- Ukraine is attacking the Russian base on the Black Sea, the governor says
- Zelenskiy says the war could halve the grain harvest
- Zelenskyy orders the evacuation of Donetsk
- Dozens of POWs died in a strike at a separatist-held prison
ODESA, Ukraine, July 31 (Portal) – Ukrainian forces attacked the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Russian-held Sevastopol early Sunday, the Crimean port city’s governor said, while Ukraine reported heavy Russian attacks on two southern cities.
Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev was quoted by Russian media as saying five staff members were injured in the attack when a suspected drone flew into the courtyard of the headquarters.
The attack coincided with Russian Navy Day, when President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian Navy would receive so-called “impressive” hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles in the next few months. Hypersonic weapons can travel at nine times the speed of sound. Continue reading
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He did not mention Ukraine directly.
Ukrainian authorities said heavy Russian strikes hit the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Nikopol overnight and early Sunday.
Two people were killed and three wounded when 12 rockets hit homes and educational institutions, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych told Ukrainian television, previously describing the attacks as “probably the strongest” in the city of the entire war.
Up to 50-degree rockets hit residential areas in Nikopol on Sunday morning, wrote the governor of Dnipropetrovsk, Valentyn Reznichenko, on Telegram. One person was injured.
Portal could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Putin sent tens of thousands of troops across the border on February 24, sparking a conflict that has killed thousands, uprooted millions and severely strained relations between Russia and the West.
The biggest conflict in Europe since World War II has also fueled an energy and food crisis that is rocking the global economy. Both Ukraine and Russia are leading grain suppliers.
THE HARVEST COULD BE HALVED
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday the country’s harvest this year could be half what it normally is because of the invasion.
“Ukrainian harvest this year threatens to be twice as small,” suggesting half the usual amount, Zelenskyy wrote in English on Twitter. “Our main goal is to prevent a global food crisis caused by the Russian invasion. Grain still finds a way to be delivered alternatively,” he added.
Because of the war, Ukraine is having difficulties getting its products to buyers via its Black Sea ports.
But an agreement signed on July 22 led by the United Nations and Turkey provides safe passage for ships transporting grain from three southern Ukrainian ports.
There is a high possibility that the first grain-exporting ship will leave Ukrainian ports on Monday, a spokesman for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday. Continue reading
EASTERN DANGER
In a televised address late Saturday, Zelenskyy said hundreds of thousands of people are still facing fierce fighting in the Donbass region, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk provinces and which Russia is striving to control completely. Parts of the Donbass were held by Russian-backed separatists before the invasion.
“Many refuse to go, but it still needs to be done,” said Zelenskyy. “The more people leave the Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will be able to kill.”
Russia on Sunday invited experts from the United Nations and the Red Cross to investigate the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners being held by Moscow-backed separatists.
Ukraine and Russia have exchanged allegations of a missile attack or explosion early Friday that appeared to have killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in the frontline town of Olenivka in eastern Donetsk.
Russia invited experts from the UN and the Red Cross to investigate the deaths “in the interests of an objective investigation,” the defense ministry said on Sunday.
The ministry had released a list of 50 Ukrainian POWs killed and 73 wounded in an alleged Ukrainian military strike using a US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
Ukrainian forces denied responsibility, saying Russian artillery attacked the prison to cover up the abuses there.
Portal journalists confirmed some of the prison deaths, but could not immediately verify the different versions of events.
The UN had said it was ready to send experts to investigate if both parties agreed. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was seeking access and had offered to help evacuate the wounded.
Russia denies that its forces deliberately attacked civilians or committed war crimes in the invasion, which it describes as a “special operation.”
Ukraine’s military said Saturday that more than 100 Russian soldiers were killed and seven tanks destroyed in the south on Friday, including the Kherson region, which is the focus of Kyiv’s counter-offensive in that part of the country and a key link in Moscow’s supply lines represents.
Rail services to Kherson across the Dnipro River have been disrupted, the military’s Southern Command said, potentially further isolating Russian forces west of the river from supplies in occupied Crimea and to the east.
Ukraine has used western-supplied long-range missile systems in recent weeks to severely damage three bridges across the Dnipro, cut off the city of Kherson and – according to British officials – leave the Russian 49th Army on the west bank of the river highly vulnerable.
Officials in the Russian-appointed administration that ran the Kherson region earlier this week dismissed Western and Ukrainian assessments of the situation.
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Reporting from Portal bureaus Writing by Lincoln Feast and William Maclean Editing by William Mallard and Frances Kerry
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