According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russia is currently preparing the next offensive in Ukraine. In the daily situation report, the ISW writes that the Russian army is currently conducting small-scale attacks in the north-west and south-west of the city of Izyum. This should probably prepare a renewed attack on Kharkov.
The ISW assumes that Putin ordered the conquest of Kharkiv. However, the Institute considers this operation to be doomed to failure. The logistical and strategic problems are too great for that, as can be seen from the offensive in Donbass.
After serious shelling in southern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Selenksyj has threatened Russia with consequences. “No Russian attack goes unanswered by our military and intelligence officers,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the shelling of Mykolaiv. He also commemorated Oleksiy Vadaturskyi, the owner of one of Ukraine’s largest grain trading companies, who was killed in the southern Ukrainian city.
Like the Ukrainian General Staff, Zelenskyy reported that Russian troops were being moved to occupied areas in the south. Moscow did not comment on such possible moves.
In the course of the war of aggression that has already lasted more than five months, Russia has occupied large parts of the southern Ukrainian regions of Cherson and Zaporizhia. Thanks to weapons delivered from the west, however, Ukraine has recently launched several successful counter-offensives in Cherson, according to its own statements and according to the assessment of the British secret service.
In Crimea, from where the rockets are said to have been fired, Russian celebrations for “Navy Day” had previously been canceled – with reference to an alleged drone attack by Ukrainians on the city of Sevastopol. The Ukrainian Navy denied this, saying Russia “made up” the incident.
In reality, the Russians did not dare to hold the celebrations there as planned for fear of Ukrainian attacks, it was said. The Russian side, on the other hand, reported that the headquarters of their Black Sea fleet had been attacked in Sevastopol. Six people were injured on Sunday, wrote the governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Rasvoschajew.
After the attack on a prison camp in eastern Ukraine, the Red Cross initially waited in vain for access to the injured. As of Sunday afternoon, the ICRC had not received permission to enter the prison, a spokesman in Geneva said. The Russian Defense Ministry, on the other hand, said it had invited the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit.
Olenivka is near Donetsk in territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists with Moscow’s help. A rocket is said to have hit the barracks with prisoners of war on Friday night. Selenskyj spoke of an intentional Russian war crime. According to the Russian account, the facility was hit by a US Himars multiple rocket launcher used by the Ukrainian army. Moscow also released the names of 50 prisoners killed and 73 injured.
According to activists, future reconstruction aid for war-torn Ukraine must be secured against corruption from the outset. It will then be about billions of euros, “that’s why it’s important to think about it now,” said Olena Haluschka from the Ukrainian non-governmental organization Antac (Anti-Corruption Action Center) in Warsaw. In her view, foreign aid money should not flow into the Ukrainian budget, but into a special fund under international supervision. “Then the trust of the donors would be greater,” said Haluschka of the German Press Agency. Transparency International listed Ukraine in 2021 as the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia.
Around a week and a half after an agreement was reached in Istanbul with Moscow and Kyiv, the first grain export from a Ukrainian port could possibly be due on Monday. A spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that there was a very high probability that a ship loaded with grain would leave one of the three ports specified in the agreement in the morning.
