July 25, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Five European Union member states bordering Ukraine are requesting that an existing ban on imports of four types of Ukrainian grain be extended beyond the scheduled expiry date of September 15, the EU Council said on Tuesday.  

Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania would like to see a temporary EU import ban of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower oil be extended to the end of the year, Spain’s Minister for Agriculture Luis Planas Puchades said at a news conference in Brussels. He was speaking in his capacity as president of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council. 

The EU adopted the measures in May to ease logistical bottlenecks and protect local farmers from being undercut in price by cheaper grain produced in Ukraine. 

Speaking at the same event, the EU’s Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski said the bloc will need to consider “new circumstances” while considering the extension given Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal.  

Trevor Reed, a former US Marine who was wrongfully detained in Russia for nearly three years before being released last year, was injured while participating in fighting in Ukraine, US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel confirmed Tuesday.

Reed, who was freed in a prisoner swap in April 2022, was transported to a hospital in Kyiv and then evacuated to Germany for medical care at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which is a US military hospital near Ramstein Air Base, a US official told CNN.

The circumstances around Reed's injury in combat were not immediately clear.

The Messenger was first to report the news.

The Biden administration is aware Reed “was injured while participating in fighting in Ukraine,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday.

Jean-Pierre noted that Reed “was not engaged in any activities on behalf of the US government,” while fighting in Ukraine.

And she warned that, for Americans traveling to the region, “we are not able to provide assistance to evacuate US citizens — that’s not something that we are able to do from Ukraine, including those Americans who may decide to travel to Ukraine to participate in an ongoing war.”

Impact on other detained US citizens: When asked if he is concerned this will have negative implications on negotiations for Americans designated as wrongfully detained in Russia, Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, the State Department's Patel said he wouldn’t speculate. 

“We will continue to engage directly with the Russian Federation, calling for the release, you've seen us do so in the case of Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, and will continue to remain deeply engage on those issues,” Patel said.

A US official, however, said that “of course” they are concerned about the potential impact this will have on negotiations, but stressed that they should not be considered together.

“This was something an individual did of their own volition and should be treated entirely separately from negotiations for the release of Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan,” the official told CNN.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday announced a new $400 million tranche of security assistance for Ukraine, which includes air defense munitions and armored vehicles.

The assistance includes “air defense munitions, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, and anti-armor capabilities, as well as other equipment essential to strengthening Ukraine’s brave forces on the battlefield, helping them retake Ukraine’s sovereign territory, and defend their fellow citizens,” according to a statement announcing the latest drawdown – the 43rd to date.

Blinken also slammed Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, noting that Moscow “continues to attack Ukrainian ports and grain infrastructure," including in the southern port city of Odesa.

The strikes – the latest in a wave of attacks on Odesa – killed at least one person and injured several others, Ukrainian officials said. At least 25 architectural monuments were destroyed and a historic Orthodox cathedral was badly damaged, a regional military official said.

According to a State Department spokesperson, some of the specific capabilities in this pacakge are:

Russian accounts of a rocket attack on a camp holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in July 2022 are not supported by evidence, according to the United Nations.

The findings by the UN Human Rights Commissioner (UN OHCHR) support the conclusions of an extensive CNN investigation published in August last year, which demonstrated that the Russian narrative that the camp had been hit by a Ukrainian HIMARS rocket did not stand up to scrutiny. 

More than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in the strike at the detention center in the town of Olenivka.

Russian and local officials from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic said the attack was carried out by the Ukrainian side, using one of the HIMARS rockets that had been recently supplied by the United States.

But the CNN investigation, based on analysis of video and photographs from the scene, satellite imagery from before and after the attack and the work of forensic and weapons experts, concluded that “the Russian version of events is very likely a fabrication. There is almost no chance that a HIMARS rocket caused the damage to the warehouse where the prisoners were being held.” 

A UN statement issued Tuesday concurred that “the information available and our analysis enable the Office to conclude that [the strike] was not caused by a HIMARS rocket.”

“The Russian Federation provided neither satisfactory assurances about secure access for the United Nations to visit the particular site, nor granted general requests by the UN Human Rights Office to access areas of Ukraine under the temporary military control of the Russian Federation," the statement said.

A European Union official proposed on Tuesday that member states should cover the additional costs of exporting Ukrainian grain by land following the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal. 

The EU is prepared to facilitate the export of all of Ukraine’s grain via the bloc’s so-called “solidarity lanes" since Russia withdrew from the UN-brokered deal — which allowed for vital grain transits through the Black Sea, EU’s Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski said, speaking at a news conference in Brussels.

The additional land transits through EU member states that border Ukraine will create a spike in transport costs, he highlighted. 

Wojciechowski said he will propose to discuss with the European Commission — the union's executive branch – the prospect of supporting “the transport costs using also the EU money."  

The Ukrainian military said it has made slight progress on the southern front, in an area that has seen constant fighting for nearly two months.

