Friday’s Coverage: Counter-Offensive Breaks Russian Defense, Captures Village on Southern Front

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1718 GMT:

Russian forces used a rocket thermobaric grenade launcher to set off an explosion in a detention center last year, killing 57 Ukrainian POWs, according to the office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General.

The prisoners were slain exactly a year ago in Olenivka in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

In the pre-trial investigation, officials have identified the bodies of 33 POWs. Another 24 corpses are being examined.

Thirteen Ukrainian soldiers who survived the attack, and later were released from Russian captivity, have been questioned.

On Tuesday, UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk called for Russian accountability: ”The prisoners of war who were injured or died at Olenivka, and their family members, deserve the truth to be known, and for those responsible for breaches of international law to be held accountable.”

UN experts, who conducted extensive interviews with survivors and analyzed additional information, said they had not identified the specific cause of the explosion. However, they rejected Moscow’s claim that the prison was struck by a US-made HIMARS rocket.

UPDATE 1713 GMT:

Two siblings, a 9-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, have been called as witnesses in the criminal case against their mother for “discrediting” the Russian military.

Lidia Prudovskaya and her two children were summoned by investigators in the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia on Friday.

Prudovskaya was previously charged after she shared anti-war posts on the Russian social media platform VKontakte last September.

UPDATE 1343 GMT:

Ukraine military intelligence says saboteurs detonated another Russian ammunition depot in occupied Crimea on Friday night.

The latest explosion was in Kozacha Bay, 15 km (9.5 miles) from Sevastopol.

UPDATE 1330 GMT:

Footage of the apartment block in Dnipro struck by a Russian Iskander missiles on Friday night, injuring nine people, including two children (see 0640 GMT):

The Russian Defense Ministry is still maintaining, “On the evening of July 28, the Russian armed forces attacked a command post of the Ukrainian armed forces in the city of Dnepropetrovsk with high-precision weapons. The designated target has been hit.”

UPDATE 1214 GMT:

UN Secretary General António Guterres has criticized Vladimir Putin’s offer of free grain to six African nation (see Original Entry) as a “handful of donations to some countries” that does offset the damage of Russia’s destruction of the July 2022 Black Sea grain deal.

It is clear that when taking out of the market millions and millions of tons of grain, it is clear that, based on economic laws, that it will lead to higher prices than the ones that would exist with the normal access of Ukrainian grain to international markets. And these increases of prices will be paid by everybody, everywhere, and namely, by developing countries and by the vulnerable people in middle-income and even developed countries.

UPDATE 1210 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited troops near Bakhmut on the eastern front of the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

UPDATE 0931 GMT:

Ukraine’s military says its artillery units are firing North Korean rockets, captured from Moscow’s forces, against Russian positions.

Troops have been using Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems in Ukraine’s counter-offensive near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

An artillery commander said the North Korean munitions have a relatively high dud rate, with many misfiring or failing to explode. A soldier warned journalists not to get too close to the rocket launcher when the crew fired because the North Korean munitions “are very unreliable and do crazy things sometimes”.

UPDATE 0815 GMT:

Vladimir Putin has come up with a novel explanation for the defeat of the first phase of his Ukraine invasion in spring 2022, with Russian forces failing to capture the capital Kyiv and instead withdrawing from all of northern Ukraine.

Putin told African representatives at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg that the Russian retreat was to prepare for negotiations.

The only face-to-face Russian-Ukrainian negotiations were in Istanbul at the end of March 2022. Ukraine tabled a 15-page proposal, which Moscow rejected.

The Russian leader lied on Friday:

The draft of this treaty was agreed upon, but after the withdrawal of our troops from Kyiv — and we were asked to do this in order to create conditions for the conclusion of the final agreement — the Kyiv authorities abandoned all previous agreements.

Putin gave no evidence of who “asked” Russia for the withdrawal. He did not discose details of the purported draft agreement, saying this would be “incorrect”.

The Russian leader’s line feeds an unsupported conspiracy theory — promoted by pro-Kremlin activists in the West — that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during a visit to Kyiv in April 2022, to abandon any possible agreement.

UPDATE 0640 GMT:

Russia has destroyed yet another apartment block in Dnipro in south-central Ukraine, injuring at least nine people, including two children.

