July 25, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Ukrainian forces have made gains along the southern front, according to Kyiv military officials and battlefield reports.

Andrii Kovalov, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military's general staff said Tuesday that Kyiv's forces “had success in the direction of Staromaiorske,” in the Berdiansk front, south of Velyka Novosilka.

Ukrainian forces are "entrenching themselves in the reached positions,” he said, adding that Russian troops were "resisting strongly."

In an update Tuesday, the general staff said Russian forces continued to focus on preventing Ukraine’s advances along the southern front, indicating stiff resistance. 

Some of those offensive operations toward Melitopol are taking place just south of the town of Orikhiv, with some advances reported over the past 24 hours. 

Battlefield reports: The Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine was reportedly able to advance 1.7 kilometers (just over a mile) toward the northeastern outskirts of the village of Robotyne.

The advancement was documented by several Russian military bloggers. 

Some reported Ukraine had shifted the vector of its attack in the area by going around Russian fortifications with the support of its artillery, driving Moscow’s troops back.

The Melitopol axis was one of the main thrusts of the early stages of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, where Kyiv first employed some of the Western equipment it received specifically for the push forward — meeting with notorious Russian resistance.

In the east: Ukrainian forces drove back the Russians near Andriivka, just south of the embattled city of Bakhmut, spokesperson Kovalov also claimed. The advance comes as Ukrainian troops continue offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut, he said.

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.

Cherevatyi acknowledged the situation was more difficult north of the city. 

“The enemy is better prepared there (north of Bakhmut). There are also certain natural obstacles there, including water obstacles,” he explained. “But the work there is also ongoing and will be visible over time, despite the fact that the enemy is preparing everything to complicate our movement.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko spoke about the Wagner private military company — which led a failed mutiny against Moscow last month — at their recent talks in St. Petersburg, according to the Kremlin.

“The topic of the Wagner group was also raised there, the topic of trade and economic cooperation, as well as the Union State, and the external threat along the perimeter of our countries -- all this, of course, was on the agenda," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

Peskov did not provide any additional detail on what both leaders discussed regarding Wagner, but added that the meeting served to align positions and share views on multiple issues.

“There were no goals to reach any agreements,” Peskov continued.

Lukashenko arrived in Russia last Saturday and held meetings with Putin in St. Petersburg on Sunday and Monday, according to both presidential press services.

Some background: Lukashenko has remained Putin's closest ally since he allowed Russian forces to use Belarusian territory to launch its invasion of Ukraine.

Wagner forces were stationed in Belarus after Lukashenko helped negotiate a deal to end the group's short-lived insurrection against the Kremlin.

As many as 5,000 fighters are already in the country, according to Ukraine.

Last week, Belarus' defense ministry said it would hold join military sessions with Wagner troops after the failed rebellion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his plea for resources to bolster Kyiv's air defense system in a call with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday.

“[We] spoke about Russia's daily attempts to destroy Odesa's historic center and port infrastructure. We must defend Odesa. Ukraine urgently needs to strengthen its air defense to protect its historical heritage and continue the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” Zelensky said of the call between the two leaders on Tuesday.

“We discussed our further defense cooperation, the course of Ukrainian offensive operations. I outlined the current defense needs of [Ukraine]."

The southern port city of Odesa has been hit with a barrage of Russian strikes in recent days, damaging architectural sites and targeting grain stocks -- days after Moscow withdrew from a deal that allowed for the safe passage of Ukrainian wheat from ports in the region.

Zelensky also said he discussed Ukraine's bid for NATO membership, echoing calls from other senior officials in Kyiv to speed up the country's accession into the bloc.

“[We] noted the adoption by the G7 of the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine at the NATO Summit in Vilnius and the subsequent accession of other countries to it,” he added. “We also coordinated future steps to fill it with concrete security guarantees on a bilateral basis.”

The UK has remained a staunch ally of Kyiv since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022, donating billions of dollars' worth of military aid to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia in an attempt to squeeze its economy.

A Russian delegation led by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will begin a three-day visit to North Korea on Tuesday, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and North Korean state media.

North Korea is one of only a handful of countries to show outright support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has blamed the United States and the West for the war.

North Korean state newspaper KCNA confirmed the visit.

Meanwhile, a high-level Chinese government delegation is headed to North Korea this week, believed to be the highest-level representatives from Beijing to visit Pyongyang since the isolated country closed its borders during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Read more about the visit here.

Ukrainian air defenses repelled a Russian drone attack on the Kyiv region in the early hours of Tuesday, officials said. 

Kyiv city military administration head Serhiy Popko said in a Telegram post that Russia used Iran-made Shahed drones in the sixth attack on the capital this month.

No casualties or damage was reported, he said.   

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Leopard 2 tanks are among a new batch of military and humanitarian equipment en route from Spain to Ukraine, the Spanish defense ministry said Monday.

In a statement, the ministry said the shipment had departed from the port of Santander and was expected to be delivered to Ukraine's military in early August. 

The shipment includes:

Spanish aid: Spain has already sent six Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, as part of a pledge to send a total of 10 such vehicles. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in July that Madrid will provide four more Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv. A portable field hospital with surgical capacity arrived in Ukraine on Sunday, according to Spain's defense ministry.  

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.

Read more here.

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

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

“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 President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called on world leaders to put pressure on Russia to hand the plant over to the IAEA. 

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: