German Mars II rocket launchers arrived in Ukraine on Monday. The United States is also supplying more weapons. But Russia has also received new deliveries – from Iran. All news about the war in Ukraine can be found in the ticker.
Wednesday, August 3, 2022, 7:47 a.m.: The “Institute for the Study of War” reports in its daily Ukraine briefing that the first Iranian drones may have arrived in Russia. Pilots and technicians are also said to have been sent. Sources in Iran and the United States said so. However, the information has not been confirmed.
The United States announced weeks ago that it had indications that a drone deal between Iran and Russia was being initiated.
10:56 p.m .: On Monday, Ukrainian forces fired on and completely destroyed an important headquarters of Russian occupying forces in Pervomaisk with Himar rockets. Russian officials had ruled the city from the headquarters since 2014, which was considered the headquarters of the Russian army in Pervormaisk.
The building also became known through a French documentary that reported on the torture of Ukrainian soldiers. In front of the headquarters, Ukrainian prisoners of war were tortured, humiliated and finally shot by Russian soldiers. Subsequently, Russian military had them positioned in unnatural postures along the street.
9:36 p.m .: A Russian missile has landed in the Ukrainian region of Chervonohradskyi, which borders Poland. This is reported by the Kyiv Independent. According to the governor of the affected Lviv Oblast, Maksim Kozytskyj, a military base was hit. Rescue workers were on site, but there were no injuries or deaths.
4:34 p.m.: Spain will not deliver Leopard tanks to Ukraine. As the Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles explained in an interview with “El Mundo”, tests had revealed defects in the tanks. Since they were in “unsatisfactory condition” and even posed a danger to those who operate them, the decision was made not to deliver them. Madrid initially agreed to send ten Leopard 2A4 battle tanks to Kyiv.
3:55 p.m .: The grain magnate Olekyj Vadaturskyj and his wife died in a Russian rocket attack in Mykolaiv. Accordingly, the rocket hit her bedroom on July 31st. According to the Kyiv Independent, the governor of Mykolaiv Oblast said the couple had been accidentally killed because there was a military base next to their house.
However, the Attorney General’s Office cannot rule out the possibility that the murders were premeditated. “Vadaturskyi was the target,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak told Telegram. That is why the investigation was started.
Before the war, Vadatursky’s grain logistics company, called Nibulon, had exported grain to 70 countries. He was considered the most powerful grain trader in Ukraine. President Zelenskyi described his death as a great loss.
Tuesday, August 2, 2:17 p.m.: The Russian Black Sea Fleet is in a weak position, according to Britain. The reported Ukrainian attack on the headquarters in Sevastopol on Ukraine’s annexed Crimea peninsula is “the latest setback” for the fleet, the Ministry of Defense said in London, recalling the loss of the flagship “Moskva” in April.
With reference to the alleged Ukrainian drone attack on Sevastopol, Russia had canceled its “Navy Day” celebrations in Crimea. The British Ministry of Defense commented: “Following reports of canceled parades, it is unlikely that the Black Sea Fleet will be able to hold high-profile public events alongside its wartime activities.” The Ukrainian Navy had denied the attack, saying Russia had “made up” the incident.
Tuesday, August 2, 12:31 p.m .: Fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops for the city of Bakhmut continues in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. The Ukrainian general staff announced on Tuesday that there had also been Russian advances in the direction of Soledars, eight kilometers to the north. Russian attacks in several places south of Bakhmut, on the other hand, were largely repelled, it said. This information could not be independently verified.
The Ukrainian General Staff also reported a Russian attack in the north of the Cherson region on the border with the neighboring Dnepropetrovsk region. For weeks, Kyiv has been nurturing hopes of launching a counter-offensive in this region to recapture the south.
6:06 p.m .: According to the local governor, the Ukrainian armed forces have recaptured more than 40 places in the Kherson region in the past few weeks. So far, 46 towns in the region have been “liberated,” Ukrainian governor Dmytro Butriy said on state television on Monday. According to him, most of the recaptured places are in the north of the region, others are south near the Black Sea.
For several weeks, Ukrainian forces have been waging a counter-offensive in the southern Kherson region, which borders the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. The region was largely taken by the invading forces in the first days of the war of aggression that Russia began on February 24.
Governor Butriy said some of the villages that have since been recaptured were “90 percent destroyed and are still under constant fire today”. He described the humanitarian situation in the region as “critical”.
