Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 07-16-2024

Soldiers of the 44th Separate Artillery Brigade discovered the self-propelled gun and adjusted fire using the Ukrainian-developed Shark reconnaissance drone.

The “Return Alive” volunteer fund released a video reportedly showing Ukrainian troops destroying a Russian Hyacinth-S 152-mm self-propelled gun 2S5, valued at up to $4 million.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal is likely to resign and parliament to vote for an almost completely new cabinet on Tuesday, a Kyiv Post source in government said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is about to reload his Cabinet of Ministers and seek the resignation of Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, a Kyiv Post parliamentary source said.

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, has been told to be prepared to discuss and vote for a new cabinet on Tuesday, July 23, Kyiv Post's source said. 

Initially placed in a detention facility, Ivan Popov, the popular paratrooper general, has been allowed to await the outcome of an ongoing investigation at home.

A Russian general much liked by frontline troops but accused by Kremlin prosecutors of massive graft and corruption was transferred from a state detention facility to house arrest, the official Russian news agency Vesti reported on Monday.

Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov will remain at his personal residence until prosecutors employed by Moscow’s 235th Military Garrison Court complete an investigation into claims the senior paratrooper officer forged documents and defrauded the state while in command of Russia’s 58th Army, a formation deployed to south Ukraine since February 2022, news reports said.

Rather than worry about what Russia will do, the White House should be concentrating on doing all that it can to guarantee Russia's defeat and Ukraine's victory, Gen. Ben Hodges says.

The former SBU Colonel who was arrested on charges of exceeding his authority after organizing an unsanctioned 2022 attempt to get a Russian pilot to defect failed.

Who is Chervinsky?

Colonel Roman Chervinsky was a counterintelligence officer in the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) who served as the head of Department 5, which was responsible for a series of clandestine operations mounted against individuals in the Russian armed forces.

A spokesperson for the Khortytsia group of troops told Kyiv Post that Russian losses in the Toretsk sector for the week amounted to 1,502 people, including 635 killed, 855 wounded, and 12 POWs.

Russian troops have likely suffered significant losses of equipment and personnel in the Toretsk sector in the Donetsk region.

“Personnel are thrown into ‘meat’ assaults. The wounded and killed are replaced with seconded military personnel,” Atesh reported via Telegram.

Hungary's Finance Minister presented his counterparts with Budapest's priorities during its time at the helm but maintaining the 27-nation bloc's support for Ukraine was noticeably not listed.

EU finance ministers chastised Hungary Tuesday, warning Budapest during angry exchanges in Brussels that aid to Ukraine must remain a priority during its presidency of the bloc. 

Hungary has left its EU counterparts seething after Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Russia's Vladimir Putin this month.

A Ukrainian lawmaker has provided Kyiv Post with an update on the crucial role that Odesa is playing as an outlet for Ukrainian produce.

I would like to share the latest information that shows the continued significant role that Odesa is playing as Ukraine’s major port.

By March 1,140 vessels had passed through the maritime corridor, exporting Ukrainian products to 40 countries around the world. In total, in the first half of 2024, the six active ports of the Odesa region processed 52.7 million tons of cargo compared with 31.3 million tons during the same period in 2023.

Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is creating special units charged with filtering citizens of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Russia’s occupation forces are creating special filtration units in the temporarily occupied territories (ТОТ) of Ukraine, the Center for National Resistance (CNR) reported on Monday, June 15.

It said the units that are being created under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, will carry out checks of the population and equipment, as well as guard filtration camps where they illegally detain Ukrainians suspected of alleged disloyalty to Putin’s regime.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

Donald Trump will quickly demand peace talks between Russia and Ukraine if he wins November’s US presidential election and has developed “well-founded plans” for doing so, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has claimed after private discussions with the Republican candidate. That prospect means the EU should reopen direct diplomatic communication with Russia and start “high-level” negotiations with China to find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine, the Hungarian prime minister said in a private letter to EU leaders following consultations in Moscow and Beijing. Orbán also said in the letter that on the basis of his recent discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the “general observation” was “that the intensity of the military conflict will radically escalate in the near future…We can expect no peace initiative coming from [Trump] until the elections. I can however surely state that shortly after his election victory, he will not wait until his inauguration, but will be ready to act as a peace broker immediately,” Orbán wrote in his letter sent to European Council president Charles Michel and other EU leaders. “He has detailed and well-founded plans for this.” That means the EU should anticipate the shift in US policy, Orbán said, and either embrace the need for immediate negotiations between Russia and Ukraine or take on more responsibility for funding Ukraine’s defence. “I am more than convinced that in the likely outcome of the victory of President Trump, the proportion of the financial burden between the US and the EU will significantly change to the EU’s disadvantage when it comes to the financial support of Ukraine,” Orbán wrote in his letter - FT

