Russia reports the capture of the Donetsk suburb of Pisky. British intelligence reports that the Russian air force is “significantly weakened” after the attack on Crimea. All news about the war in Ukraine can be found in the ticker.
2:13 p.m .: Russian troops again report the capture of the village of Pisky on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. The Russian news agency Interfax quoted the Ministry of Defense in Moscow as saying that they had taken full control of the Pisky suburb.
Just a week ago, Russian and pro-Russian forces announced that they had taken complete control of the village. The ministry also said, according to Interfax, that Russian forces had destroyed a US-supplied HIMARS missile system near the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk and an ammunition depot for that weapon system.
Saturday, August 13, 10:53 a.m.: According to British intelligence services, the Russian position in occupied Cherson in southern Ukraine has been significantly weakened by counterattacks on strategically important river crossings. The British Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that it was probably no longer possible to transport significant military equipment to the Russian-occupied areas west of the river via the two main road bridges over the Dnipro.
On the important Antonivka Bridge, the Russians have only managed to make superficial repairs in the past few days. The other important bridge has become impassable for heavy military vehicles due to Ukrainian attacks with precision weapons in the past few days. The main railway bridge near Cherson is said to have been further damaged. In order to organize military supplies, Moscow recently relied primarily on a ferry connection near the bridge.
Even after further repairs, the bridges would likely remain a weak point for the Russian military. The supplies and supplies for thousands of Russian troops on the west side of the Dnipro depend on two temporary ferry connections.
9.41 a.m .: The British secret service confirms the damage at the Russian military airport in Saki on the occupied Crimean Peninsula. Explosions occurred there on Tuesday, destroying numerous fighter jets. Ukraine gave a figure of ten planes, the British secret service now reports in its update five SU-24 Fencer fighter bombers and three SU-30 flanker multi-purpose aircraft that were destroyed or badly damaged.
Though that’s just a small fraction of the total aircraft available, the intelligence agency says the alleged attack “significantly weakened” the capabilities of the Navy’s air force. The conclusion: the Russian military must change its risk assessment. So far, Crimea had apparently been seen as a safe haven. The alleged Ukrainian attack destroyed this certainty.
The cause of the explosions is still unclear, according to British intelligence. However, these are almost certainly due to the destruction of up to four unprotected ammunition depots. Saki military airport was damaged but could still be used.
8:02 a.m .: According to Ukrainian information, the Russian military has made progress in heavy attacks in eastern Ukraine. “The enemy was partially successful in the advance towards Horlivka – Saytseve,” the Ukrainian general staff said in its situation report on Friday. The city of Horlivka north of Donetsk has been controlled by the pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Now the heavily fortified Ukrainian positions north of the city in the Donbass have apparently been stormed.
Fighting was also reported off Donetsk and south of the Bakhmut transport hub, which is part of the defensive wall around the last Kyiv-controlled Donbass conurbation, Sloviansk-Kramatorsk. In both cases, according to Ukrainian sources, the fighting is continuing while it has been repulsed elsewhere. The reports cannot be verified independently.
Friday, August 12, 2022, 6:00 a.m.: Air alerts were raised twice across Ukraine on Thursday evening. The Ukrainian general staff reported fierce fighting in the east of the country, where Russian troops are trying to advance in Donbass. For Ukraine, Friday marks the 170th day of the fight against the Russian invasion.
12:33 p.m .: On Thursday night, Russia heavily shelled the area around the city of Nikopol in eastern Ukraine. According to Ukrainian information, 120 rockets are said to have landed around the city. According to the governor of Dnipropetrovsk, Valentyn Resnichenko, three people were killed and seven wounded.
There is also said to be heavy fighting around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pisky. An official of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic says the site, six miles northwest of the provincial capital of the same name, is controlled by Russian and separatist forces. However, Ukrainian officials deny that the heavily fortified city, which is key to Donetsk’s defenses, fell.
