Monday, July 18, 8:09 a.m.: The CEO of Germany’s largest agricultural trader Baywa, Klaus Josef Lutz, does not immediately expect food shortages even in the event of a possible gas shortage. “We assume that the food supply will be secured by the end of the first quarter of next year – which does not mean that everything would always be available,” he told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (Monday). However, staple foods could become scarce and expensive, said Lutz, who is also President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Munich and Upper Bavaria.
A gas stop would have serious consequences for food production. «Without gas there is no ammonia and no fertilizer production. The production of staple foods such as meat, milk and cheese would also be at risk because gas is used for pasteurization, for example.” A switch to oil is not easily feasible. “And a one-to-one replacement with gas from Holland or Norway will not be easy either. So far, politicians have wanted to produce with gas. Cheap energy is the basis of our prosperity.»
5.45 p.m .: Serhiy Haidai, the military-civilian administrator of the Luhansk region occupied by Russia, made serious allegations against the Russian invaders in an interview with “T-Online”. According to the report, Russia forcibly recruited Ukrainians in parts of the Zaporizhia and Cherson regions – and then used them in a perfidious way in the war.
“They take newly recruited soldiers and throw them on the front line. Ukrainian soldiers defend their positions and open fire, and that’s how the Russians find out where the Ukrainian troops are hiding,” explains Haidai in an interview. “Then the Russians shelled the Ukrainian positions with artillery. They literally used the mobilized soldiers as cannon fodder.”
According to Haidai, the conscripts have only one chance to get out of such a situation alive: “They have to surrender to the Ukrainian army. It’s difficult because at the moment they’re on the enemy’s side. But they have to try to stay on the battlefield while the attack is taking place and do whatever it takes to surrender. It’s the only way to stay alive.” Whether Russia actually uses this tactic cannot be verified independently.
2 p.m .: The Russian military claims to have destroyed numerous weapons supplied by the USA and other NATO countries in new attacks in Ukraine. A Harpoon missile depot was destroyed in Odessa on the Black Sea and a US-supplied Himar multiple rocket launcher was destroyed in the Donetsk region, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in his daily briefing on Sunday.
This information has not yet been verified by an independent party. Experts point out that the Himar systems are difficult to locate and destroy. According to Ukrainian sources, the Harpoon missiles have recently been repeatedly used against the Russian Navy. The Ukrainians also described the use of the Himars multiple rocket launcher as successful.
In the Kharkov region, the Russian armed forces shot down a Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jet with air defenses from the ground and a Mi-17 combat helicopter with a fighter plane in the Sloviansk region in the Donetsk region. About 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in attacks in the Kharkiv region, Konashenkov said. The Russian Defense Ministry had previously announced an intensification of attacks in Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff in Kyiv also reported massive shelling, mainly with artillery, in the morning.
11:54 a.m .: According to British intelligence experts, Moscow takes the danger to its troops in Ukraine from counter-offensives by the defenders seriously. Russia is strengthening its defensive positions in southern Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry’s daily intelligence update said on Sunday. “This includes the movement of personnel, materiel and defensive supplies between Mariupol and Zaporizhia, as well as in Kherson.” The Russian troops also increased their security measures in the occupied southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, the statement said on Twitter.
The Russian defensive measures are, among other things, probably a reaction to the attacks by the Ukrainians on command posts, logistical hubs and troop concentrations, it said. Kyiv has also been putting pressure on the Russian-occupied areas in the Kherson region for more than a month and has indicated that further offensive measures are planned.
In view of the lack of personnel from which the Russian troops would have to suffer, a troop reinforcement in the south with a simultaneous fight for the Donbass in the east shows how seriously the Russians take the danger of a counter-offensive, the British experts concluded.
8.30 a.m .: According to their own statements, the Ukrainian armed forces have successfully repelled attacks from the Russian side in the Sloviansk region in the eastern region of Donetsk. The general staff announced on Sunday in Kyiv that there had been massive artillery shelling of military and civilian infrastructure in various towns. The enemy, however, had no success, recorded many losses and withdrew again after resistance from the Ukrainian side. The information could not be independently verified.
The Russian military also fired massively with artillery in the direction of Siwersk and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. Dozens of towns were affected by the attacks. “In view of the heavy losses in their own ranks, the majority of the occupation forces’ units are in a very bad moral and psychological condition and are looking for a way to avoid participating in further hostilities,” the Ukrainian General Staff report said.
8:45 p.m .: According to the Ukrainian secret service, Russia is preparing for the “next phase of the invasion”. According to the Kyiv Independent, Vadym Skibitsky, representative of the intelligence department in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, sees “undoubted” evidence for this. However, Skibitsky sees no signs of Belarus entering the war in the near future. “The threat is there. today it is not as high as in February, but it may increase over time.”
Military expert Phillips O’Brien explains on Twitter the significance of these attacks. He quotes the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk: According to this, the attacks on the camps mean that the Russian soldiers can no longer store their ammunition and other supplies in the vulnerable goods depots. Instead, ammunition should now be delivered directly to the soldiers at the front, without fixed intermediate stations in the war zone.
According to O’Brien, this is a clear sign of how successful the attacks are for Ukraine – and how devastating for the Russian army. “If Russia really does this, they will have serious problems. If they really do without the interim storage facilities, that means that they are practically improvising.” In addition, Putin’s army needs an enormous number of trucks in order to be able to maintain the supply chains own that amount, O’Brien doubts, summing up: “Bring more long-range weapons systems to Ukraine!”
4:16 p.m .: According to British intelligence experts, Russia has repeatedly given false information about alleged successes in its invasion of Ukraine. The scope and scale of Russian advances remain limited, the Defense Ministry’s daily intelligence update on the Ukraine war said in London on Saturday. The statement made by the Russians a few days ago that they had advanced into the city of Siwersk was not true.
“Russia has also previously made hasty and false claims of achievements,” the statement said. The reason for this is probably at least in part the desire to demonstrate successes to the population at home and to strengthen the morale of their own troops.
The Ukrainians, on the other hand, have successfully repelled Russian attacks since withdrawing from the city of Lysychansk, according to British experts. The line of defense has since been shortened and strengthened, which proved essential to thwart the Russian offensive.
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression at the end of February, the British government has regularly published intelligence information on the course. Moscow accuses London of a targeted disinformation campaign.
10:51 a.m .: During an inspection of the troops involved in the Ukraine war, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered an expansion of the attacks on the neighboring country. “After hearing (the situation report), the head of the Russian Defense Ministry gave the necessary instructions to expand the activities of the army groups in all directions of attack in order to deprive the Kiev regime of the possibility of further massive artillery and rocket attacks on infrastructure and civilians in Donbass and in other regions,” the ministry said on Saturday.
This is Shoigu’s second inspection of Russian forces in Ukraine. The first took place at the end of June. At the current event, the Russian Defense Minister honored two high-ranking generals, including the head of Army Group “Center”, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, who is considered to be one of the leaders in the conquest of the Sievjerodonetsk-Lysychansk conurbation in the Donbass by troops loyal to Moscow.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.