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LAST UPDATE | 12 Jul 2022
UKRAINE SAID IT had launched artillery barrages that destroyed a Russian arms depot and carried out a “special operation” to free military captives in the Moscow-controlled Kherson region.
The bombardments in the south came as Washington and the EU announced nearly $3 billion combined for Ukraine, and Turkey said delegations from Moscow and Kyiv would meet in Istanbul Wednesday to discuss restarting stalled grain deliveries across the Black Sea.
Ukrainian military officials said the strikes had destroyed artillery, armoured vehicles “and a warehouse with ammunition” in the town of Nova Kakhovka.
Russian-backed authorities accused Ukraine, however, of damaging civilian infrastructure and killing at least seven people, a toll that could not be independently verified.
“Warehouses were hit, as were shops, a pharmacy, petrol stations and even a church,” the head of the city’s Moscow-backed administration, Vladimir Leontiev, said on social media.
Ukrainian military intelligence said separately its forces had freed five captives in a “special operation” in Kherson, including a military serviceman and former police officer, without specifying when.
The Ukrainian army has for several weeks been waging a counter-offensive to recapture Kherson, which was taken by Russian troops early in the invasion of Ukraine.
The deputy head of the pro-Russian authorities in Kherson, Ekaterina Gubareva, said Ukraine had used long-range, precision artillery systems supplied by the United States in the strikes in Nova Kakhovka.
Western financial aid
Military analysts are crediting newly arrived systems from the West – including HIMARS from the United States – with attacks deeper into Russian-controlled territory across the front line.
EU member states, which have been supplying Ukraine with military support, on Tuesday approved €1 billion in financial help for Kyiv, billing it as the first instalment of a promised nine-billion-euro rescue package agreed in May.
The United States separately announced $1.7 billion for Ukraine to help fund recovery.
“This aid will help Ukraine’s democratic government provide essential services for the people of Ukraine,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said of the funds that are part of a $7.5 billion aid package signed by President Joe Biden in May.
Moscow was striking back across Ukraine, with officials in the southern city of Mykolaiv saying Russian forces had bombed two medical facilities and homes, injuring 12 people.
Five people were injured in Russian shelling on Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, said regional governor Oleg Synegubov, after strikes the previous day left seven dead across that region.
But the heaviest fighting in recent weeks has centred on the Donbas where Moscow’s forces have slowly advanced under fierce resistance since failing to capture Kyiv after the 24 February invasion.
Ukrainian emergency services said the death toll had risen to 45, two days after Russian bombardment flattened a residential building in the eastern town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk region of the Donbas.
In Bakhmut – one of the few remaining cities under Ukrainian control in Donbas – AFP journalists could hear nearby artillery fire.
Upcoming grain talks
“The front is getting closer,” said municipal official, Dmytro Podkuyidko, estimating that more than one-third of the town’s population of 73,000 have fled.
“If it gets worse, I’ll end up leaving too,” Podkuyidko said.
Turkey announced meanwhile that Russian and Ukrainian delegations had agreed to meet in Istanbul Wednesday for talks to break an impasse on allowing Ukrainian grain to leave its southern ports which are mined and blocked by Russian warships.
The four-way meeting with Turkish officials and the United Nations comes as food prices soar globally due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Unblocking Ukrainian ports is one of the key components of global food security,” Ukrainian presidential aide Andryi Yermak said on Telegram.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time since the invasion at talks hosted by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran next Tuesday.
The talks are due to focus on the situation in war-ravaged Syria, but the Kremlin said Putin and Erdogan will hold a separate meeting that is almost certain to focus heavily on Ukraine.
The Kremlin has been working to consolidate its hold over territories it controls like Kherson, both militarily and bureaucratically since the beginning of the conflict.
After Putin on Monday passed a decree fast-tracking Russian passports for all Ukrainians, Ukraine’s breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic on Tuesday unveiled its “embassy” in central Moscow.
Top Russian officials did not attend the ceremony amid a beefed-up police presence.
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Putin’s evil has no boundaries
Russia will win this war. Like it or not, there’s no way you can beat a colossus. Why is there not a single mention of peace negotiations from EU leaders? Is it absolutely necessary to wait until winter or later for the inevitable Ukraine capitulation to happen and all the destruction that will ensue between now and then?
@Ordinary lad: Peace talks with Putin?
Yeah..of course thay will work..
Putin.. “I want all of Ukraine and all the other bits that were the ussr.”
EU and West allies… “ah, sure you should have said that earlier.. Sure, no problem old pal Vlad”…
There ya go… Peace.. Ffs..
@Ordinary lad: it’s not a colossus. It’s economy is smaller than that of Italy.
It’s not the Soviet Union anymore.
If that little **** didn’t have nukes it’d be over by now.
@Ordinary lad: “Russia will win this war. Like it or not, there’s no way you can beat a colossus.”
