A Ukrainian soldier in front of a devastated building in Vuhledar in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, March 2024 (Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu/AFP)
Tuesday’s Coverage: Russia Increases Record-Setting Defense Budget By 25%
Map: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1200 GMT:
Ukraine’s army has confirmed its withdrawal from Vuhledar in the Donetsk region in the east of the country.
“The High Command gave permission for a maneuver to withdraw units from Vuhledar in order to save personnel and military equipment and take up a position for further operations,” the Khortytsia group of troops said in a Telegram post.
The unit said it inflicted heavy losses on Russian attackers but “there was a threat of encirclement”.
Soldiers from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade said they were forced to escape by foot and likely sustained major losses.
UPDATE 1001 GMT:
Schoolchildren and college students in Russia are complaining about forced enrollment in the patriotic organization “Movement of the First”, according to the Russian outlet SotaVision.
Vladimir Putin created Movement of the First in 2022 amid his invasion of Ukraine to “educate” children and youth “based on traditional Russian spiritual and moral values”.
Authorities said participation by “pioneers” is voluntary, but students say they are being coerced into involvement.
A ninth-grader from a school in Kirov said, “They just came to us during class and said:
They just came to us during class and said, “I hope everyone brought their SNILS, now we’ll all register one by one.”
When we immediately said that we didn’t want to participate in this, they simply wouldn’t let us go. They need every class to have participants in this movement.
A schoolboy from Orenburg said his entire high school was taken to the assembly hall and forced to register. A graduate of a school in Perm echoed, “Last year they checked us to make sure everyone registered, but at the same time no one forced us to join or do anything in this movement….[Now] the whole school in general, was forced to register in this crap.”
Putin proclaimed earlier this year around 5 million people had joined the “Movement of the First”, with a goal of extending patriotic education to 72% of children and young people aged 5 to 19 by the end of 2024. Authorities would enlist 500,000 university students in the ranks of the new “pioneers” and increase the maximum age for participants to 25.
Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov has said the youth campaign of “Movement of the First” is built on principles laid down during the reign of Joseph Stalin.
This year’s budget for the pioneers is 20.3 billion rubles ($215 million), comparable to the annual budget revenues of poor regions such as Kalmykia or the Jewish Autonomous Region and exceeding expnediture on some key state programs and federal projects.
UPDATE 0750 GMT:
Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 11 of 32 Iran-type “kamikaze” drones fired by Russia overnight.
Ten other drones were lost because of electronic warfare.
The Ukrainian military did not give details of any drones that may have struck targets and damage caused. However, an attack on critical infrastructure left several communities without electricity in the Shostka district of the Sumy region in northern Ukraine.
UPDATE 0713 GMT:
The US has sanctioned seven individuals and two entities associated with Evil Corp, a Russia-based cybercrime organization.
The Treasury’s sanctions accompanied an indictment from the Justice Department against an Evil Corp member, and additional measures from the UK and Australia.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Evil Corp is “responsible for the development and distribution of the Dridex malware”.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: After almost a year of attacks levelling the town, Russia’s forces have entered Vuhledar in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said that fighting was ongoing in an “extremely difficult” situation.
The enemy has already almost reached the center of the town.
The fighting is going on within the town, so it is almost impossible to bring in humanitarian aid.
The Governor said 107 civilians remain in Vuhledar, but all children have been evacuated.
Russia had repeatedly failed since March 2022 to overrun Vuhledar, suffering large losses of troops, armor, and weapons. An 11-month offensive had suffered further defeats, but the invaders have been able to surround the town in recent weeks while levelling it with shelling and air attacks.
On Monday night, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged after more than 2 1/2 hours of talks with Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Chief of the General Staff Anatolii Barhylevych, “The situation is very challenging.”
The most important thing is to put pressure on Russia using all available means and tools to achieve our goal of a real and just peace for Ukraine and all our people as soon as possible.
Ukrainian commanders have indicated that they will withdraw from the devastated town if the risk of further troop losses outweighs any benefit of holding the area, or if they face the prospect of being encircled and cut off.
But soldiers in the 72nd Mechanized Brigade said “certain parts” remain under Ukrainian control, and “the brigade has received no order to leave the city”.
