After a long wait, the first Gepard anti-aircraft tanks have arrived from Germany. The Ukrainian military says it bombed a Russian-held bridge in Kherson. All news about the war in Ukraine can be found in the ticker.
5:57 a.m.: Ukraine is said to have hit another important bridge over the Dinipro, according to reports. “The river crossing is now completely impassable,” it said. The bridge represents an important Russian supply route and is now cut off. Read more about this here.
Thursday, July 28, 1:35 a.m.: According to US estimates, more than 75,000 people were killed or wounded on the Russian side in the war against Ukraine. This was reported by the broadcaster CNN, citing members of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday (local time).
“We were informed that more than 75,000 Russians were either killed or injured, which is enormous,” the channel quoted Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who previously attended a secret US government briefing. The US foreign intelligence agency CIA recently estimated that 15,000 people had died on the Russian side. There is no current information from the official authorities in Russia on the number of deaths.
10:45 p.m .: The head of the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region has called on Russia to conquer most of Ukraine. “Today is the time to liberate Russian cities founded by Russians: Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava, Odessa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Lutsk,” wrote separatist leader Denis Puschilin on Wednesday in the online service Telegram on the anniversary of the liberation of the Belarusian ones City of Brest by the Nazis.
The cities identified by Pushilin as “Russian” cover almost the entire territory of Ukraine. Russia has captured much of southern and eastern Ukraine since late February, but failed in its attack on the capital, Kyiv.
Before the start of the offensive at the end of February, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the two self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. In his view, Ukraine was artificially separated from Russia.
5.10 p.m .: In a Russian attack on a hotel and residential building in Bachmuth, in the Donzek Oblast, according to the Ukrainian state emergency service, two people were killed and four injured. This is reported by the “Kyiv Independent”. The rescue work is currently underway, explains the Ukrainian emergency service.
4:52 p.m .: According to the Ukrainian general staff, Russian missiles accidentally destroyed their own Kremlin units near Kherson. This is reported by the Ukrainian General Staff on Twitter.
Accordingly, three Russian Ka-52 helicopters were to attack the Ukrainian army in the Cherson region the day before. According to the General Staff, the Russian missiles instead destroyed their own units. “A gesture of goodwill by the occupiers,” the tweet reads.
It goes on to say that the Russian air defense systems could only destroy one of the three attack helicopters. This information could not be independently verified.
11:20 a.m .: The Ukrainian army bombed a strategically important bridge during its counter-offensive in the city of Cherson in southern Ukraine, which was occupied by Russian troops. The Ukrainian military released video Wednesday morning apparently showing rockets being fired at the bridge.
The deputy head of the Russian-deployed regional administration in Kherson, Kirill Stremusov, confirmed the attack. The attack will affect the outcome of the fighting in the region “in no way,” he said in a video message.
The Russian army had used the Antonivka Bridge over the Dnipro River as an important supply route to Kherson. “Occupiers should learn how to swim across the Dnipro River,” Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podoliak wrote on Twitter. “Or they should leave Kherson while it’s still possible.”
In the fight against the Russian troops, the Ukrainian army can now fall back on missiles with a longer range as a result of western arms deliveries, which enable them to attack Russian supply routes deeper in the occupied territories.
Wednesday, July 27, 7:58 a.m .: The Ukrainian military says it has completely conquered the small town of Andriyivka in the Cherson region in the south of the country. “Andriyivka has been liberated and finally cleared of the Russian occupying forces,” spokesman for the “South” command center of the Ukrainian troops, Vladyslav Nazarov, said in a video message on Tuesday evening. The information cannot be verified independently. While troops loyal to Moscow continue to have the initiative in the east of the country, Kyiv has now counterattacked in the south.
According to Nazarov, the Ukrainian forces also captured the neighboring town of Losowe a few days ago. Mainly, however, the battles are still being fought by means of artillery on supply lines. The military administration deployed by Moscow in the Kherson region reported another shelling of a bridge over the Dnipro River.
The 1.4-kilometer-long car bridge in the regional capital of Cherson was still intact, a spokesman for the administration said on Wednesday night. He later acknowledged that the bridge was damaged and closed to traffic.
The bridges are strategically important because the Dnipro carries a lot of water and is therefore difficult to cross. The primary goal of the Ukrainian military is to push the Russian occupying forces back to the line behind the Dnipro. To do this, they are attempting, among other things, to shut down the supply lines with the help of the Himar rocket launchers supplied by the USA.
