Ukraine postage stamp celebrating resistance on Snake Island against the Russian invasion

Thursday’s Coverage: Azovstal Defenders In Largest POW Exchange of Conflict

Source: Institute for the Study of War

LATEST:

The death toll from Russia’s missile strikes on a residential apartment and a holiday resort in the village of Serhiyivka in the Odesa region, retaliating for Moscow’s defeat on Snake Island, has risen to 21 with 38 wounded.

Two children were killed. Seven children and a pregnant woman are among the injured.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted:

UPDATE 1624 GMT:

Ukraine has asked Turkey to detain a Russian-flagged cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain to a Turkish port.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General wrote Turkey’s Justice Ministry that the ship Zhibek Zholy is part of the “illegal export of Ukrainian grain” from the Russian-occupied port of Berdyansk. It is going to Karasu, Turkey with 7,000 tons of cargo.

Russian occupation official Yevgeny Balitsky said on Thursday the first grain from Berdyansk, a port city in southern Ukraine, was being shipped. He said a vessel was taking 7,000 tons of grain to “friendly countries”.

UPDATE 1616 GMT:

Amid Russia’s blockade and destruction of storage warehouses, Ukraine’s grain exports have fallen 43% year-on-year.

The country exported 1.41 million tons in June.

UPDATE 1259 GMT:

Moscow has commanded Ukrainian teachers in occupied areas to sign a document by July 21, confirming their willingness to teaching the Russian school curriculum.

If the teachers do not comply, they must resign. Many have been threatened with eviction from their homes.

A teacher in an occupied area in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine said, “At the moment, only history, geography, language and primary schoolteachers were asked to sign the document. Math, physics, biology and chemistry curriculum in Russia don’t carry propaganda, so they are left alone, at least for now.”

UPDATE 1110 GMT:

European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has told the Ukrainian Parliament, in a speech via video link:

Ukraine is a candidate country to join the European Union, something that seemed almost unimaginable just five months ago.

There is a long road ahead but Europe will be at your side every step of the way, for as long as it takes, from these dark days of war until the moment you cross the door that leads into our European Union.

The next steps are within your reach. But they will require hard work.

The EU has called on Ukraine to adopt a media law, implement new rules reducing the influence of oligarchs, appoint senior anti-corruption officials.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded:

Our path to membership should not take years or decades. We have to overcome this path quickly. Make our part of the job perfect. To enable our friends in the European Union to make another historic decision for us just as quickly and in a consolidated way.

UPDATE 0731 GMT:

The death toll has risen to eight, with six people injured, from Wednesday’s Russian strike on a residential building in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.

Rescue worker discovered the body of a man under a collapsed staircase on Thursday.

UPDATE 0722 GMT:

Trying to overrun Lysychansk, the last Ukraine-held city in the Luhansk oblast in the east of the country, Russian forces have seized the northwestern and southeastern portions of the oil refinery.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said the situation is “extremely difficult” in Lysychansk amid continuous shelling by Russian forces “from multiple directions”. He said the Russians are “approaching from different directions”, but they remain on the city’s outskirts and there is no street fighting.

UPDATE 0716 GMT:

Canada is transferring 39 armored combat support vehicles to Ukraine.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed the delivery, following the NATO summit in Madrid on Thursday: “The light armoured vehicles we will be sending over will be extremely effective. We’re just glad to help and we’re going to continue to look and respond to things that they need.”

UPDATE 0702 GMT:

A senior US official said Washington has not witnessed China evading sanctions or providing military equipment to Russia.

The Biden Administration warned in March that Beijing might supply weapons to cover Russian losses in the initial phase of its invasion.

But as the Commerce Department added five companies in China to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, over support of Russia’s military and defense industry, the official said, “We have not seen the PRC [People’s Republic of China] engage in systematic evasion or provide military equipment to Russia.”

UPDATE 0626 GMT:

Russian forces have retaliated for the loss of Snake Island with two missile strikes on a multi-story residential building and a recreation center in Odesa in southern Ukraine.

At least 18 people, including two children, have been killed and 31 injured in the pre-dawn attack. Video showed bodies amid the charred remains of the buildings.

In the residential building, at least 14 people were slain and three injured, including a child. At least three people, including a child, were killed and another person wounded in the recreation center.

Ukraine MP Roman Hryshchuk posted:

UPDATE 0611 GMT:

The Ukraine military says it has reclaimed the village of Potomkine in the Russian-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine has secured a notable victory in the western Black Sea, with Russian forces withdrawing from Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, a position of both strategic and symbolic importance.

After the latest in a series of Ukranian attacks, the last Russian occupiers left the island in two speedboats, setting the remaining buildings ablaze.

The Russians seized Snake Island in the opening day of their invasion, but the occupation became a symbol of Ukrainian defiance: defenders rejected the initial demand for surrender with a “Go fuck yourself, warship”. The troops, eventually released by the Russians, were awarded medals by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and a stamp featuring the incident quickly sold out among Ukrainians.

The island is 35 km (22 miles) from the southern Ukraine coast. It is a strategic point for controlling access to the western end of the corridor along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, including the port city of Odesa, with more than a million people. While Russians have seized the eastern end of the corridor, including the occupation of Kherson and Melitopol and the brutal destruction of Mariupol, they have been unable to advance to the west.

Since early May, the Ukrainians have pummeled the Russian forces with fire from artillery, rockets, and drones, damaging or destroying a landing craft, two patrol boats, a logistics vessel, a helicopter and most of the island’s buildings and facilities. Last week, strikes took out a Pantsir missile system, two anti-aircraft missile and cannon complexes, a radar station, and several vehicles.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address to the nation:

Zmiinyi Island is a strategic point, and it significantly changes the situation in the Black Sea. It does not guarantee safety yet, it does not yet guarantee that the enemy will not return. But it already limits the actions of the occupiers significantly. Step by step, we will drive them out of our sea, our land, and our sky.

The Russians tried to cover up the retreat with the declaration that it was a “step of goodwill” to allow grain shipments out of Ukraine, even as they continue to blockade Ukraine-held ports and bomb storage warehouses.

Ukrainian officials scoffed at Moscow’s excuse. Presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak wrote, “So, in order for Moscow to show its goodwill, we have to beat it up regularly.”