WAR IN UKRAINE: July 26, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 518
The new NATO-Ukraine Council convened to discuss the security of Ukrainian grain exports and Black Sea ports.
The United States has announced an additional $400 million security package for Ukraine, including air defense munitions, armored vehicles, anti-armor weapons, and other "critical military assistance" from Defense Department stockpiles to help it retake territory and defend against Russian missile strikes. The package includes munitions for Patriot air defense systems and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), Stinger antiaircraft systems, more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers, and a variety of other missiles and rockets - RFE/RL
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front and advanced on July 25, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Footage published Tuesday showed that Ukrainian troops had made “tactically significant” gains south of the village of Klishchiivka, which is itself to the southwest of Bakhmut, the US-based organization said on its website - Bloomberg
Russian parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, has approved the final reading of a bill raising the maximum age for mandatory one-year military service for men by to 30 from 27. It takes effect on January 1, 2024. One headline in a major pro-Kremlin newspaper said Duma members were smelling a longer war.
After been seen out and about on Sunday inspecting damage to Odesa’s historic core, Odesa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov could have a detection bracelet placed back on his ankle if the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has its way with the courts. He is charged of embezzling public funds amounting to around $2.5 million in a real estate deal.
Required reading…
‘Our own front line’: Ukrainian surgeons see wave of wounded soldiers since counteroffensive began
The horrors of war arrive through the night at a hospital in eastern Ukraine, a procession of stretchers bearing limp bodies whisked from the front line.
The soldiers come with bandaged limbs soaked in blood, faces blackened with shrapnel fragments and stunned eyes fixed on the ceiling, frozen in shock. Lately, they’ve been coming with ever-greater frequency.
Surgeons at Mechnikov are busier now than perhaps at any other time since Russia began its full-scale invasion 17 months ago, according to doctors at the hospital, who declined to be more specific.
Read the full AP report here