Daily Briefing From Ukraine

·     Top 9 Headlines

·     Ukraine Summer Offensive Summary

·     Infographic of the Day

·     President Zelensky’s Message of the Day

Headlines

1.  Russian drones on Wednesday morning damaged infrastructure at a Ukrainian port on the Danube River, as Moscow targeted facilities vital for grain shipments.  Russia struck a grain elevator in the port of Izmail which sits just across the Danube River from Romania, damaging silos, warehouses and administrative buildings, Ukrainian officials said. Izmail is now the main export route for Ukrainian agricultural products via Romania, following Russia's withdrawal last month from the Black Sea grain agreement. The overnight strike damaged nearly 40,000 tons of grain destined for Africa, China, and Israel, Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said. Ukraine exported 2.3 million tons of grain last month, down 40 percent from June.

2. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said that Russia's repeated attacks on Ukraine’s grain infrastructure were “unacceptable.” Paris on Wednesday accused Moscow of deliberately putting global food security at risk. "Russia is once again deliberately putting global food security at risk by destroying essential grain export infrastructure," the French foreign ministry said, accusing Moscow of "only pursuing its own interest at the expense of the most vulnerable populations" and driving up prices of agricultural products. 

Other Topics of Interest

ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 20, 2024

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

3. Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Europe to find "courageous courses of peace" to end the war on Ukraine when he opened World Youth Day, a major Catholic youth festival, in Portugal.

4. Russian occupational authorities are bringing students from the Russian Federation to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine for propaganda activities, according to the Center of National Resistance." For example, “student labor squads” have been created, which exist mainly in propaganda videos and are formed from Russians. The squads "work" in the cities destroyed by the Russians themselves – Lysychansk, Mariupol, Severodonetsk," the message as reported by UNIAN said.

5. Ukraine is preparing for a massive attack on Moscow with the participation of dozens of drones. According to The Wall Street Journal, drones will fly to the capital of Russia from several directions and at different heights. The newspaper believes that, with the latest drone attacks on the Moscow City complex, Ukraine could have been probing Russian air defenses as part of preparations for a massive attack.

6. 10,749 Ukrainian civilians have died during Russia’s full-scale invasion and 15,599 more have been injured, according to Ukraine’s Attorney General. “Of this number, 499 dead are children and 1,900 children are wounded. We understand that these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. When we de-occupy our territories, the numbers will increase many times, and maybe tens of times," he said.

7. At a meeting of his diplomatic team, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will hold a Global Peace Summit in the autumn, including a focus on his 10-Point Peace Formula. This Summit will follow an August meeting in Saudi Arabia with an emphasis on countries of the Global South. He also instructed Ukrainian diplomats to focus on finding more weapons, especially air defense systems, long-range missiles and F-16s. "The activity of our diplomacy should ensure a change in the frontal balance in favor of Ukraine. And it is possible," said the president.

8. Twelve countries have joined the G7 declaration on security guarantees for Ukraine, President Zelensky said at the diplomatic teams’ meeting. “These are Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Sweden," Zelensky said. He noted work on bilateral agreements with partners had begun this week. According to him, the United States is the first country with which Ukraine will be working.

9. Ukrainian elections in the near future are not possible, according to Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. "Regarding elections, I can say that I do not understand how elections can be held during war... It is impossible... if the people who defend our country do not take part in the elections,” Danilov said.

Ukraine summer offensive summary

Snapshot

Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and reportedly advanced near Bakhmut on Aug. 2. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut and in the Berdyansk (Zaporizhzhia-Donetsk regional border area) and Melitopol directions (western Zaporizhzhia region), according to ISW.

Operational aspects in Crimea, Russia, Kupyansk, Kherson and other areas

Local militia groups in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine were provided with weapons on Wednesday, local officials said. The militias were created in Kursk and Belgorod last December. As Russia presses ahead with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow's ability to protect its own border from external threats has come into doubt, AFP reported.

One regarded strategic analyst yesterday noted: “Kupyansk-Kreminna: silence on the Eastern Front. The Russian counteroffensive is currently at a pause. We can only speculate that this pause is due to the lack of cohesion and coordination between units, reaching the point of culmination or ‘shell hunger’”.

Russian sources claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks on the Svatove-Kreminna line in the Lyman direction, according to ISW.

General developments

Russian forces launched 5 missile strikes, 86 air strikes and fired 36 MLRS rocket strikes on Ukrainian positions, according to the evening report of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Ukraine undertook 9 airstrikes.

There is no taboo on striking the Russian Federation with Ukrainian-made weapons, said Ukraine’s National Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov. He noted that while Ukraine has an agreement with its partners that it does not use its weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation, this ban does not apply to weapons developed by the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.   

Operational aspects in Bakhmut

A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces advanced north of Kurdyumivka in the Bakhmut area, according to ISW.

Operational aspects on boundary of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions and in western Zaporizhzhia

“Ka-52 helicopter attacking positions south of Staromlynivka confirmed by the Russians. This would indicate that the Ukrainians have reached much further south than expected and officially announced,” a leading independent analyst noted. 

Pro-Russian sources said Ukrainian assaults near Staromaiorske on the Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia regional border and near Robotyne in the western Zaporizhzhia region were repelled, according to ISW.

In the evening of Aug. 2, an explosion rang out in the center of temporarily occupied Melitopol, according to its exiled Mayor.

In temporarily occupied Mariupol, Russian occupational authorities are actively preparing for a Ukrainian offensive. The adviser to the mayor of the city, Petro Andryushchenko, said that “the invaders are constantly training and strengthening their defenses.”

Infographic of the day

President Zelensky’s message