7:37 p.m .: In the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, the Russian troops say they have taken control of Ukraine’s largest coal-fired power plant near Svitlodarsk. On Tuesday, the media of the Donetsk separatists already reported the capture. Pictures should prove the presence of Russian mercenaries of the so-called Wagner group in front of the administration building. According to other reports, however, the fighting around the power plant site, which had been going on since the end of May, continued. The information cannot be verified independently.
The Ukrainian General Staff no longer mentioned the power plant in its evening situation report. Instead, the military leadership only reported fighting around Semyhirya, which was a little further to the west. In the morning report there was still talk of air raids on Ukrainian positions on the power plant site.
4:10 p.m .: During the war in Ukraine, Russia claims to have attacked a base of the so-called International Legion with foreign fighters with rockets. Several dozen foreigners were killed near Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry announced in Moscow on Tuesday. The majority of those killed were Poles, it said.
The information cannot be independently verified. The International Legion fighting in the Ukrainian army only provides isolated information on its own losses and does not provide any information on the composition of the volunteer unit, which also includes Germans.
Tuesday, July 26, 2022, 12:16: In the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, several civilians lost their lives in the course of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops. Three people were killed and eight injured in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region, military governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Telegram on Tuesday. The dead were in the villages of Krasnohorivka, Marjinka and Soledar. In fact, the entire territory is being shot at by the enemy. “There isn’t a settlement in Donetsk region that isn’t being shelled and that’s safe or relatively safe,” he later told TV.
According to local sources, a civilian was also killed in the town of Horlivka in the part of the Donetsk region controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Five people were also injured in the region, it said. Ukrainian troops fired on the greater Donetsk area in particular.
In the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk Oblast, the authorities put the number of civilian casualties at 642 since the start of the Russian invasion. More than 1600 people were injured. In the separatist part, on the other hand, according to local statistics, almost 760 civilians were killed and more than 2,400 injured. The information provided by both sides cannot be independently verified.
The United Nations has officially registered more than 5,200 civilian deaths across Ukraine. The number is constantly increasing because many deaths are not yet recorded.
8:02 p.m .: After major losses of territory since the Russian invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has replaced the commander of the armed forces in eastern Ukraine. The head of state dismissed Hryhorij Halahan by decree on Monday and installed Viktor Horenko in his place. The 44-year-old Major General Halahan had led the special operation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since August 2020. The war there started in 2014.
Meanwhile, the General Staff in Kyiv reported that the Russian units had achieved successes at the Wuhlehirsk coal-fired power plant. On the other hand, attacks in the direction of the towns of Bakhmut and Siwersk were repelled on the neighboring sector of the front. Russian attacks in the Kharkiv region also failed. Several dozen places, especially in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, were shelled by artillery or bombed by the Luftwaffe.
12:49 p.m .: Ukraine has received the first Gepard anti-aircraft tanks from Germany. “Today the first three cheetahs officially arrived,” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Ukrainian television on Monday. Several tens of thousands of shots were also handed over.
Twelve more Gepard tanks are expected. The delivery is based on an agreement with Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) in May. Ukraine has been fending off a Russian invasion since late February and has repeatedly urged to strengthen its own air defenses.
It is the second shipment of heavy weapons that Germany has handed over to Ukraine. In June, the German government had already delivered heavy artillery pieces to Ukraine in the form of the Panzerhaubitze 2000. The Panzerhaubitze is the Bundeswehr’s most modern artillery piece with a range of 40 kilometers. At that time, Ukraine received a total of seven guns.
In addition to the cheetahs, Ukraine is primarily waiting for the modern Iris-T air defense systems from Germany. These should better protect the country from Russian missile attacks. However, the Iris-T is reportedly not scheduled to arrive until the fall.
Monday, July 25, 8:57 a.m.: According to information from Kyiv, the Russian troops made further storm attempts during the night east and south-east of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk conurbation in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. “The enemy is launching an attack not far from Spirne, fighting is continuing,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in its situation report on Monday. There is also a fight for the suburbs of the Bachmut transport hub.
In most cases, the attacks were repelled and the Russian troops were repulsed, the general staff said. The information cannot be verified independently.
When it came to fighting in the south of the country, in the Cherson region, the General Staff limited itself to reporting heavy artillery battles and Russian air raids. Meanwhile, the “South” command of the Ukrainian armed forces announced that it had destroyed two ammunition depots and a command post of the Russian troops in its own attacks. There is no independent confirmation for this information either. Ukraine had repeatedly announced an offensive to recapture southern Ukraine.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.