Wednesday, August 11, 9:48 am: Russian state media claim that air defenses thwarted a Ukrainian attack on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and the nearby occupied city of Enerhodar. This is reported by the Reuters news agency based on reports from the state news agencies Tass and RIA. The two media unanimously quote the Russian administration deployed in the Zaporizhia region. The information could not initially not independently verified.
10:15 p.m .: At least seven civilians were killed on Wednesday by Russian artillery fire on the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian information. According to the General Prosecutor’s Office in Kyiv, high-rise buildings, single-family houses and shops in the city center were hit. Russia used Uragan multiple rocket launchers. Seven residents were injured by bomb splinters. The information can hardly be verified independently.
The Attorney General’s Office is now investigating on suspicion of a war crime. For days, Bakhmut and the neighboring town of Soledar have been the target of Russian troops trying to advance in the Donbass region. Western military observers note slow Russian advances. The Ukrainian government has asked all civilians to leave Donbass. The Russian war of aggression against the neighboring country has now lasted more than five and a half months.
3:53 p.m .: According to their own statements, the Ukrainian military has rendered a bridge at the Nowa Kachowka dam in southern Ukraine unusable by rocket fire. “The hit was accurate but effective,” Army Command South said on Facebook on Wednesday. The crew administration has so far had no information on this. The day before, the Russian broadcaster RT had only reported regular shelling of the bridge over the ship canal and the dam itself.
Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February and then largely conquered the southern Ukrainian region of Cherson on the lower reaches of the Dnipro River. Using long-range missile systems, the Ukrainian army is systematically trying to destroy the only three river crossings in the area. This is intended to prevent the Russian army from being replenished on the right bank and to enable recapture.
The Ukrainians have already rendered the railway bridge and the road bridge near Cherson unusable. Instead, the Russian troops built a ferry service for civilians and, according to reports, several pontoon bridges for their own military across the almost a kilometer wide river.
1:48 p.m .: After his multi-day trip to Ukraine, FDP defense politician Marcus Faber announced that only part of the 2000 self-propelled howitzers delivered from Germany and the Netherlands were intact. “I learned from the Ministry of Defense that five out of fifteen self-propelled howitzers are still operational,” he told the news portal ntv.de.
To his knowledge, no self-propelled howitzers were destroyed by Russian fire. “They are used massively,” he said. Accordingly, spare parts would be needed. Germany supplied these, but the repair is difficult, says Faber. “The Ukrainians are optimistic that they can bring their operational readiness back up. But they also say that they need their own repair facility in Ukraine. Otherwise they would have to get the howitzers out of the country again. At the moment they can only do minor repairs themselves,” said Faber.
According to its own statements, the federal government has so far delivered ten tank howitzers 2000 to the Ukraine. The Netherlands had promised Kyiv eight systems, five of which have already been delivered. Faber was in the Ukraine from August 3rd to 10th and visited the capital Kyiv as well as Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Slowjansk.
11.55 a.m .: According to their own statements, Russian troops have destroyed a German tank of the “Gepard” type. The Defense Ministry in Moscow reports that the anti-aircraft tank was hit in the area of the city of Mikolajiv and rendered harmless. In addition, three Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down in the region of southern Ukraine. In Cherson, south-east of Mikolajiv, seven Himars missiles from US stocks were destroyed. The information could not be independently verified.
11:33 a.m .: According to Ukrainian sources, at least ten aircraft were destroyed in the explosions at an air force base on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea annexed by Russia. “After the explosion that we saw, it is clear that the Air Force contingent was hit,” Ukrainian Air Force Staff spokesman Yuri Ihnat said on TV on Wednesday. According to Ihnat, Sukhoi Su-30M and Su-24 combat aircraft and Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft are stationed there.
The Saki military base in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, was hit hard by explosions on Tuesday. Videos show that detonations occurred in at least two different places. According to official information from Moscow, a violation of fire safety rules is responsible for the incident.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
