Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 07-17-2024

A Russian soldier, an agent of the Ukrainian partisans, reported about the Sevastopol training center where he was trained – allegedly a school for divers.

The Atesh partisan movement has discovered a secret training center for the Russian Armed Forces and the location of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) in Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula.

An Atesh agent from the Russian army provided information about the Sevastopol training center, which is thought to be a school for divers, Atesh said.

The Council’s legal service told EU envoys last week that Budapest’s actions could constitute a breach of the bloc’s treaties.

European Council President Charles Michel issued a stinging reply to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Tuesday (16 July) to “set the record straight” on his rogue diplomacy over Ukraine, as the EU’s boycott of meetings under the country’s EU presidency continues to widen.

Michel’s letter, seen by Euractiv, comes a day before EU ambassadors are expected to raise the issue informally on Wednesday (17 July) as part of preparations for next week’s meeting of EU foreign ministers.

The Russians are using guided air bombs and carrying out airstrikes in the Toretsk sector.

Russia plans to reinforce its units with two additional brigades for active offensive operations in the Donetsk region’s Toretsk sector, Nazar Voloshyn, spokesperson for the Khortytsia operational and strategic group of troops, told Kyiv Post.

The average number of brigades ranges from 1,000 to 8,000 people, but sometimes there are even more.

Russia’s Economy has been on a temporary “sugar high,” but now the high is coming down to reality, economist Volodymyr Lugovskyy tells Kyiv Post’s Jason Smart.

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

Today’s World Briefing blog comes to you from Amsterdam, where the tenth anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 will be commemorated at a somber event near Schiphol Airport. The Boeing 777 enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a Russian Buk missile over eastern Ukraine with 298 souls aboard. I was part of the team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which first responded to the tragedy, arriving some 20 hours after Flight MH17 was struck at 33,000 feet on July 17, 2014. As CNN’s John Avalon later put it: the attack on MH17 would be remembered as one of the two “defining crimes of our time” – the other being the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad in Turkey. For the Netherlands it was considered “the biggest war crimes scene since the Second World War,” Dutch TV journalist Jeroen Akkermans said.

US authorities were warned about a potential assassination plot against former President Donald Trump by Iran weeks before the deadly shooting at Saturday’s rally — underscoring concerns about the level of protection that the presidential candidate was given, according to a report. Although there is no known connection between Thomas Matthew Crooks and the Iranian republic — considered a rogue state by the US government — advance knowledge of such a threat appears wildly out of alignment with Trump’s level of protection at the Butler, Pa., rally. The Trump campaign declined to address the outlet’s inquiry whether it was aware of the threat, but the Secret Service has “added protective resources and capabilities to the former President’s security detail,” agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement. - NY Post

Ukrainian missile forces reportedly launched ATACMS with at least four M39 cluster ballistic missiles at Russian anti-aircraft positions on the outskirts of Mariupol.

Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU), Oleksandr Syrsky, announced a successful strike on a Russian S-300 anti-missile system near Mariupol in the occupied Donetsk region.

A German officer said they assumed some flew with “unfriendly intentions” but decided to simply incorporate them into the training to caution Ukrainian troops of the real dangers on the battlefield.

As unknown drones swarmed over a German training base for Ukrainian soldiers, German officers acknowledged difficulties in countering them and instead incorporated them into the training.

As reported by Politico, drones of unknown origin continued to buzz over the tree lines of a secret training location outside Berlin, but German Lt Col Roland Bösker said while they assumed some flew with “unfriendly intentions,” it’s impossible to jam every single one of them.

In total, 3,405 Ukrainians have been returned home in prisoner swaps since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv reports.

Ninety-five Ukrainian defenders were returned from Russian captivity on Wednesday, July 17 President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“We continue to bring our people home...These are soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, and border guards,” Zelensky said. “No matter how difficult it may be, we are looking for everyone who may be in captivity. We have to return everyone.”

The Mayor said the city, which launched its first underground school earlier this year, was allocating its funds for the new schools to make headway as soon as possible.

The city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, which has been shelled almost daily by Russian forces, will build a series of schools underground to protect children, city officials said Wednesday.

The second-largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv lies just several dozen kilometres from the border with Russia, whose forces have pummelled the city with artillery since the start of the invasion in early 2022.

Ongoing summer doldrums

The summer lull in the government bond market continues, and the Ministry of Finance has attracted slightly below UAH5bn from UAH bonds for the second consecutive week.

Demand again concentrated on 14-month paper. The Ministry got 24 bids for UAH7.5bn vs a UAH4bn cap. Most of the demand was at interest rates below last week's cut-off rate or in non-competitive bids (satisfied at the weighted average rate). So, although the cut-off rate remained at 14.7%, the weighted average rate decreased by 4bp to 14.66%.

Kyiv’s abandonment of Krynky village marked a possible end to months of attempts by Ukrainian forces to hold liberated territory on the left/south bank of the Dnipro River and expand it.

Ukrainian Marines have evacuated a key bridgehead village on the left/south bank of the Dnipro River, in a tactical defeat for Kyiv’s campaign to liberate and hold ground in the strategically critical southern sector, Wednesday news reports said.

