Ukraine Daily

Saturday, July 30

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Russia’s war against Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) and Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov (L) during a visit to Ukraine’s Chornomorsk Black Sea port on July 29, 2022. Ukrainian ports are set to begin exporting Ukrainian grain for the first time since Russia’s war began on Feb. 24, 2022. (Zelensky/Telegram)

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Intelligence: Russia’s Wagner Group behind attack on Olenivka penal colony. According to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry Intelligence Directorate, the explosion in a penal colony in Russian-occupied Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast, was ordered by the owner of the Russian-controlled private military Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and was not coordinated with the Russian Defense Ministry. However, Ukraine’s General Staff earlier said that Russia attacked the colony to destroy the evidence of torturing and killing Ukrainian POWs.

Prosecutor General’s Office launches investigation following video that appears to show Russian soldiers brutally torturing Ukrainian POW. “Cruel treatment of prisoners of war, their torture, including physical mutilation, is a gross violation” of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Prosecutor General’s Office said on July 29. Earlier a video appeared on social media showing people in Russian army uniform cutting off the genitalia of a Ukrainian serviceman.

Infrastructure Ministry: Ukraine ready to start grain export. According to Oleksandr Kubrakov, 17 vessels have already been loaded with grain in the Ukrainian ports, and 10 of them are ready to depart. Ukraine and Russia signed UN-backed deals to ensure the safe passage of Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea on July 22. The agreements were put at risk by Russia’s missile strike on Odesa port on July 23. President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Chornomorsk seaport in Odesa Oblast, where Ukrainian grain is now being loaded for export for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24. Read more here.

UK intelligence: Russian-controlled private military Wagner Group given duties similar to regular army units on front lines in Ukraine. The U.K. Defense Ministry says this is a “significant change” from previous employment of the elite Wagner Group since 2015 when it “typically undertook missions distinct from overt, large-scale regular Russian military activity.” According to the ministry, the Wagner Group’s role has probably changed because of Russia’s “major shortage of combat infantry.” However, the Wagner Group’s forces are “highly unlikely to be sufficient to make a significant difference in the trajectory of the war,” the ministry said.

Reuters: Russia captured Chornobyl with the help of long-embedded secret agents. A Reuters investigation discovered that Russia sent its agents to Ukraine long before the invasion to establish contacts with officials and prepare the ground for a takeover. According to Reuters, the Kremlin believed these agents would help Russia capture Ukraine effortlessly within a couple of days. “Apart from the external enemy, we unfortunately have an internal enemy, and this enemy is no less dangerous,” the secretary of National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said in an interview with Reuters.

National Bank: Unemployment hits 35% in Ukraine. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, the deep economic recession increased unemployment which hit around 35% in the second quarter of 2022. Unemployment is expected to decline but will remain above its natural level due to the long-term effects of Russia’s war, the NBU said.

Russia’s damage to Ukraine’s agriculture reaches $4-6 billion. Viktoriia Mykhalchuk, representative of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said on July 29 that the damage caused to Ukrainian agriculture as a result of Russia’s war varies from $4-6 billion, including the damage to “infrastructure such as irrigation equipment, storage, shipping, and processing infrastructure, greenhouses, field crops, farm animals.”

Currency exchange rates are to be hidden from public sight as hryvnia plunges. Ukraine’s National Bank tightened the requirements for currency exchange offices in Ukraine, forbidding them from having currency exchange boards placed outside the premises. After the National Bank devalued the hryvnia against the dollar by 25%, setting the official exchange rate to Hr 36.57 per dollar, Ukraine’s national currency dropped to Hr 41 per dollar in exchange offices.

National Bank: Inflation in Ukraine to reach over 30% in 2022. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, the country’s GDP is expected to decrease by a third this year amid a full-scale Russian invasion that is causing major losses to the Ukrainian economy. “Inflation will accelerate by the end of the current year and will start to decline in the first quarter of 2023,” the NBU said.

Ukrainian parliament votes to impose moratorium on tariff increases for gas, water, heating during martial law. According to lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak from the Voice Party, 260 lawmakers on July 29 adopted a law to ban any increase of tariffs on heat, distribution of natural gas, and hot water supply in Ukraine during martial law. According to Zhelezniak, the moratorium will be in effect during martial law and six months following its end.

Ukraine identifies 5,600 children forcibly deported to Russia. According to Deputy Interior Minister Kateryna Pavlichenko, the numbers are expected to be higher. Ukrainian authorities are working on returning these children, she said.

Read and listen to our exclusives

The new Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin began his reign with a long-awaited move, ending the seemingly never-ending saga of choosing the country’s top anti-corruption prosecutor. Oleksandr Klymenko, who won the job contest back in December, was formally named the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) on July 28. Read our story here.

More than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war have reportedly been killed in what is believed to be a Russian attack on a prisoner camp in Russian-occupied Donbas on July 28. This is possibly the worst crime against captive combatants since Russia launched its full-scale war. Read more here.

Russia continues to bombard residential areas of Mykolaiv, Ukraine’s major shipbuilding city 50 kilometers west of the front line. Read more here.

