July 24, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine has moved here.

Lithuania’s State Defence Council approved a military assistance plan to Ukraine, worth 200 million euros ($221 million), the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

“The Assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine Plan the State Defence Council has approved for 2024-2026 will be worth approx. EUR 200 million,” the ministry's statement read, adding that the package covers acquisition of lethal and non-lethal aid, military training, repair of military equipment in Lithuania and personnel training.

Read the full statement here.

Col. Yevgeny Vashunin, a Russian commander, was killed on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Russian state news agency TASS said Monday. 

Vashunin was a commander of the "Leningrad Regiment," which consists of mobilized residents of St. Petersburg and the northwest regions of Russia, according to TASS. 

He “died after a serious injury sustained while performing his duty in the special military operation,” the news agency said.

Alexander Belsky, chairman of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, said that while on the battlefield, Vashunin decided to come to the aid of the Russian Storm detachment that was encircled by Ukrainian forces, TASS reported. 

During the fight with Ukrainians, he was “cut off from fellow soldiers and seriously wounded,” Belsky said, according to TASS. “Despite self-help measures, he died.”

Vashunin was ”posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia,” Belsky said. 

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov says that Ukraine will continue carrying out attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea and the Kerch Bridge that connects it to the Russian mainland, while also admitting that Ukraine’s plan for its sluggish counteroffensive is behind schedule.

As Russia has pummeled the southern port city of Odesa and the surrounding region over the past week, Ukraine has continued to carry out strikes inside Crimea. On Tuesday, Ukrainian drones hit an ammunition depot, just a week after seaborne drones struck the Kerch Bridge.

Asked if Ukraine’s goal is to permanently disable the bridge, Reznikov responded: “It’s normal tactics to ruin the logistic lines of your enemy to stop the options to get more ammunition, to get more fuel, to get more food, etcetera. That’s why we will use these tactics against them.”

Reznikov also accused Russia of operating as “a terrorist state.”

The fifth night of Russian strikes in Odesa badly damaged more than two dozen landmarks in the historic city center. Drones meanwhile pounded the region’s port infrastructure, targeting crucial grain stocks days.

Read more here

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovered mines at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) site, agency chief Rafael Grossi said Monday —after previous claims by Kyiv that it had been mined.   

“IAEA experts have observed directional anti-personnel mines on the periphery of the site of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia NPP,” Grossi said in a statement, adding that the mines were spotted during a walkdown on Sunday.  

Zaporizhzhia NPP is currently occupied by Russian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called on world leaders to put pressure on Russia to hand the station over to the IAEA and for Russian fighters to leave the territory of the station.  

Grossi added that the IAEA team has been aware of the previous placement of mines outside and inside of the plant and they have been told that it was “a military decision, and in an area controlled by military.” 

“IAEA team saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers,” Grossi said, noting that the mines were “situated in a restricted area that operating plant personnel cannot access and were facing away from the site.”  

Grossi called having explosives on the site “inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance.”  

 

Ukrainian air defenses are at work in the Kyiv region on the outskirts of the capital, according to Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv city military administration.

Ukraine’s Air Force said there is a threat of Russian UAV attacks in the area.

The Kyiv city military administration also said there were air raid sirens in the country’s capital early Tuesday.

Progress is slow in Ukraine's counteroffensive efforts, officials said, pointing to several variables that are impeding progress on the front lines.

Ukraine has claimed responsibility for drone strikes that hit Moscow and Crimea.

Here are the top headlines:

• Ukraine counteroffensive: Kyiv's counteroffensive is behind schedule, according to Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleskii Reznikov. He listed a few reasons why the counteroffensive may be slower than anticipated, including ammunition, artillery shells and artillery systems. Other local officials said Russia's electronic warfare capabilities are jamming Ukrainian drones. The situation on the southern front in Ukraine has been slowed largely due to intricate minefields laid by Russian forces who were given time to build up defenses.
• Moscow drone attack: Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, an arm of the Ministry of Defense, says it carried out a drone attack on Moscow early Monday morning, a Defense Intelligence official told CNN. The Kremlin said that all the drones targeting the Russian capital had been neutralized, in what Russian authorities described as a "thwarted" attack. The Russian foreign ministry issued a statement calling on international organizations to condemn the attack and recent Ukrainian strikes on Crimea.
• Food prices: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is arguing for a lifting of European restrictions on exports via land. Markets are concerned about a tightening supply situation following the collapse of the Black Sea grain initiative last week and a sequence of Russian drone attacks against Ukrainian port infrastructure. Wheat prices rose sharply on international markets following the strike by a Russian drone against a Ukrainian port on the Danube River.
• Latest on Odesa attacks: Authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa say that part of the city’s historic cathedral is structurally unsound after the building was hit Sunday by a Russian missile. The Odesa strikes killed at least one person and injured several others, Ukrainian officials said, the latest in a wave of attacks on the port city. The attacks also destroyed other historic buildings, Ukraine’s culture ministry said.

Ukraine's counteroffensive is partly struggling because of Russian ability to jam drones, according to military officials.

Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the Ukrainian forces in the south, said heavy losses were being inflicted on the Russians, but it’s clear that progress is slow.

One reason, according to Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuri Inhat, is that Russia has a major advantage in electronic warfare. 

“Regrettably, the occupiers have gone far ahead of us in this regard. You don't have to shoot down a drone with anti-aircraft missiles or anti-aircraft guns. You can simply force it to land, intercept it with electronic warfare,” he said on Ukrainian television.
“Russia today has powerful systems that interfere with the work of our defense forces. It has enough of these systems. Ukraine has made progress in electronic warfare, but we started late, we should have developed [this area] earlier," Inhat added.

Ukrainian forces say they are making modest progress in the east and south, as well as restraining Russian efforts to move forward in the Donetsk region, but overall there appears to have been little change on the front lines.

Ukrainian military officials said Russian minefields and electronic warfare capabilities are impeding progress.

Here's where things stand:

In the south: Oleksandr Kurbatov, with the Dnipro city territorial defense, said Monday that Ukrainian units were working hard to move forward in an area known as the Vremivskyi Ledge. 

He said that Russian forces were bringing in new units of "highly qualified military" who are using the cover of darkness and carefully designed corridors through the minefields to attack Ukrainian positions.

Valerii Shershen, a spokesperson for Ukrainian forces in the south, acknowledged that progress was slow, saying that “strike units had partial success and advanced into enemy territory from 350 meters up to 1.4 kms.” 

Near Melitopol: The general staff of the Ukrainian military said that offensive operations continued in the Melitopol and Berdiansk directions, and units were consolidating their positions.

Russia carried out 58 air strikes over the past day — higher than the recent average, the general staff said. Some came near the town of Kupyansk in Kharkiv, which was liberated by the Ukrainians last September and has been a target of Russian attacks. But Ukrainian officials say the Russians are being held east of the Oskil River. 

Bakhmut and the East: In the Bakhmut area, there have been efforts by the Russians to retake recently lost ground, but the general staff said a number of attacks had been repelled. 

Serhii Cherevatyi, the spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of the Ukrainian military, said that the defense forces “are gradually liberating Ukrainian land. Hundreds of meters every day, kilometers every week.”

But he said that fierce Russian resistance continued, with seven battles over the past day alone in which he claimed "94 occupiers were killed and 152 were wounded."

CNN cannot verify Ukrainian claims of advances on the battlefield or of casualty numbers.