Donald Trump has formally announced a running mate who’s opposed to funding Kyiv’s war against Russia. J.D. Vance, a junior senator from Ohio, voted against the supplemental aid package of more than $60 billion to Ukraine. “I remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war,” he wrote in a New York Times OpEd in April. The 39-year-old first term senator was a “never Trump guy” but over the span of about eight years has morphed into one of his strongest surrogates. Reaction to Trump’s VP pick has been mixed. “Trump’s V.P. pick is great news for the wealthiest Americans and lousy news for everyone else,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachussets said on a call with reporters organized by the Biden campaign. “Billionaires on Wall Street and Silicon Valley are cheering, but there is no joy for working people.” In February, Vance used an opinion piece in the FT to call for Europe to take on a larger burden in supporting Ukraine.

Serhiy Kolyada on the emerging new axis of evil boasting that the cards are in its hands. Who will challenge this 'team'?

“They are celebrating in Moscow tonight,” former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger said of Trump’s VP choice, JD Vance.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday announced his pick as a running mate on November’s ticket: Ohio senator JD Vance, a staunch ally of the former president and a confirmed isolationist who has fought against US aid for Ukraine for years.

“I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” Vance said in an episode of Steve Bannon's War Room.

With Trump reaffirming his pro-Moscow line, Biden should delay no longer and promptly hand over the reins to Harris.

Donald Trump has just picked as his running mate Senator J.D. Vance, a fierce and pathological hater of Ukraine and a key organizer of a recent five-month blockade of military deliveries to Ukraine. Vance is unlikely to bring many new votes into Trump’s camp but rather alienate some moderates.

His nomination is a personal challenge to an influential group of Reagan   School republicans (McCaul, Rogers,  Turner) who laid out their vision for the war  in a remarkable document – the “Proposed Plan for Victory in Ukraine.” 

Volunteers sending the cats implied that local Ukrainian cats are eating Russian corpses.

Mice and rat infestations in Russian dugouts have reached an all-time high so a “military-patriotic club” from Kazan is doing their bit for the war effort by sending cats to aid the Russians in their Ukraine invasion.

During the Tatarstan National Television (TNV) telethon “Join the Army of Victory!” on Monday, July 15 members of the Kazan-based “Legend” military-patriotic club (MPC) spoke about the rodent infestation in Russian dugouts and bunkers.

Latest from the British Defence Intelligence.

• The Russian Government is developing a system to prevent potential draftees to the Russian military from leaving the country. On 11 July 2024, the Russian independent media organization Meduza reported that the Russian government is implementing an 'information exchange system' between the Ministry of Defence and the Federal Security Service (FSB\ to pass details of potential conscripts to the FSB Border Guard Service and prevent them fleeing the country. Reportedly the system is to be fully functional before the Autumn 2024 draft. Russia carries out two conscription drafts each year, drafting in over 250,000 personnel annually to serve one year of compulsory military service
• Hundreds of thousands of Russians left the country after the announcement of a partial mobilisation in 2022 and these were disproportionately concentrated among the young and highly educated, causing knock on effects to the labour market. The implementation of this system is likely intended to prevent a smaller scale repeat of this during the annual draft cycle, and in the event of a further wave of mobilisation.

The Ministry of Defence announced that the "Strategic Defence Review" will start immediately due to urgent threats facing the UK and aims to deliver a report by mid-2025.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer -- just back from a NATO summit -- launched on Tuesday a review of Britain's armed forces to set out a path to increasing defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP.

The ministry of defence said the "Strategic Defence Review" would begin work "immediately in recognition of the urgency of the threats facing the UK", and aim to deliver a report in the first half of 2025.

Controlling the skies is crucial to winning wars. The new NATO commitments in planes and air defense systems will provide Ukraine with an opening. But where is the “clear path” to victory?