Nonsense. Russia lost in Afghanistan. The US lost in Vietnam.
@Seán Ó Briain: The USSR lost in Afghanistan and it was the Afghan war that bankrupted the USSR and was provably the major cause for the demise and collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
@Ordinary lad: it is easy for Europe to sacrifice Ukrainian lives to try and win an unwinnable war…
@Ordinary lad: wrong wrong and wrong. Yeah it might drag on for a few years but the West are united. Either Russia or Putin end- thats the eventual outcome here
@Ordinary lad: ignorance is hard to bend. You are extraordinary… Eejit
@Ordinary lad: three words… ‘David and Goliath’.
Hmmmm…Afghanistan comes to mind!
@Ordinary lad: wow, praising the destruction and slaughter. I thought Russia was big enough for Putler. Glory to brave Ukrainian that are losing everything due to that lil behemoth
Sure Irish grain merchants and co-ops bought 6 loads of Russian grain or 100000 tonnes of it in June and now cut the Irish farmers grain by 70 euros per tonne. Plus had the cheek to increase the processed grain they sell to the cattle, pig and sheep farmers here. Out government allowed this to happen.
@Jim Casey: how can the government control prices
@Patrick O Connell: not allowing poisonous Russian grain in ffs
Read last night that Iran are to start supplying military grade drones to Russia. This is not good. Most third party countries who didn’t vote with the west up to now have been sitting on the fence.
If the Russians stay there til winter then Ukraine will probably have its energy cut off by them….the threat of genocide is very much a tool i think Putin will use.
–Heavy human casualties, devastated infrastructure, possibly complete loss of gas to Europe. What if Russia wins, either by a complete victory or a protracted war lasting a decade?
– We can expect heavier human casualties, greater devastation of infrastructure, continuing complete loss of gas to Europe. — Population exodus? Let’s not go there.
@Keth Warsaw: good synopsis of the worst effects of Putin sending 150000 troops over a sovereign border but end your statement with an appeal to not go there, well the Ukrainians are already there are you advocating a capitulation?
The west needs to sacrifice Ukraine. Somewhat of a nest poke. Negotiations with Russia is not the point. A conflict of massive proportions is the only way to hide the death of the dollar empire and reset the global order. Why do you think that Europe has been flooded with males of fighting age since 2015? Cannon fodder and a redrawing of borders. This will be a prolonged conflict where sabre rattling will and has to lead to a tactical nuclear attack by Russia as it runs out of conventional weapons and realises how hard the logistics are of a European conflict really are.
Who persuaded Zelenskyy to drop all his election promises…..and why.
@Fergus Quinlan: lol
@Fergus Quinlan: hey Fergus which broken promise was it, was it the half percent on vat or the missed deadline for introducing energy saving light bulbs. For the life of me I can’t figure out which one annoyed Putin so much he just had to send 150000 lads over a sovereign border, could you enlighten us you seem very knowledgeable on it…
@Fergus Quinlan: i don’t think you understand the scale of this massive harrowing and slaughter.
@Fergus Quinlan: I dont think you understand the scale of destruction and suffering Putin inlficted. History has proven how Hitlers end up.
How will this struggle for influence in the area of the former USSR end? In the Book of Revelation we read: “Another came out, a fiery-colored horse, and it was granted to the one seated on it to take peace away from the earth so that they should slaughter one another, and he was given a powerful sword.” (6:4) This will be a mutual slaughter and world war not only by name. And the great power sword will be used. Jesus characterized him in this way: “A frightening things both and extraordinary (related to unusual phenomena) from sky powerful will be.” (Luke 21:11) Because of the use of these terrible weapons there will be significant tremors along the length and breadth of the regions [of strategic importance] and famines, and pestilences. Some ancient manuscripts contain the words “and frosts”. The Aramaic Peshitta: “and will be great frosts”. (Luke 21:11) We call this today “nuclear winter”. In Mark 13:8 there are also words of Jesus: “and disorders” (in the sense of confusion and chaos). The Aramaic Peshitta: “and confusion” (on the state of public order). It won’t be Armageddon. “But all these things are a beginning of birth-pains.” (Matthew 24:8, DLNT) But before that, “at the appointed time [the king of the north] will return back.” (Daniel 11:29a) Not only Ukraine, but also many other countries of the former Eastern block will return to a military alliance with Russia.
@Ryszard Ewiak: Blessed are the cheesemakers
@Ryszard Ewiak: Them prophets must have been some shockingly boring lads to listen to speaking with a level of bombast not even David Norris can manage.
@Ryszard Ewiak: what?
@C: what’s so special about them?
@Pat Barry: It’s not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturer of dairy products. ;)
@Ryszard Ewiak: Think your over-analysing the book of revelations. Those same prophecies are equally applicable to the Saipan/prawn sandwich saga.
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