Russia’s Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva on fire, just before it sank in the Black Sea, April 14, 2022


Wednesday’s Coverage: Kyiv Strikes Russian Ship With Military Cargo


Map: Institute for the Study of War


UPDATE 1718 GMT:

A cyber-attack on Russian banks and telecom firms has continued into a third day.

Russian media confirmed that several top banks, including Raiffeisen, Gazprombank, VTB, and Alfabank, experienced outages. Social networks, payment systems on public transport, and some airlines were also affected.

Ukraine has denied any involvement in the DDoS attacks.


UPDATE 1014 GMT:

Netherlands and Denmark are delivering 14 Leopard 2A4 heavy battle tanks to Ukraine this summer.

Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans announced, “During the recent months, the battle tanks have been refitted and tested.”

The German arms company Rheinmetall carried out the overhaul. Twelve tanks are already prepared for delivery, and the other two are undergoing final tests on July 24 and 25.


UPDATE 0930 GMT:

Ukraine air defenses downed 25 of 38 Iran-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight. Another three drones crossed into Romanian airspace.

The UAVs targets infrastructure facilities in several regions, including Odesa and central Ukraine.

One civilian was killed and another injured in Russian shelling about 5:15 a.m. on the villages of Podoly and Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine.


UPDATE 0814 GMT:

Russia has launched 12 propaganda movements to militarize Ukrainian children in the partially-occupied Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, says the head of local police Artem Kysko.

Russian proxies are conducting propaganda activities in cities such as Melitopol and Berdyansk, according to Kysko. A representative of Vladimir Putin tours the occupied territories once a week as he controls the development of the movements.

“They are militarizing their youth organizations, training children to kill,” said Kysko. He asserted that Ukrainian law enforcement officers are working to identify the people involved in establishing such movements, to chrage them in absentia with committing criminal offenses, and to bring them to justice.


UPDATE 0810 GMT:

A Russian Mi-28 attack helicopter has crashed in the Kaluga region in western Russia, killing two crew.

Preliminary evidence indicates that the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction, said the Russian Defense Ministry.

The Mi-28, labelled by NATO as “Havoc”, s a two-seat anti-armor gunship helicopter developed in the Soviet Union during the 1980s.


UPDATE 0805 GMT:

A personal dispute has led to the killing of three Ukrainian soldiers and the wounding of four others.

The Ukrainian army posted on Wednesday, “In one of the units, soldiers used firearms on the basis of personal relationships.”


UPDATE 0531 GMT:

Visiting Beijing, Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said China remains “unshakably” committed to Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In his first stay in China since the start of Vladimir Kuleba met Chinese counterpart Wang Yi for more than three hours on Wednesday in Guangzhou in the south of the country.

Kuleba said:

China has unshakably reaffirmed its respect for the principle of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

My Chinese colleague clearly said that he agrees that we need not the illusion of peace, but a just and sustainable peace.

In 2023, China stepped back from direct military aid to Moscow after a warning from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference. However, Ukraine’s international partners say Chinese companies are providing vital components for Russia’s invasion.

China has declared an alternative “peace proposal” to Ukraine’s formula, set out by President Voldoymyr Zelenskiy in November 2022, and to the Global Peace Summit held in mid-June.

Chinese State and Communist Party media headlined that the talks were “highlighting China’s significant role in promoting peace”. They carried a warning that “if Ukraine continues to rely solely on the US-led West as it did in the past, it is likely to be abandoned”.

According to the outlets, Wang emphasized a return to the negotiation table with resolution of disputes through political means. He did not indicate if Russia would be required to withdraw from any parts of occupied Ukraine.

Kuleba posted yesterday: “We agreed that all forces must work together to find common ground on the path to restoring true peace in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter.”


ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine’s Navy says Russia has withdrawn all its warships from the Sea of Azov, connected to the Black Sea to the east.

Ukraine has already broken Russia’s grip on the Black Sea, damaging or destroying 1/3 of Moscow’s fleet — including the sinking of the flagship, the Moskva — in attacks since 2022. The operations have freed exports of grains and other essential goods from Ukrainian ports.

Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk declared the extension of that success on Wednesday, “There are no longer any Russian naval vessels in the Sea of Azov. It seems they have started to suspect something.”

Russia made no response to the statement.

The Ukrainian Navy reported on Wednesday that four Russian ships were in the Black Sea, two of them carrying Kalibr cruise missiles. Two Russian ships, neither of them missile carriers, were in the Sea of Azov.