According to Ukrainian officials, nine civilians were killed and 12 injured by Russian shelling overnight in the town of Lyman in the Donetsk region reported on July 9, as fighting continued in the country’s eastern and southern areas and a Western think tank reported that after 500 days of fighting, Russia had not achieved any of the goals of its massive invasion.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War published a July 8 Evaluation It said “determined and skillful Ukrainian resistance” prevented Moscow from achieving one of the goals of its original February 2022 invasion.
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It noted that Kiev had launched a counter-offensive “along most of the front line,” adding that Russian forces were now “focused almost exclusively on retaining the Ukrainian territories they still hold.”
July 8 marked the 500th day since the invasion of Moscow, which came eight years after Russia occupied Ukraine’s Crimea region and unleashed separatist wars in the eastern parts of the country.
Also Russian armed forces allegedly shelled targets, including a shipyard, in the southern city of Kherson on the night of July 8-9. The region’s military administration said hundreds of mortar shells and other ammunition had hit the city in the past 24 hours.
RFE/RL is unable to independently verify combat reports in areas of heavy combat.
In its daily briefing on July 9, the Ukrainian General Staff said reported More than 30 combat operations have erupted over the past 24 hours, with fierce fighting continuing around the towns of Bakhmut, Lyman, Avdiyivka and Maryinka in the Donetsk region.
The General Staff said that in the southern regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson, “the enemy is concentrating its main efforts on preventing the further advance of our troops.”
Speaking to German news agency dpa on July 9, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany Oleksiy Makeyev said his government expects “a clear and unequivocal invitation and direction to join NATO” when the alliance holds its summit in Vilnius this week .
“The only way to put an end to Russian aggression against Europe is to send a strong signal from the 2023 NATO summit, which has every chance to go down in cohesion history,” he said.
“Our membership does not mean escalation,” he added, “but the path to peace.”
With reporting by the dpa