Almost 30 months into the full-scale war, and despite the daily destruction and carnage from the sky, Ukraine is still fending off the world’s third-largest air power with little more than a handful of aging Soviet aircraft, largely depleted Soviet anti-air batteries (ABMs) and an entirely insufficient array of donated air defense equipment. Added to the insufficient and untimely support Ukraine was provided in holding back the second-largest land power in the world, it is a wonder that Ukraine still stands. Even Ukraine’s flat, sparsely forested terrain fails to offer the protection of Afghan mountains, Finnish marshlands, or Vietnamese rainforests.

But now that several of Ukraine’s European allies have taken the lead in offering F-16 fighter jets, and more air defense systems have been promised at the NATO summit, Putin is worried that Ukrainians may recover more control over their skies. Russians are now searching and targeting Ukrainian air bases more frequently to forestall the arrival of the new aircraft. There is every indication that Putin needs a pause in the fighting to replenish his own forces but will not cede control of the territory he now holds. A defense line of 1,200 kilometers rings that territory, and crossing that line has proven to be very costly to Ukrainian personnel and equipment.

The Ukrainian military told Reuters in a written statement that the conscription rate had more than doubled in May and June compared to the previous two months, without providing the figures.

Seeing the military patrol handing out call-up papers on the outskirts of Kyiv, one man slipped into a nearby store. Another refused to even stop for the officers. Others, however, quietly obliged.

While men may be coming round to Ukraine’s ramped-up mobilisation drive to replenish troop numbers more than 28 months since Russia’s invasion, they are less eager to fight than before, said a draft officer, who uses the call sign “Fantomas”.

And independent analyst tracking destroyed and abandoned equipment concluded that the Russians have lost at least 100 of their newest model tanks.

Russian troops have lost their hundredth T-90M Proryv (“Breakthrough”) tank, which Russian President Vladimir Putin regards as one of the most advanced models in his army, according to an analyst from the Oryx portal.

Based on open sources, the analyst counted 100 destroyed and damaged T-90M tanks using available photos and video materials.

During a press conference in Kyiv following his visit to the United States for a NATO defense alliance summit, Zelensky opened the door to direct talks with officials from Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that Russia should be represented at a second summit aiming to secure lasting peace with the Kremlin, after more than two years of war.

Both sides have shunned direct peace talks since negotiations between Russian and Ukraine delegations fell through in the early weeks of Russia's invasion launched in February 2022.

Ukraine should prepare for money to become more expensive until the war ends. Partners should slam Russia with sanctions without giving Moscow time to adapt, economist Yuriy Gorodnichenko says.

Some Ukrainian economists call Yuriy Gorodnichenko a legend.

He edited the Review of Economics and Statistics and Journal of Monetary Economics and is now coediting the American Economic Review. He is also an affiliated scholar at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). 

No one was injured in the incident. The facade and windows of the building were damaged, the regional police service said.

Ukrainian officials said Monday a hunt was underway for an individual suspected of throwing a grenade at a military recruitment office in the west of the country.

An expanded military recruitment drive has sparked anger and fear in Ukraine, where dozens of military-aged men have been caught illegally fleeing the country and recruitment officers say they receive abuse from the public.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• A recent Ukrainian poll indicates that Ukrainians widely reject Russia's demands for total Ukrainian capitulation, emphasizing that the Kremlin's conditions for the end of the war are entirely unreasonable and widely unpopular within Ukraine.
• Ukraine continues to demonstrate its willingness to negotiate with Russia on Ukraine’s own terms, and Ukraine’s demands for a peace settlement are in accordance with international law — in direct contrast to Russia’s unwillingness to engage in negotiations that end in anything short of full Ukrainian surrender.
• European Union (EU) officials continue to take steps to demonstrate the EU’s non-alignment with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s political stances concerning the war in Ukraine.
• The Russian government proposed to significantly increase the number of conditions on which the Russian government can designate a person as a terrorist or extremist, likely as part of efforts to censor criticisms about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• Ukrainian forces conducted drone strikes against Russian energy infrastructure overnight on July 14 to 15 and reportedly also hit Russian military assets in occupied Crimea.
• A new Russian migrant assimilation program highlights the apparent struggle the Russian government is facing with reconciling aspects of its policy towards Central Asian migrants as the Russian state desires to present itself as welcoming and multicultural while also emphasizing the primacy of Russian language and historical legacy.
• Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov is posturing himself and the North Caucasus as key to Russia's outreach to the Arab world.
• Ukrainian forces recently regained lost positions near Toretsk, and Russian forces recently advanced near Toretsk and Avdiivka.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized ongoing Russian efforts to integrate the metallurgy industry in occupied Ukraine into Russia's defense industrial base (DIB).