Ukraine War: Mykolayiv under fire – Russian army attacks in morning

Created: 07/31/2022 05:18

By: Tobias Utz, Jan-Frederik Wendt, Jan Oeftger

On Sunday morning, Russia will attack southern Ukraine: the situation in the news ticker on July 31.

• Eastern Ukraine:

  Russian state television is said to have published the names of killed Azov fighters.

• Gas deliveries to Latvia:

  Gazprom turns off the tap

• New details on annexations:

  Representatives from Russia visit occupied territories

• Editor

  's note: You can read all the news about the Ukraine conflict in this news ticker.

  Some of the information comes from warring factions in the Ukraine war and cannot be checked directly and independently.

Update from Sunday, July 31, 5 a.m.:

The city of Mykolaiv is apparently under fire again on Sunday night and in the morning hours.

As the mayor announced, there were several explosions in the city area.

These were caused by cluster munitions, said Oleksandr Sienkevych, according to a report by the

news portal .

Sienkevych called on the civilian population of Mykolayiv to go to shelters.

The information cannot be independently verified.

However, the Russian army launched rocket attacks on the city in southern Ukraine on Saturday.

Around 480,000 people live there.

Russian attacks on Mykolayiv came as early as mid-July.

Numerous buildings in the city were destroyed.

© Hector Adolfo Quintanar Perez / Zuma Wire / dpa

+++ 19.30:

The UN wants to investigate the Russian attack in which 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in Olenivka.

"We are ready to send an expert team that can conduct an investigation with the consent of the parties," Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, told Russian media.

The Ukraine War in Pictures - Destruction, Resistance and Hope

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Meanwhile, Russian forces are storming a village near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces have achieved a partial success in the village of Semyhiria near Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, entrenching themselves on the outskirts of the settlement.

+++ 16:08:

After the shelling of a prison camp in the village of Olenivka in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Russian state television published a list of the names of 50 dead and 73 injured Azov fighters.

This is reported by the Ukrainian news portal Pravda.

Despite efforts by the Ukrainian authorities to obtain official information on the dead and injured, there was no further report from Russia, as the Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, told the news portal.

Fighters from the Azov regiment were stuck in a steel mill in Mariupol for several weeks (photo) before they were taken prisoner by the Russians.

Several were killed and injured in an attack on their prison camp.

© Dmytro 'Orest' Kozatskyi/AFP

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Lubinets can currently “only see the total numbers: how many were held captive there, how many were killed, how many were injured.

We can already estimate these figures reliably.

But the International Committee of the Red Cross cannot give us the names of the dead and injured.

Concrete information may only be passed on to the relatives.”

Attack on prison camps in Ukraine war: Pentagon warns of false information

Meanwhile, both warring factions continue to blame the other side for the attack on Friday (July 29).

Against this background, however, an official briefing by the US Department of Defense called for the information from Russia to be "treated with caution, simply because we know that many of your claims in the past were far from the truth," quoted the news portal Kyiv Independent an unnamed US military official.

+++ 2.15 p.m .:

The official Twitter account of Russia's embassy in Great Britain has announced that members of the far-right Azov Battalion, which has long resisted in Mariupol, deserve death by "hanging".

They are "not real soldiers" who deserve "a humiliating death," the embassy said in a post.

The short message service did not delete the post, but pointed out that it incited hatred and violated Twitter rules.

+++ 1.30 p.m .:

The death toll after the Russian attack on the city of Mykolayiv on Friday has risen to seven.

Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said so on Saturday, as reported by the news portal

.

Two people died in the hospital.

The number of injured is 19. This information cannot be independently verified.

News about the Ukraine war: Poland demands a "serious" offer for the exchange of armored rings

+++ 12.30 p.m .:

Poland has asked Germany for a “serious” offer for a tank ring exchange in order to be able to deliver weapons to Ukraine.

It should "contribute significantly to strengthening Polish and regional defense capacities," wrote Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczczak in a letter to his counterpart Christine Lambrecht (SPD).

The previous arms deliveries to Ukraine have left "gaps" in Poland's defense budget.

Blaszczczak emphasized that this must now be counteracted.

Poland had protested against Germany's previous offer: It included 20 "Leopard 2" tanks to be delivered piecemeal from 2023. Defense Minister Lambrecht had justified the offer to Poland by saying that German military stocks were very small.

+++ 11.00 a.m .:

According to an assessment by the British secret service, the Russian army wants to secure the supply logistics in the south of Ukraine using a ferry system and pontoon bridges.