In its counter-offensive, the Ukrainian army attacked Russian positions and camps behind the front line and damaged bridges on supply routes for the invading forces. Military experts blame the modern rocket launcher systems supplied from the West for the fact that the Ukrainian army is now able to conduct attacks much deeper into the areas occupied by Russia.
2:13 p.m .: After the German Mars II rocket launchers, other Himars systems have also arrived in Ukraine. “Four more Himars have arrived in Ukraine. Thank you to the US President, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the American people for strengthening Ukraine’s army,” Defense Minister Reznikov wrote on Twitter. “The sound of Himar’s punches has become the summerite on the front lines.”
12:59 p.m .: Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov has announced the arrival of German Mars II rocket launchers in Ukraine. “Thanks to Germany and personally to my colleague Christine Lambrecht,” Reznikow wrote on Twitter.
12:54 p.m .: According to its own statements, the Russian army has again destroyed Western military technology in Ukraine. In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov, two launch sites for US Himars missiles were hit on a factory site, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Monday. Not far from the Black Sea metropolis of Odessa, Russian troops had destroyed a device for Harpoon anti-ship missiles, also supplied by the United States.
The statements could not be independently verified. Experts point out that the Himar rocket launchers are difficult to locate and destroy. The Ukrainian authorities reported on Sunday that two Russian missiles had been fired from the annexed Crimea peninsula at the Odessa region. According to her account, however, the projectiles hit a quarry.
11.04 a.m .: According to the British Ministry of Defense, the Russian offensive in the east continues to falter. “Over the past four days, Russia has continued to attempt tactical attacks on the Bakhmut Axis northeast of Donetsk and has made slow progress,” a statement said Monday morning.
Britain also sees signs of a redeployment of Russian troops from eastern to southern Ukraine. Russia has apparently identified the front in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia as a “weak point” where reinforcements are needed, the Defense Ministry said, citing intelligence information. Previously, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj had reported in his video address on Monday night that Russian troops were being moved south.
Shortly after the war began, Russia occupied large areas in southern Ukraine. Recently, however, Ukrainian troops had started counteroffensives there and put the Russian armed forces under pressure, also thanks to the artillery supplied by the West. “Russia is likely to adjust the operational design of its Donbass offensive after failing to make a decisive operational breakthrough under the plan it has been pursuing since April,” it said. Russia is likely to redeploy a significant number of its armed forces from the northern Donbass sector to southern Ukraine.
Monday, August 01, 01/05 h: Secretary of State Annalena Baerbock leaves for New York on Monday to attend a United Nations conference to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The more than 50-year-old agreement, to which 191 countries have joined, forms the basis for nuclear disarmament worldwide. It states that only the US, Russia, China, France and the UK can have nuclear weapons. The other four suspected nuclear powers India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have either not joined the treaty or have withdrawn from it.
At the start of the conference, which lasts until August 26, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak alongside Baerbock. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – officially the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – came into force in 1970. The aim of the agreement is to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, promote nuclear disarmament and promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
A review of the goals is planned every five years. The tenth review conference was supposed to take place in 2020, but was postponed due to the corona pandemic. Nuclear disarmament had stalled even before Russia launched a war of aggression against Ukraine. Now the reduction of the nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons worldwide is becoming even more difficult.
In addition to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there is also the more far-reaching Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty, which, however, was not signed by the nuclear powers or any of the NATO states, including Germany. In the coalition agreement, however, the Greens pushed through that Germany, contrary to the NATO line, participates as an observer in a conference of the parties. This was also implemented in June.
In view of the new threat situation in Europe, the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany, which was still demanded by the SPD and the Greens in the 2021 election campaign, is no longer an issue. Up to 20 US nuclear bombs are still stored at the Büchel air base in the Rhineland-Palatinate Eifel. In an emergency, Bundeswehr fighter jets should use them.
Three weeks ago, during a visit to Nagasaki, Japan, Baerbock campaigned for a world without nuclear weapons, despite the tense security situation. There, in 1945, about 70,000 people were killed and 75,000 others injured by the second dropping of a US atomic bomb. However, the Foreign Minister also conceded that concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament “are anything but easy in the current world situation”.
For Baerbock, the nuclear weapons conference is the start of a three-day trip to the United States and Canada. In addition to Guterres, the Green politician also wants to meet Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in New York. On Tuesday she will give a speech there on transatlantic relations and, together with her Swedish colleague Ann Linde, will host a meeting of the so-called Stockholm Initiative, which aims to take concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament. Baerbock will then travel on to Canada for her inaugural visit.
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