The situation in the Ukraine war is getting worse. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy accuses Putin of “terror”: the news ticker on Tuesday, July 26th.
- “Massive” Missile Deployment: Russia bombs Odessa again
- “Terrorism” in Europe: Zelenskyy accuses Russian government
- Editor’s note: All news about Ukraine conflict read in this news ticker. The information comes partly from warring parties in the Ukraine war and cannot be directly verified independently.
+++ 09.00 a.m.: In addition to Odessa, the Russian army apparently also attacked the cities of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv with rockets on Tuesday night. This is reported by the Ukrainian armed forces, including on Telegram. Vitaliy Kim, head of the Mykolayiv regional military administration, said in a statement on Twitter that nine rockets hit the region in the morning. The above information is not independently verifiable.
News about the Ukraine war: Russia with “massive” rocket attacks on Odessa
+++ 8.30 a.m.: Russia again attacked the Odessa region on Tuesday morning. The Ukrainian task force “South” reported in a situation report of “massive” use of missiles along the coast. The port in the Mykolaiv region was also hit, it said. This is what the news portal refers to Kyiv Independent. The information cannot be independently verified.
+++ 07.15 a.m.: According to an assessment by the US think tank “Institute for the Study of War”, Russian troops are recording minor gains in territory near the town of Bakhmut. However, this is not enough to capture the city. Similar to Bakhmut, there were battles near Kharkiv and Siwersk. The information cannot be independently verified.
News about the Ukraine war: Zelenskyj accuses Russia of “terror” in Europe
Update from Tuesday, July 26, 6:30 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sees the further throttling of Russian gas supplies to Europe as a form of Moscow’s “terror” against the West. “And this is an open gas war that Russia is unleashing against a united Europe,” said Zelenskyy in his evening video message on Monday. Russia is deliberately making it difficult for Europe to prepare for the winter. The country is showing once again that it is not interested in the fate of the people. By blocking Ukrainian grain exports, Russia is making people starve, suffering from cold, poverty and occupation.
“These are just different forms of terror,” said Zelenskyj, referring to the announcement by the Russian gas company Gazprom that it would cut supplies through the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 to 20 percent of capacity from Wednesday. Gazprom gave the reason that another gas turbine had to be repaired.
Ukraine War News: Slovakia ready to surrender its MIG-29 fleet to Ukraine
+++ 10:59 p.m.: The Ukrainian General Staff reports that Russian troops have achieved partial success in capturing the Wuhlehirsk power plant. Russian troops have been trying to take over the power plant for weeks. Contrary to the name, this is in the Donetsk region and not in the Russian-occupied city of Wuhlehirsk. In addition, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that Ukrainian troops repelled a Russian offensive on the village of Pokrovske in the Donetsk region.
+++ 9.50 p.m.: Slovakia is open to talks about handing over its fleet of 11 MIG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, Deborah Haynes, Sky’s security and defense editor, wrote in Bratislava. Slovakia’s defense minister said his country is not big enough to unilaterally give away the fighter jets, which are also flown by Ukrainian pilots. It therefore needs allies who offer replacement aircraft or money. He said each MIG-29 is worth about 35 million euros.
Ukraine War: Zelenskyy appoints new Special Operations Forces commander
+++ 8:06 p.m.: After major losses of territory since the Russian invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has replaced the commander of the special forces. The head of state dismissed Hryhorij Halahan by decree on Monday and installed Viktor Khorenko in his place. The Special Operations Forces are a branch of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that conducts reconnaissance missions and covert operations behind enemy lines.
Heavy weapons: Ukraine receives first Gepard tanks from Germany
+++ 7.10 p.m.: Five months after the Russian attack, Ukraine 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.
According to Resnikov, several tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition were handed over with the three anti-aircraft gun tanks. Twelve more Gepard tanks are expected. The delivery is based on an agreement with the Secretary of Defense Christina Lambrecht (SPD) from May.
War in Ukraine: Selenskyj dismisses next senior official – Russian soldiers torture civilian population
+++ 5.15 p.m.: After the Russian rocket attacks on the port of Odessa on the Black Sea, Moscow sees no obstacles to exporting millions of tons of Ukrainian grain. The rockets hit the part of the port used for military purposes and thus at a “significant distance” from the grain silos, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday during his trip to Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the Russian side, nothing stands in the way of fulfilling Friday’s Istanbul agreement, he said. At the same time, Lavrov made it clear that such an attack could happen again at any time. According to Lavrov, Russia did not make any commitments in the Istanbul agreement “that would prohibit us from continuing special military operations and destroying military infrastructure and other military targets.” Russia only calls the war of aggression against Ukraine a “military special operation”.
