Timeline: day 148 of Ukraine's defense against russia's aggression
Today is July 21. russia's military attack on Ukraine has been going on for 148 days. We're reporting on the current news. The article will be updated.
What about today?
Key points
In the last 24 hours, russian troops have again shelled peaceful Ukrainian towns and villages. There are dead and wounded, destroyed houses, hospitals, and schools. The russians report that they have destroyed ammunition depots and "headquarters." But there is a big difference. Where the armed forces strike, there is always a detonation of ammunition. When the russians bomb civilians, there are no ammunition explosions—only destroyed civilian buildings and photos of dead and wounded civilians.
Ukrainian forces don't shoot randomly. Everything is clear, coherent, and precisely on target. It is necessary to disrupt the enemy's logistics; Ukrainians make precise hits on the Antonivka Bridge in Kherson and at Lazurne, where the ultra-modern russian radar station is destroyed.
The South operational command reports:
- Soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out ten air strikes on the enemy,
- The Ukrainian troops hit enemy strongholds five times,
- Three hits were at the accumulation of workforce and equipment in the Kherson region,
- two hits in ammunition depots in the Mykolaiv region and Kherson region.
Our missile and artillery units carried out more than 200 fire missions. The enemy army lost 111 rocket launchers, a Msta-B howitzer, two Nona-S self-propelled artillery and mortar units, an Eleron-type unmanned aerial vehicle, and 13 units of armored and other automotive equipment.
The destruction of the command and command-observation post and six more warehouses with ammunition in the Kherson, Beryslav, and Kakhovska districts has been confirmed.
Yesterday, in the Ramstein format, another step was taken to strengthen the defense of Ukraine. "According to the agreement with our colleagues, we are keeping the intrigue regarding the lion's share of current and new aid packages, which include the supply of weapons, ammunition, training of our soldiers, and much more. First, they will be felt by the enemy on the battlefield. A positive signal of the meeting is the new commitments of the partners. What concern land, sea, and sky," Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov shared the results of the online meeting.
The main points from the morning report of Ukraine's General Staff:
- In the Kramatorsk direction, the enemy shelled the Kramatorsk, Siversk, Hryhorivka, Zvanivka, and Spirny districts with artillery. The enemy is conducting assault operations near Ivano-Daryivka, and the fighting continues.
- In the direction of Bakhmut, the enemy carried out assaults to take over the territory of the Vuhlehirska thermal power plant. Without effect. Ukrainian soldiers forced the occupiers to flee.
- Fighting continues in the Novoluhanske area. The enemy used subversive and reconnaissance groups to expose the firing positions of the Defense Forces in specific directions.
- The enemy systematically shelled civilian and military infrastructure in the Avdiivka, Novopavlivka, and Zaporizhzhia directions. In some areas, the enemy is improving the engineering equipment of defensive positions.
- In the Pivdennyi Buh direction, the enemy is concentrating its primary efforts on maintaining the occupied positions. They conduct UAV reconnaissance.
- In the russian army, a significant part of military contract workers is being dismissed. Also, most service members refuse to extend long-term contracts that have expired.
A name list of "Bucha executioners" of the russian army has been established. The National Resistance reported this. The database contains photos, passports, service cards, addresses, and pictures of places of residence and financial documents for military personnel and their family members. Several official information is also known — orders, instructions, personnel lists, applications for issuance of service foreign passports for sending units on business trips to Syria. The obtained data will enable it to supplement the evidence base against russia and its military personnel in court.
In Zaporizhzhia, they are working on creating a transit logistics hub for IDPs from the Kherson region. The Hub will take care of temporary accommodation issues for internally displaced persons, humanitarian aid, and other issues related to logistics and evacuation. This was reported by the Municipal TV channel of the city of Zaporizhzhia, referring to the head of the Zaporizhzhia region, Oleksandr Starukh.
Around 3:05 a.m. on July 21, the russians fired seven rockets into the city of Mykolaiv, Governor Vitalii Kim reported. According to preliminary information, it is known that the russians hit the infrastructure facility, gas station, gas pipeline, and warehouse. The rescue services extinguished all the fires that arose due to the shelling. At this time, it is known about one victim. Detailed information is being clarified.
Who's coming to Ukraine?
On financial and information aid, weapons and politicians
The Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, Charles Brown, did not rule out that the West could supply Ukraine with fighter jets of its production in the future. "There's US [fighter jets], there's Gripen out of Sweden, there's the Eurofighter or the Rafale. So there's a number of different platforms that could go to Ukraine," Politico quoted the general's answer to a question from NBC News at the Aspen Security Forum. He added, "It'll be something non-russian; I could probably tell you that. What I can't do is tell you what it's going to be."
Our defenders have already received the first three long-range M270 MRL systems, making good company for HIMARS on the battlefield. The M270 can destroy firing positions, cannon and rocket artillery, anti-aircraft defense equipment, trucks, lightly armored personnel carriers, command posts, and communication nodes and be used at any time of the day and under different weather conditions.
News from partners
Ninety-six experts on Eastern European issues called for Ukraine to provide heavy weapons as soon as possible. They criticized the letter of 20 German intellectuals, who had previously called for talking to putin and limiting aid to Ukraine. Experts "are struck by the complete absence of researchers of Ukrainian and/or russian politics, the army, history and culture" among the authors of the first letter entitled "Truce — now!"; the appeal states. According to DW, a new open letter in support of Ukraine was signed by historian Timothy Snyder, German "green" politicians Rebecca Harms and Marieluise Beck, former German ambassador to Moscow, Ernst-Jörg von Studnitz, and many others: 96 political scientists, historians, and politicians from different countries.
Germany will help Ukrainian export grain by wagons. Deutsche Welle reports that the German company Deutsche Bahn plans to organize routes to deliver Ukrainian grain to Rostock, Hamburg, and Brake ports. They promise "several trains per week," but it is currently unknown how much grain they plan to transport.
According to Spiegel, russia has resumed gas supplies to Germany via Nord Stream 1. The representative of the operator company Nord Stream AG reported that the gas supply volume was declared at approximately the same level as before the maintenance, that is, about 67 million cubic meters per day. This corresponds to around 40% of maximum power utilization.
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi called Secretary of State Antony Blinken to recognize russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. Otherwise, Congress will. Politico reported this, citing sources. The status of a state sponsor of terrorism forces the US government to limit foreign aid, reduce exports and sales of defense goods, establish controls over the export of dual-use goods, etc.
Life considering hostilities
Real Ukrainian women military service members became the prototypes of LEGO figures from The Brothers Brick company.
Polish paleontologists named a new species of sea creature 150 million years old discovered in Africa in honor of Volodymyr Zelensky. This is stated in an article in the Royal Society Open Science journal. As noted in the publication, the sea lily was named Ausichicrinites zelenskyyi "in honor of the sixth and current president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, for the courage and bravery shown in defense of free Ukraine."
The National Bank raised the value of the dollar to UAH 36.5. This is the first change of course since the start of full-scale war.
