War in Ukraine: two days to put out a fire, large-scale exercises launched by Russia… an update on the situation

Aucune victime n’est signalée après un bombardement à Hirnyk, dans la banlieue de Donetsk. MAXPPP – STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE HANDOUT

Tous les jours, Midi Libre fait le point sur la situation en Ukraine. Ce mardi 30 juillet 2024, découvrez les dernières actualités autour de ce conflit.

Russian forces close in on strategic city of Pokrovsk

Russian forces are concentrating their fiercest assaults near the strategic city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, threatening a key supply route for Ukrainian troops, the Ukrainian General Staff said Monday. The fighting in the Pokrovsk sector is the fiercest on the entire Eastern Front, it said in its update on hostilities. The General Staff added that the Ukrainian army had repelled 52 Russian assaults in this region over the past 24 hours.

Pokrovsk, which had a population of 61,000 before the war, lies on the main supply route to other Ukrainian outposts that are in the throes of fighting, such as the towns of Chassiv Yar and Kostiantynivka. “The greatest concentration of enemy attacks occurred around Jelanne and Novooleksandrivka”, two villages located west of Pokrovsk, the General Staff said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had captured the villages of Prohres and Yevhenivka in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Kiev has not commented on the statement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram on Monday that he had visited Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, near the border with Russia. “Kharkiv Front. Outpost of the Ukrainian army special operations forces in the Vovchansk region", he wrote, in a message accompanied by a video in which he is seen decorating soldiers and shaking hands.

Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video that his troops had already started strengthening air defense systems in the Kharkiv region, where frequent Russian airstrikes have somewhat abated recently. "In terms of security, and without going into too much detail, we have already started strengthening the airspace around Kharkiv", he said in the neighboring Kharkiv region Poltava.

Ukraine's General Staff said Russia was continuing to carry out airstrikes in the region's border areas. Over the past 24 hours, it added, its forces had repelled six assaults near Vovchansk and the village of Hliboke, more than 30 km to the west.
While the Donetsk region remains Moscow's main offensive axis, the assault in the Kharkiv region has strained Ukraine's understaffed troops and forced Kiev to send reinforcements there.

Ukraine is now pressuring its allies to lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons for strikes deep inside Russia on targets such as military airfields. During his trip to the Kharkiv region, Volodymyr Zelensky also visited the town of Derhachi, about 15 km from the regional capital, a statement said.

Large-scale exercises launched by Russia

The Russian Navy began exercises involving the bulk of its fleet as planned on Tuesday, July 30, the Defense Ministry announced.

The maneuvers, in which some 300 ships and 20,000 sailors are taking part, are taking place in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans as well as in the Baltic and Caspian.

They aim to check the readiness of the Russian Navy and its combat capability at all levels, the ministry said in a statement.

These exercises will notably allow the testing of anti-aircraft missiles, artillery and anti-submarine warfare, he adds. Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has conducted numerous military exercises, including joint ones with countries including China and South Africa.

It has also conducted tactical nuclear missile tests in the past two months, while stepping up joint training with Belarus, a Moscow ally whose territory was used to launch the offensive toward Kiev in 2022.

Two days to put out oil terminal fire after Ukrainian strike

Russia managed on Tuesday to extinguish the fire caused two days earlier by a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil terminal in the Russian region of Kursk, the regional governor announced.

"Our firefighters extinguished the fire at the Kursk district oil terminal. It was triggered on the night of July 28 by a Ukrainian drone attack. Three fuel tanks burned", Governor Alexei Smirnov said on Telegram.

Ukraine, in retaliation for the Russian bombings which have been targeting it for two and a half years, is carrying out its own strikes on Russian territory, targeting military but also energy installations.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian army claimed responsibility for a drone strike against the Polevaïa oil depot in the Kursk region, neighboring Ukraine, claiming that it was used to resupply Russian troops.

The Russian army has been on the offensive for months in Ukraine, gaining ground, despite heavy losses, against Ukrainian forces that are fewer in number, less armed and exhausted by two and a half years of war.

But Russia has not managed to break through the Ukrainian defenses and it has not managed to stop the strikes targeting its territory, an objective stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of May and the launch of a new assault on the northeast of Ukraine.

The Russian army says it has captured another town in eastern Ukraine

The Russian army said on Tuesday it had captured a new town in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, continuing its slow advance, despite heavy losses, against struggling Ukrainian troops.

“Units of the Center group […] have liberated the town of Leninskoye (Pivdenne in Ukrainian, editor's note)”, the Russian Defense Ministry said. This town, with 1,400 inhabitants before the Russian attack in February 2022, is located near the cities of Toretsk and New York, still under Ukrainian control but which have been the target of a Russian offensive for several weeks.

Russia continues to gain ground in the Donetsk region, which it claims to have annexed and where it has had the initiative since the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023 and the fall of the fortress city of Avdiivka in February 2024.

The attacks by the Russian army, although very costly in terms of soldiers and equipment, are forcing the Ukrainian defenses to buckle in certain sectors, even if Moscow has so far failed to make a decisive breakthrough.

On Monday, the Russian army claimed the capture of a yet another small village, that of Vovtché, in this same region. The day before, it had claimed to have captured two neighboring towns, Progress and Yevgenyivka.

In other areas of the region, the Russian army is still attacking the strategic city of Chassiv Yar, near that of Bakhmut captured by Russia in May 2023 and almost annihilated after a hellish battle that lasted 10 months.

Kiev is suffering from the numerical and material superiority of Moscow, which has more ammunition and is massively using gliding bombs, which are difficult to counter and which destroy the strongest fortifications.

The Ukrainian forces lack weapons and ammunition compared to the Russians, even if Western aid has been able to resume after months of blockages.

They are also struggling to replenish their ranks, to cope with the heavy losses accumulated more than two years after the start of the large-scale Russian attack.