Troops in certain areas are threatened with isolation due to bridge damage from Ukrainian missile attacks.

This cannot be verified independently.

A pontoon bridge consists of numerous small floating platforms on which, among other things, tracks can be mounted.

All in all, they offer an alternative to conventional bridges over bodies of water.

News about the Ukraine war: Gazprom is turning off the gas supply to Latvia

+++ 10.15 a.m .:

According to its own statements, the Russian state-owned company Gazprom has stopped deliveries to Latvia.

The neighboring country violated acceptance conditions, it said in a statement.

The Latvian gas supplier Latvijas Gaze had previously stated that it wanted to pay for Russian gas in euros instead of rubles.

The government in Riga had also announced that it would only purchase gas from Russia until the end of the year.

Neighboring Lithuania has already completely dispensed with deliveries from Gazprom.

+++ 9.45 a.m .:

Covert mobilization for the army is currently underway in numerous regions of Russia.

According to reports, President Putin wants to send up to 30,000 new soldiers into the Ukraine war.

+++ 9.15 a.m .:

According to its own statements, the Ukrainian army has attacked Russian forces in the Cherson region.

105 Russian soldiers were killed and two ammunition depots were destroyed, it said.

In addition, the military command "South" of the Ukrainian army said that the train service to Kherson via the Dnipro River had been interrupted.

This would further isolate Russian troops from supplying the occupied Crimean peninsula and the East.

The information cannot be independently verified.

+++ 06.30 a.m .:

The International Red Cross has offered to help evacuate wounded prisoners of war from the prison in Olenivka.

"We have requested access to assess the health of everyone who was on site at the time of the attack," the committee said.

Part of it is protective equipment, medical supplies and "forensic material," it said.

The governments in Kyiv and Moscow have so far accused each other of being responsible for the attack on the prison.

News on the Ukraine war: New details on annexations

+++ 5.45 a.m .:

The US think tank “Institute for the Study of War” reports that representatives of Vladimir Putin’s party “United Russia” have traveled to temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine to probably determine the conditions for an annexation or a to create a staged "referendum".

For weeks there have been reports that Russia wants to use the referenda mentioned to try to create a legal basis for the occupations.

The think tank's information is not independently verifiable.

News about the Ukraine war: Russia bombs Kharkiv again

Update from Saturday, July 30, 5 a.m.:

Russian troops bombed the Kharkiv region again on Saturday night.

The news portal

reports, with reference to statements by the responsible governor, that among other things a school was attacked.

The bombings are said to have started around 3:00 a.m.

So far, nothing is known about the number of victims.

The Russian military has not yet commented on the allegations.

The information cannot be independently verified.

News about the Ukraine war: Russia raises serious allegations

+++ 11.55 a.m .:

Russia accuses the Ukrainian army of killing many prisoners in an attack on a prison in the Donetsk region controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

The Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced that 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed and 75 others injured by the fire from a Himars rocket launcher.

The pro-Russian separatists also reported artillery fire from Kiev troops.

"A direct hit in a barracks with prisoners of war," said a representative of the separatist leadership in Donetsk, according to the Interfax agency.

There is no confirmation from Kyiv of the shelling.

The information cannot be verified independently.

Ukraine War News: Attacks on Kyiv

First report from Friday, July 29:

Kiev – As announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, Russia continued the Ukraine war on Thursday (July 28) with further attacks on Ukraine.

"A series of strategically pointless and brutal attacks" hit the Donbass in eastern Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian sources, several civilians died in the process.

The Kremlin is planning a military counter-reaction to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

, Dmitry Medvedev announced

that if NATO bases were to be set up on the territory of the two countries or if weapons were to be stationed, "our reaction steps would be symmetrical".

Medvedev is deputy chief of the Russian Security Council.

News on the Ukraine war: British see failure of Moscow

Meanwhile, British Defense Secretary Wallace sees a Russian failure in many areas.

Since the Russian war effort is not working out as desired, Vladimir Putin could possibly change his strategy again.

"The Russians are failing on the ground in many areas at the moment," Wallace told

.

After Plan A, B, C and D failed, Wallace believes he could soon switch to Plan D.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked for a phone call with his Russian counterpart.

Sergey Lavrov will make such an appointment "if time permits".

According to Blinken, the conversation was about the release of US basketball player Brittney Griner and her compatriot Paul Whelan who were imprisoned in Moscow.

(jfw/tu/jo with dpa/AFP)