+++ 4.45 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fired Deputy Secretary of the National Security Council Demchenko. This emerges from a message on the President’s website. So far it is unclear what the reasons for this are. According to a report by the news portal, Demnchenko sat down Kyiv Independent for signing the so-called Kharkiv Accords in 2010. These are said to have favored the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. This cannot be verified independently.
+++ 3 p.m.: A Russian collaborator with the Russian armed forces was apparently arrested in Kyiv. Like the news portal Kyiv Independent reported, the 41-year-old is said to have sent numerous photos of the deployment routes of Ukrainian troops to Moscow since April 2022. According to the report, he is accused of having passed on information about a contact in the occupied territories to Russia. The information cannot be independently verified.
News about the Ukraine war: Apparently 50 Russian ammunition depots destroyed
+++ 2 p.m.: According to Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukrainian forces have destroyed 50 Russian ammunition depots with US precision missiles. “This breaks their supply chains and deprives them of their ability to actively fight and to take our forces under heavy artillery fire,” Reznikov said on Ukrainian TV. This proves the growing influence of the US-supplied mobile multiple rocket launchers “Himars” on the fighting. Resnikov’s statements are not independently verifiable.
+++ 12.15 p.m.: According to the Ukrainian secret service, the notorious Berkut riot police in the Russian army are also deployed in Kherson. According to a situation report, this should now break the resistance in occupied areas such as Cherson. However, this cannot be verified independently. In 2014, the Berkut units, once subordinate to the Interior Ministry of Ukraine, were involved in the crackdown on pro-European protests in Ukraine. After the flight of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, the government in Kyiv dissolved them. However, the special unit was still welcome in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia.
+++ 11.00 a.m.: What the human rights organization “Human Rights Watch” reports (see update from 10.15 a.m.) is also confirmed by the Ukrainian security service. The Kyiv Independent news portal reports that Russian troops torture civilians. According to the report, this primarily affects the Cherson region. “Victims are subjected to psychological pressure, violence and death threats,” Ukraine’s Security Service said on Monday. The information cannot be independently verified.
Ukraine War News: Russian Soldiers Torture Civilians
+++ 10.15 a.m.: Russian troops torture and kidnap civilians in the occupied areas of Kherson and Zaporizhia. This is the conclusion reached by the human rights organization “Human Rights Watch” in one go report. It states that Russian soldiers in the regions “tortured, unlawfully arrested and forcibly disappeared civilians”. Prisoners of war are subjected to numerous methods of torture in Ukraine.
+++ 9.30 a.m.: According to an assessment by the British Ministry of Defense, Russia faces the dilemma of either “providing resources for the offensive in eastern Ukraine or strengthening defenses in the west”. According to the situation report, the ministry also identified a facility for the conversion and refurbishment of military vehicles with at least 300 damaged vehicles in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast. However, this cannot be independently verified.
News about the Ukraine war: Heavy fighting in the Donbass
+++ 08.45 a.m.: Heavy fighting appears to be continuing in the Donbass. This was announced by the Ukrainian government in Kyiv on Monday morning. Armed forces are particularly involved in clashes to the east and south-east of the conurbation between the cities of Slovjansk and Kramatorsk (Donetsk Oblast). “The enemy is launching an attack not far from Spirne, fighting is continuing,” the Ukrainian general staff said in its situation report. This cannot be verified independently.
+++ 08.00 a.m.: The Ukrainian General Staff has published figures on Russian losses in the Ukraine war. According to this, almost 40,000 soldiers have already fallen.
News about the Ukraine war: Russia is probably building up volunteer battalions
First report from Monday, July 25, 7 a.m.: Kyiv/Moscow – The US think tank “Institute for the Study of War” (ISW) assumes sothat the Kremlin will continue to build regional volunteer battalions. According to ISW, Russia “uses the recruitment efforts of private military companies to generate combat power,” noting that the Wagner group is actively recruiting for deployment in Ukraine. The ISW also reports that Russian forces have carried out ground attacks northwest of Sloviansk, east of Siverk, south of Bakhmut and in Kherson Oblast. The information cannot be independently verified. (tu/lz with dpa/AFP)