Ukraine says it has received its first delivery of the modern M270 multiple rocket launcher system. The first M270s have arrived, Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov said on Friday in the online networks. “No mercy for the enemy,” he added, referring to the invading Russian forces.
In June, Great Britain announced the delivery of the M270 system to Ukraine. This allows targets to be hit at a distance of up to 80 kilometers with precision-guided missiles.
Ukraine has already received other modern missile systems from the West. These systems allow the Ukrainian armed forces to launch attacks on the Russian army from a greater distance, without being within range of the Russian artillery themselves.
Reznikov called the M270 “good company on the battlefield” for the Himars missile launchers recently delivered to Ukraine by the United States.
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At least 23 people have been killed in the brutal rocket attack on the city of Vinnytsia. After the attack, the battle for the sovereignty of interpretation began immediately. The Russians confirmed the bombardment, claiming that “high-precision missiles” hit an “officers’ garrison house.” A meeting of high-ranking Ukrainian army commanders “with representatives of foreign arms suppliers” was fired upon and the participants at the meeting were eliminated, according to a statement from Moscow.
However, pictures showed that the Russians primarily shelled a building with offices and small shops and an adjacent parking lot. The US clearly contradicted the Russian version: “I have no indication that a military target was anywhere near there,” said a senior US Defense Department official on Friday, who asked to remain anonymous. Rather, the hit object looks “like a building with apartments”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to the attack: “What is this if not an open act of terrorism?” he wrote in the news service Telegram. Russia kills civilians every day and uses missiles to attack civilian targets where there are no soldiers. “Beasts. murder state. Terrorist state,” Zelenskyy wrote.
And Germany, too, reacted with disbelief. It was an “act of cruelty,” said Deputy Government Spokesman Wolfgang Büchner. “The city of Vinnytsia is far from any front lines. The Russian attack hit the Ukrainian civilian population and shows once again that Russia is massively violating the rules of international law in this war.”
The federal government was “horrified” by the attack on Vinnytsia and condemned it “strongly,” said Büchner. “We call on Russia to refrain from any attacks against civilian targets.”
A Briton arrested by pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk in April has died in captivity. This was announced by the pro-Russian authorities. The DPR Ombudsman said that “British mercenary Paul Ury, held captive in the DPR, died on July 10 due to illness and stress”.
“Appropriate medical assistance was provided,” the statement said. Ury was arrested at a checkpoint in the region in April.
According to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the European Union has not only shot itself in the knee with its Russia sanctions, “but in the lung”. In a radio address on Friday, the nationalist Prime Minister called on Brussels to change its policy towards Moscow.
“At first I thought we shot each other in the foot. But the European economy has shut itself into its lungs and is now struggling for air,” Orban said. “There are countries that are convinced of the sanctions policy, but Brussels has to admit that this was a mistake.” The sanctions did not have the desired success “and even triggered the opposite effect”.
Orban is above all a critic of the oil embargo against Russia. The EU decided this in June after weeks of resistance from Hungary. At Orban’s urging, an exception was made for oil delivered by pipeline.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian has assured Ukraine that it will not deliver drones to Russia. “The American claims in this regard were baseless and more of an act of propaganda ahead of US President (Joe) Biden’s (Israel) trip,” Amirabdollahian told his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba on Friday. According to the IRNA news agency, the Iranian chief diplomat said his country had always advocated a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis.
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, said on Monday that there were indications that Iran wanted to support Russia in a war of aggression against Ukraine. In this context, according to Sullivan, Iran is also preparing to provide drones that can also transport weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has fired the head of the Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin. A corresponding decree was published on the Kremlin’s website on Friday. The new head of Roskosmos will be Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov.
As Deputy Prime Minister, Borisov was responsible for the military-industrial complex. In Russia, this also includes space travel.
The day showed once again that Russia should be officially classified as a “terror state” and that those responsible should be brought before a war crimes tribunal, Zelensky said. A medical center was also hit. “And if someone launched an attack on a medical center in Dallas or Dresden – (…) Isn’t that terrorism?”
Since invading Ukraine at the end of February, Russia has maintained that it only attacks military targets in the neighboring country. Nevertheless, there are many civilian casualties, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure has reached enormous proportions. Rockets of old Soviet design often miss their targets.
The OSCE has released its latest report on alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The experts come to the conclusion that Russia and Russian soldiers deliberately misused civilians as protective shields. There are also indications of mass rapes of women and children and the torture of civilians in torture chambers. All of these are crimes against humanity and/or war crimes. The period between April 1st and June 25th was examined.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has ruled out easing the sanctions imposed on Russia for the attack on Ukraine. Even such a step would not ensure the gas supply from Russia, “but we would be doubly open to blackmail,” said the Green politician on Thursday in a discussion with citizens in Bremen. Accepting that someone would break international law “in the most brutal way” would be “an invitation to all those who trample on human rights, freedom and democracy”.
Therefore, Germany will support Ukraine “as long as it needs us,” stressed Baerbock. “And that’s why we will also maintain these sanctions and at the same time ensure that our society is not divided.”
Western countries have gradually tightened their punitive measures against Russia since the beginning of the war. Politicians from the left and the AfD have spoken out in favor of easing – on the grounds that the punitive measures will also burden the German economy.
According to data that has been kept secret so far, the EU sanctions imposed on Russia are taking effect. As experts from the EU Commission confirmed to the German Press Agency, targeted trade restrictions are now affecting Russian export transactions, which had a volume of more than 73 billion euros a year before the war. In percentage terms, it is about 48 percent of Russia’s previous exports to the EU.
In addition, within around four months, Russian assets worth around 13.8 billion euros were frozen – for example by oligarchs and other supporters of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. Reserves of the Russian central bank worth billions can also no longer be accessed.
So far, however, the sanctions have failed to achieve their goal of stopping the Russian attack on Ukraine. In eastern Ukraine, the separatists, who are supported by the Russian army, say they have advanced further towards the small town of Soledar. The villages of Stryapivka and Nowa Kamyanka on the eastern outskirts of Soledar had been taken, the separatists in Luhansk announced on Thursday evening.
In Kyiv, the information was contradicted. “In general, over the past week we have repelled enemy attacks, and not a single meter of Ukrainian soil has been lost,” Deputy Chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army Oleksiy Hromov told a news conference in Kyiv. The evening report of the general staff spoke of shelling of Soledar and the north-eastern suburb of Yakovlivka.
After the rapprochement in the dispute over grain exports from Ukraine, Development Minister Svenja Schulze warned against being too optimistic. “An agreement on safe transport options for grain from Ukraine by sea would be a relief for starving people worldwide,” said the SPD politician to the editorial network Germany (RND/Friday). Every ton of grain that comes out and is available on the world market helps. “But the experience with Putin shows that you shouldn’t rely on it.”
Internationally mediated talks about ending the Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea have, according to the UN, achieved a first breakthrough. President Zelenskyj was optimistic that his country would soon be able to export grain again. Before the Russian war of aggression, Ukraine was one of the largest grain exporters in the world.
What will be important this Friday:
Foreign Minister Baerbock takes part in a donor conference in Romania on Friday for the Republic of Moldova, which is suffering from the effects of the war in neighboring Ukraine. Like Ukraine, Moldova has been an official candidate for admission to the European Union since June. The country of 2.6 million people has been caring for hundreds of thousands of refugees since the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine at the end of February.
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