Valerii Shershen, the spokesperson for Ukrainian forces in the south, said troops had advanced by some 500 meters in an area near the town of Staromaiorske — a target of the Ukrainians since the beginning of their counter-offensive.

Elsewhere along the front lines in the south, Shershen said their had been no changes, adding that “the enemy is putting up stiff resistance, moving units and troops, and using reserves. Our attack units are consolidating their positions at the achieved lines and inflicting artillery fire.”

“There are no changes in the Melitopol direction near Robotyne due to dense mining. Demining is the top priority on the seized frontlines. Undercover demining teams are operating at full speed,” Shershen said.

In parts of the Donetsk region — where the Russians are trying to take territory — Shershen said attacks near Avdiivka and Marinka  had been repelled.

There has been virtually no change in control of territory in these directions since last year. He said Ukrainian troops “are holding back any advance of Russian troops in the areas of Krasnohorivka and Marinka. The enemy was unsuccessful in advancing in the area of Rivnopil.”

Shershen gave a glimpse into the huge consumption of munitions in Ukraine’s counter-offensive, saying “Ukrainian Defense Forces carried out 1,289 firing missions over the past 24 hours. Our artillery used over 7,550 shells and ammunition over the last day.”

In a brief Telegram post, Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who commands forces on the southern front, said: “There are successes and advances, knocking the Russians out of their positions. The work continues.”

According to the military’s general staff, Russian air strikes and artillery fire continued in many areas of the front lines in the north (Luhansk and Kharkiv regions.)

Yet another attack in the Lyman sector (close to the border of Donetsk and Luhansk) by the Russians had been unsuccessful, the general staff said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to visit China in October, when the Chinese government hosts the Belt and Road Forum, according to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will host the 3rd International Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. He invited Putin to the event when he visited Moscow earlier this year.

The forum is China’s answer to Davos or the G20 and is designed to increase cooperation among Eurasian states. Putin attended and spoke at the first two Belt and Road Forums, held in 2017 and 2019 in Beijing. 

Russian forces south of the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut have taken heavy losses and appear to have fallen back amid intense artillery fire from the Ukrainian side, according to official and unofficial Ukrainian accounts, as well as reports from Russian military bloggers.

Ukraine has been trying to break Russian resistance here for several weeks. Ukrainian advances near Andriivka are part of a plan to encircle Bakhmut and drive out Russian forces, the spokesperson for the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevatyi, said on Tuesday.

Why this matters: At stake are a string of villages that are important in safeguarding Russian resupply routes into the ruined city of Bakhmut, which fell to the Russians in the spring. Control of this area would also enable Ukrainian forces to hit Russian targets in and around the city from higher ground. 

Both Russian and Ukrainian sources have reported heavy fighting around the village of Klishchiivka, with the Russian Defense Ministry claiming on Monday that Ukrainian attacks near the village had been repelled. However, Ukrainian progress towards the nearby village of Andriivka makes Russian positions in Klishchiivka more vulnerable.

In the Bakhmut sector, Russian losses have outnumbered those of Ukraine by a ratio of eight or nine to one, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar claimed Tuesday. “And the question should be asked not about the number of kilometers passed, but about the fact whether we are moving forward or not.”

US intelligence officials have warned Russia is building a drone-manufacturing facility in the country with Iran's help that could have a significant impact on the war in Ukraine once it is completed.

Analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency told a small group of reporters during a briefing on Friday that the drone-manufacturing facility now under construction is expected to provide Russia with a new drone stockpile that is "orders of magnitude larger" than what it has been able to procure from Iran to date.

When the facility is completed, likely by early next year, the new drones could have a significant impact on the conflict, the analysts warned. In April, the US released a satellite image of the planned location of the purported drone manufacturing plant, inside Russia's Alabuga Special Economic Zone about 600 miles east of Moscow. The analysts said Iran has regularly been ferrying equipment to Russia to help with the facility's construction.

They added that to date, it is believed that Iran has provided Russia with more than 400 Shahed-131, 136 and Mohajer drones — a stockpile that Russia has almost completely depleted, they said.

Russia is primarily using the drones to attack critical Ukrainian infrastructure and stretch Ukraine's air defenses, a senior DIA official said. Iran has been using the Caspian Sea to move drones, bullets and mortar shells to Russia, often using vessels that are "dark," or have turned off their tracking data to disguise their movements, CNN has reported.

The US obtained and analyzed several of the drones downed in Ukraine, and officials say there is "undeniable evidence" that the drones are Iranian, despite repeated denials from Tehran that it is providing the equipment to Russia for use in Ukraine.

The DIA analysts showcased debris from drones recovered in Ukraine in 2022 during the briefing on Friday, comparing them side-by-side with Iranian-made drones found in Iraq last year. 

One of the drones recovered in Ukraine had only its wings and engine partially intact. But judging by its shape and size, it appeared to be a Shahed-131, the same model as an Iranian-made drone found in Iraq. The analysts removed components from one and easily slid them onto the other, showing that they are virtually "indistinguishable" in their design.

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