purchase concerns three Mi2AM1 helicopters.

📌The International Table Tennis Federation suspended the national teams of Russia and Belarus from participation in the World Championship.

📌Poland purchases about 1,000 tanks, more than 600 artillery pieces, and dozens of fighter jets from South Korea. The Polish Ministry of National Defense has clarified that part of this equipment will replace what was handed over to Ukraine. Poland expects the first 180 tanks to arrive this year.

📌 The United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved the treatment of wounded Ukrainian soldiers at the U.S. military hospital in Germany

📌The United States has allocated $100 million for the training of Ukrainian pilots.

📌British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has awarded President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky with the Sir Winston Churchill Prize. Also President Zelensky received a special Dutch Independence Award. 

📌 The Finnish parliament banned the issuance of tourist visas to Russians.

📌The European Investment Bank is providing Ukraine with €1.59 billion in financial assistance to restore critically damaged infrastructure and meet energy needs.

📌The first Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun from Germany arrived in Ukraine. Three Gepard vehicles are already in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 

📌During the second Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen, 120 million UAH were collected for ambulances for Ukraine. The key purpose of the event was to discuss the post-war future of Ukraine and the world. The event was attended by 23 first ladies.

📌The Polish military portal Defense24, in cooperation with WB Electronics, the Ukrainian Embassy in the Republic of Poland, and the Warsaw Enterprise Institute (WEI) fund, has begun raising funds for Polish-made Warmate barrage ammunition.

📌The initiative group wants to raise PLN 5 million, which will allow them to purchase 20 drones.

📌First Lady of Lithuania Diana Nausėdienė arrived in Kyiv. Today the Second Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen will be held as part of the initiative of Olena Zelenska.

📌The Council of the European Union approved a new tranche of EUR 500 million for Ukraine to strengthen support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in defence of the Russian Federation’s aggression.

📌The largest port in Europe is closed to Russia. The port of Rotterdam has suspended sending and receiving containers from the Russian Federation. 

📌Creative director of Balenciaga Demna Gvasalia became an ambassador of the Ukrainian fundraising platform UNITED24 in the direction of “Rebuilding Ukraine” to help temporarily displaced persons.

📌Ukraine will receive ten armored vehicles, protective equipment, ammunition, and anti-drones from Lithuania.