Southern Ukraine is emerging as a major flashpoint in the war, which entered its sixth month on Sunday, July 24. After the bombings of the port of Odessa, Russia said on Sunday it had attacked military targets in this strategic location for grain exports, while on Saturday it denied being involved in those attacks. For its part, Kyiv hopes that the Kherson region will be liberated soon.
Moscow claims to have destroyed military targets in Odessa
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that “long-range, high-precision missiles fired from the sea destroyed a docked Ukrainian military ship and a stockpile of Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied by the United States to the Kiev regime.” “A repair and modernization facility for Ukrainian army ships has also been shut down,” the ministry said in a statement published on its Telegram account. Russian diplomacy spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier in the day that a Ukrainian “military star” was destroyed during the strike. Neither the Russian army nor Maria Zakharova have presented any evidence to support these statements.
On Saturday, however, Russia denied to Turkey that it was involved in these attacks: “The Russians told us that they had absolutely nothing to do with this attack and that they are examining the issue very closely,” said Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar insured. After those shots at Odessa, Ukraine accused Vladimir Putin of “spitting in the face” at the UN and Turkey and compromising the application of the deal signed on Friday to resume grain exports blocked by the dispute.
Kherson region “finally liberated” by September
The Kherson region in the south of the country will be “finally liberated by September,” said the pro-Kiev advisor to the head of the Kherson regional military administration in an interview with Ukrainian television on Sunday. “All the occupiers’ plans will fail,” he added, as the Ukrainian military began to win back ground from Russian forces with the help of Western arms shipments.
“We can speak of a trend reversal locally. In recent operations, Ukrainian forces have had the advantage, the local official explained, our army is openly advancing, we are moving from a defensive phase to a counter-offensive.” The Russians took control of the region’s capital, Kherson, on March 3.
The Federal President denounces “a war against the unity of Europe”.
The war that Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging against Ukraine is also “a war against the unity of Europe,” Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier castigated on Sunday. “We must not allow ourselves to be divided, we must not allow the great work of a united Europe that we started so promisingly to be destroyed,” he said in a speech in Paderborn (West). “This war is not only about Ukraine’s territory, it is about the doubly common basis of our values and our peace order,” he added.
Defending these values and standing up for them also means being willing to “accept considerable disadvantages,” emphasized the Federal President, without giving any further details on the disadvantages in question. “Are we ready for this?” he asked himself, “we all face this question, today and in the coming days, weeks and months.”