The human cost of Russia’s war

Prosecutor General’s Office: Around 40 Ukrainian POWs killed, 130 injured in Russian attack on Olenivka penal colony. Earlier on July 29, Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russia shelled the penal colony in the occupied village of Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast, where Russian proxies hold the defenders of Mariupol who were supposed to be exchanged. The military said that Russia attacked the colony to destroy the evidence of torturing and killing Ukrainian POWs.

Governor: 5 killed, 7 injured in Russia’s shelling of Mykolaiv. According to Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim, Russia’s attack hit an area near a public transport stop on the morning of July 29. Earlier today, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said that Russian forces fired cluster munitions at one of the city’s neighborhoods.

Russia’s war kills 8 civilians, injures 19 in Donetsk Oblast on July 28. Three people were killed in Bakhmut, two in Toretsk, and one person in each town of Orlivka, Hirnyk, and Soledar, Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on July 29.

State Emergency Service: Death toll in Russia’s shelling of Kramatorsk rises to 2. Five people, including two rescuers, were injured, according to the emergency service. Russian forces shelled a residential area in the city of Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, on the morning of July 29. According to Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, two private houses were completely destroyed and 21 were damaged as a result of the attack.

Russia has lost 40,500 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24. Ukraine’s General Staff said on July 29 that Russia had also lost 1,749 tanks, 3,987 armored fighting vehicles, 2,870 vehicles and fuel tanks, 900 artillery systems, 258 multiple launch rocket systems, 117 air defense systems, 190 helicopters, 222 airplanes, 731 drones, and 15 boats.

International response

UN called on ‘all parties’ to avoid torture after Russian soldiers appear to cut off body parts of Ukrainian POW. In an official statement, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission said it was “appalled by the latest videos, apparently showing the beating, castration, and shooting of a captured soldier from the Ukrainian Armed Forces by a man, who appears to be a member of the Russian forces.” Monitoring Mission added that “if confirmed, these actions would constitute war crimes.”

Blinken, Lavrov hold first phone conversation since beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. According to CNN, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Russia to allow the export of Ukrainian grain through the country’s Black Sea ports, currently blockaded by the Kremlin. After signing an agreement to allow Ukraine to ship grain abroad, Russia bombed the Odesa port on July 23.

Truss: ‘As prime minister I will be Ukraine’s greatest friend.’ Liz Truss, Tory leadership frontrunner in British election campaign, vowed to continue providing weapons and humanitarian aid for Ukraine if she won the prime minister’s office. “This conflict is in the balance, and now is not the time for sounding off about concessions and compromises to an appalling dictator…I am the candidate the British people can trust on Ukraine, and that they can trust to defend our freedom at home and abroad,” she said.

Germany pledges to send 16 Biber bridge-layer tanks to Ukraine in 2022-2023. “The Biber will enable Ukrainian troops to cross waters or obstacles in combat,” reads a statement by the German Defense Ministry. “The delivery of the first six systems will take place this year, starting in autumn. Ten more systems will follow next year.“

Finance Ministry: Canada to lend Ukraine over $350 million. Ukraine’s Finance Ministry announced on July 29 that Ukraine will borrow 450 million CAD ($352 million) to finance social and humanitarian expenditures. The total amount loaned to Ukraine from Canada is now $1.13 billion.

English-language Wikipedia changes to Ukrainian transliteration of ‘Odesa’ from Russian ‘Odessa.’ According to a press release, 20 years after Odesa’s Wikipedia page was created, the online encyclopedia has changed the Russian transliteration of the southern city to the Ukrainian transliteration with one ‘s,’ in line with the Ukrainian spelling. “This is an important step for the decolonization of Ukrainian toponyms in English Wikipedia,” Anton Obozhyn, Ukraine’s Wikipedia editor said, recalling successful efforts to change ‘Kiev’ for ‘Kyiv’ in 2020.

G7 ambassadors visit Odesa. U.K. Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons wrote on Twitter on July 29 that she and other G7 ambassadors “are in Odesa with Turkey to reiterate the importance of the UN-brokered deal allowing food to be shipped out of Ukraine.” Their visit comes almost a week after Russian forces attacked the Black Sea trade port in Odesa on July 23 a day after Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the UN reached a deal to unblock grain exports from Ukrainian ports. “Russia must respect the deal,” Simmons wrote.

US adds 2 Russians, 4 companies to sanctions list. The U.S. sanctions list now includes Nataliya Burlinova, a former Russian government employee, and Alexander Ionov, a Russian nationalist, who was linked to the “Russian troll factories,” according to Ukrainian media. Companies linked to the two also came under sanctions.

In other news

Poll: 81% of Ukrainians in favor of EU membership, 71% support joining NATO. According to a recent survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), 81% of Ukrainians would vote in favor of EU membership, and 71% would vote in support of NATO membership if the questions were asked during a potential referendum.

Official: 9,800 couples get married in Kyiv since Feb. 24. Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration Mykola Povoroznyk said that 9,800 couples have gotten married and 5,795 children have been born in Kyiv since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Today’s Ukraine Daily was brought to you by Daria Shulzhenko, Toma Istomina, Lili Bivings, Alexander Khrebet, Oleksiy Sorokin, Teah Pelechaty, Sergiy Slipchenko, and Alisa Soboleva.

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