Russia fired two Iskander missiles on the block and a nearby building of Ukraine’s security service SBU about 8:30 p.m. Friday.

Casualties would have been higher, but the apartment block was largely empty: it had just been completed and units were being put up for sale.

Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak summarized:

Part of the apartment building was destroyed. It was not even yet in use and there weren’t many people there. A few people were trapped but are now out. The security service building is partially destroyed.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted:

Russia has regularly fired missiles on Dnipro since March 11, 2022, two weeks into Vladimir Putin’s invasion. In January 2023, 46 civilians were killed when a missile levelled an apartment block.

See also Ukraine War, Day 466: Air Defenses Again Down All Russian Missiles Over Kyiv — But 1 Dead, 22 Injured in Dnipro

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Amid Ukraine’s counter-offensive and international restrictions, Russia’s economy is under growing pressure.

Analyst Monique Camarra summarizes a series of adverse developments for Russians, 17 months into Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Russia’s Central Bank estimates that Moscow will lose 30% of export earnings in 2023, with revenues dropping to $414 billion from a record $591 billion in 2022.

In February, the Bank had projected $507 billion in export earnings. The figure was revised in April to $435 billion.

Part of the fall is coming from the squeeze on Russia’s oil revenues, following much of the international community — including the G7 nations, the European Union, and Australia — setting a limit in December of $60 per barrel on Russian seaborne crude.

In June, earnings from oil exports to $11.8 billion a month, about half the figure of June 2022. State giant Gazprom’s export earnings in the European market have sunk by 75%. They are estimated at only $12.8 billion this year, with the physical volumes of gas sent to Europe at the levels of the mid-1970s.

The Central Bank said 39% of Russian export transactions are now “in rubles”, which effectively means barter trade. Another 27% is in “friendly” currencies, which can only be spent in direct trade with the countries who provided them. The inflow of “hard” currency — that which can be used for international transactions — is estimated at $140 billion this year, nearing the level of 2003-2004.

Putin’s Self-Inflicted Economic Cost Over Africa

Far from redressing the situation, Vladimir Putin pointed to another multi-billion dollar shock on Friday.

At the concluding day of the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Putin tried to limit the self-inflicted damage of his decision to rip up the July 2022 deal lifting Russia’s blockade on three Ukrainian Black Sea ports — and thus hindering food supplies to Africa.

Having announced up to 50,000 tons of free grain to each of six countries — Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea — the Russian leader said Moscow will write off $23 billion of debts owed by African nations, and declared that the Kremlin will allocate $90 billion for development. He also pledged a free supply of arms as well as trade preferences.

Putin did not explain how he would finance the promises. Perhaps more significantly, they may be limited in covering the damage of the renewed Russian blockade.

Russia only persuaded 17 of 54 African leaders to attend, and those who did were far from supportive of Moscow.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on Putin to rejoin the 2022 deal, saying it is “essential to reach agreement”. Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa — despite receiving a helicopter from Putin — chided that his country did not need the free supply of grain.

South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa was more diplomatic, but still implicitly pushed back. He expressed hope for “constructive engagement and negotiation”, saying African leaders look forward to discussing further with Putin proposals they made in June.

Ramaphosa elaborated in a message to Putin:

We proposed to implement the Black Sea Grain Initiative. We talked about the need to open the Black Sea. We said that we would like the Black Sea to be open to world markets. And we did not come here to ask for some “gifts” for the African continent.

Of course, we understand that out of generosity you have decided to donate grain to some African countries that are facing certain difficulties. We treat this with great respect and celebrate it. However, this is not our main goal here. This is not our main task – to achieve some kind of supplies of this nature.

In his closing address, the African Union chair and Comoros President, Azali Assoumani also implicitly told Putin to end his threat to grain shipments.

The President of Russia demonstrated that he is ready help us in the field of grain supply. Yes, this is important, but it may not be quite enough. We need to achieve a ceasefire.

President Putin has shown us that he is ready to engage in dialogue and find a solution. Now we need to convince the other side.

Faki Mahamat, chair of the African Union Commmission and Foreign minister of Chad was more direct, “The disruptions of energy and grain supplies must end immediately. The grain deal must be extended for the benefit of all the peoples of the world, Africans in particular.”