The village of Krynky, opposite the major city of Kherson, was first grabbed by Ukrainian amphibious troops in a dramatic river-crossing operation in mid-October 2023.

Initial reports said the deceased was the head of an elite military training delegation from Pyongyang that arrived in recent weeks following Moscow and Pyongyang’s new security pact.

A member of a North Korean delegation reportedly drowned while swimming in a lake near Moscow.

According to the Russian Telegram channel SHOT, the deceased was 64-year-old Kim Geum Chol, a representative of a Korean agricultural enterprise. It said Kim stayed at the North Korean embassy in Moscow and went for a swim in a lake in Zelenograd, a suburb some 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of Moscow, due to the intense heat and disappeared.

"In the end, we were unable to put anyone behind bars," Dutch PM Dick Schoof told NOS on the eve of the MH17 disaster's tenth anniversary. "Justice is there, but not as it should have been."

The world reacted with horror 10 years ago when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The crash came in the early stages of a war in which Moscow seized the Crimean Peninsula from Kyiv and stoked an insurgency by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine's east.

Only adult men in armored vehicles, with weapons, body armor, and helmets will be allowed in 14 settlements.

Access to 14 villages in the Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine, will be restricted due to “Ukrainian shelling,” according to a Telegram statement by the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov.

“We intend to limit access to 14 areas where the operational situation is extremely difficult,” Gladkov wrote, emphasizing the need to “take maximum security measures.”

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has returned a large amount of surplus ammunition to the Armed Forces, which had been sent to enterprises for disposal before Russia's full-scale invasion.

Ukraine is providing its under-resourced military with munitions that had been sent to be scrapped before Russian forces invaded the country in February 2022, authorities said Tuesday.

Kyiv has been appealing to its allies abroad for more weapons and ammunition to help it fend off better equipped and more numerous Russian forces that have been gaining ground in the east of the country.

Although the government has introduced new procedures with the revised mobilization law, bureaucratic stumbling blocks still complicate matters.

July 16 marked the end of the 60-day grace period for all conscripts in Ukraine to update their military data, as required by the new mobilization law that came into force on May 18.

Following the deadline, those who did not update their military registration are subject to fines and certain civil restrictions.

Commenting on India’s PM’s Moscow visit President Zelensky said it was a “huge disappointment” to “see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world's most bloody criminal in Moscow.”

Ukrainian PM Denys Shmygal announced a new cartridge factory and Colt CZ Group assault rifle production in Ukraine during a press conference with Czech PM Petr Fiala.

Kyiv and Prague have agreed to launch joint production of assault rifles and ammunition components inside Ukraine, the countries' prime ministers said Tuesday following talks in the Czech Republic.

Ukraine has been working to develop its own fledgling arms industry to reduce its dependence on Western military aid since Russian forces invaded in 2022.

Russia’s Putin has much in common with Nazi Germany's Führer, from his path to consolidated power to having his own distorted view of history and possessing a desire to fulfill his fateful destiny.

Democracy in the world has declined every year since 2005, according to authoritative Freedom House, while democracy progressed from 1974 to 2004 in Samuel Huntington’s famous “Third Wave.” Unfortunately, this time looks more like the 1930s, which makes many scrutinize why it went so bad then. Then, the greatest advocate of dictatorship was Adolf Hitler. Today it is Vladimir Putin. A study of Hitler can actually tell us quite a lot about Putin and today’s Russia?

A seminal book about German politics from 1933 to 1945, is the 1987 book Der Führerstaat by the German history professor Norbert Frei. [Norbert Frei, Der Führerstaat: Nationalsozialistische Herrtschaft 1933 bis 1945, München: Beck, 2013.] The further time proceeded, the more similar the rules of Hitler and Putin appeared.

The word "war" was banned initially but has reappeared in official language, including Putin's, describing what he claims is a war by Ukraine and the West against Russia.

Euphemisms to talk about the dead, military jargon, patriotic poems and self-censorship: two and a half years of fighting in Ukraine have had an impact on Russian language and literature.

On February 24, 2022, President Vladimir Putin announced a "Special Military Operation" -- referred to by its Russian acronym as "SVO".

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukrainian drone strikes deep within Russia continue to pressure Russia's air defense umbrella and force the Russian military command to prioritize allocating limited air defense assets to cover what it deems to be high-value targets.
• Ukrainian forces continue targeting Russian air defense systems in occupied Ukraine and in Russia’s border areas to set conditions to field F-16 fighter jets following their anticipated Summer-Fall 2024 arrival to Ukraine.
• The Russian 235th Garrison Military Court released former 58th Combined Arms Army (CAA) Major General Ivan Popov from pre-detention on July 15 center and placed him under house arrest until October 11.
• Armenian police detained another Russian citizen in Armenia, likely at the request of Russian authorities, amid deteriorating Armenian-Russian political and security relations.
• An investigation by Russian opposition outlet The Bell found that approximately 650,000 people left Russia following the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and have not returned.
• Russian forces recently advanced northwest of Avdiivka.
• The Russian government is continuing to improve Russia's bureaucratic mobilization and conscription systems.