Russians 'No Longer Able To Resist HIMARS': Front-Line Ukrainian Mayor
The mayor of a city in Ukraine has said Ukrainian soldiers' efforts are causing difficulties for Russian forces ahead of a future counteroffensive.
Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, took to Telegram on Monday morning to say that more than 100 Russian soldiers had been killed in recent attacks using "high-precision HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems]."
He shared multiple videos alongside his message that appeared to show the missiles being fired. This comes as the war between Ukraine and Russia nears the 6-month mark following the decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade the country.
"Today, high-precision HIMARS missiles fired at the points of temporary deployment of the occupying forces at industrial sites in various districts of the city of Melitopol," he said in the Telegram post (translated by Google).
Speaking to Newsweek, Fedorov said that one of the Russian bases targeted was an old military airport on the edge of the city, while the other was an old plant being used as a military warehouse.
He added that Ukrainian forces were able to find out about the location of these bases through partisans in the city.
In his Telegram message, he continued: "According to preliminary estimates, a significant amount of military equipment was destroyed. More than 100 Russian soldiers, who were in temporary barracks that night, received tickets to the Kobzon concert, and their parents are already choosing the model and color of the Lada car."
The phrase buying "tickets to the Kobzon concert" has been used by Ukrainian soldiers and officials as a euphemism for Russians killed in the war in reference to Iosif Kobzon, a singer born in Ukraine but popular in Russia. He was dubbed the "Soviet Sinatra" and died in 2018, viewed by some Ukrainians as a traitor.
The mention of the car refers to an interview in which grieving parents said they had bought a Lada with compensation money for the death of their son, killed in Ukraine, the online publication Ukrainian Pravda reported.
Newsweek contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moscow has said on several occasions that it has destroyed HIMARS systems, but its claims have been unverified and have been dismissed by some Ukrainian and Western officials.
Fedorov added that this attack would prove vital for future counterattacks against Russian forces.
"Last week, the occupiers redeployed a significant part of air defense from Melitopol to Kherson," he added.
"Tonight is the most effective and shows that the existing enemy air defense units are no longer able to resist HIMARS.
"The weakening of the air defense system creates the necessary prerequisites for a successful counteroffensive in the direction of Melitopol."
Ukraine Partisans Can Block Russia's August 'Referendums': Front-Line Mayor
He also added how integral HIMARS are proving in the fight against Russian forces.
"HIMARS are helping us very much. Since HIMARS started working in Ukraine, in Melitopol, we've destroyed many Russian positions," he told Newsweek.
Speaking on Russian morale, he added:" They don't want to make war. They don't want to stay in Melitopol.
"They want to come back to Russia but their generals say to them, 'stay, everything will be good.' But it's impossible for them to be good in Melitopol."
As the conflict edges closer to the 6-month mark there appears to be no clear end in sight.
However, one European politician, Nico Lange, a German lawmaker and chief of staff for the country's Federal Minister of Defense, has said Russia now faces "tremendous " difficulties.
Speaking to German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) over the weekend, he said the significant influx of military aid to Ukraine is changing the dynamic of the Russian invasion.
"The crucial aspect of the past few days is that Russia is now being forced to react to the Ukrainians' statements and actions," he said.
"Until now, it was the other way around; The Ukrainians were forced to react to everything Russia did.
Lange continued, saying that Russia has "moved significant forces to the south, toward both Kherson and Zaporizhzhia," two regions in Southern Ukraine that have mostly fallen under Russian occupation. They have also recently become the focus of significant counteroffensives by Ukrainian forces aiming to retake them.
"A Ukrainian attack will not look like the Russians': this rolling barrage that destroys everything in its path," Lange said. "Rather, it will also rely on partisans, on uprisings in the occupied cities, on mobile operations behind enemy lines."
He added: "The Russians are having great problems controlling these areas. There is a lot of partisan activity in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia oblast.
"Russian patrols are being killed at night. In Melitopol, too, as in Kherson, there are posters directed against the Russian occupiers, there are leafleting campaigns. Something new is constantly being put up."
Russia is now unable to "escalate indefinitely" in Ukraine, Lange said, adding that the Russians are facing "tremendous" difficulty in continuing the conflict.
1. Ukrainian forces hit key bridges, Russian barracks in the south of the country
Ukraine has struck Russian troop bases and two key bridges across the Dnipro river in long-range missile strikes overnight, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.
The strikes hit the only two crossings Russia has to the pocket of southern Ukrainian territory it has occupied on the western bank of the vast Dnipro river, said Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine's southern military command.
"The results are rather respectable, hits on the Antonivskyi and Kakhovskyi bridges," she said on domestic television.
Ukrainian HIMARS strikes also hit multiple military bases in Ukraine's Russian-occupied southern city of Melitopol in the early hours, killing troops and destroying hardware, the city's mayor said.
"According to preliminary estimates, a significant amount of military equipment was destroyed," Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine's defence minister said two weeks ago that 50 Russian ammunition depots had been destroyed by US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, which Ukraine started using in June.
2. The first cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain from Black Sea arrives in Turkey
The first of the ships to leave Ukraine under a deal to unblock grain supplies, the Turkey-flagged Polarnet, arrived at its destination in Turkey on Monday.
The ship carrying 12,000 tonnes of corn docked at Derince port in the Gulf of Izmit after setting off from Chornomorsk on 5 August.
“This sends a message of hope to every family in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia: Ukraine won’t abandon you,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “If Russia sticks to its obligations, the ‘grain corridor’ will keep maintaining global food security.”
A total of 10 ships have now been authorised to sail under the grain deal between Ukraine and Russia, which was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations — eight outbound and two headed for Ukraine.
The first ship to depart Ukraine, the Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni, which left on 1 August, still hasn’t reached its destination in Lebanon and was anchored off Turkey’s southern coast on Sunday evening, according to the Marine Traffic website.
Meanwhile, two more ships carrying corn and soybeans departed Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on Monday, the Turkish Defence Ministry said.
The Sakura left Yuzhny carrying 11,000 tonnes of soybeans to Italy, while the Arizona left Chornomorsk with 48,458 tonnes of corn bound for İskenderun in southern Turkey.
Four ships that left Ukraine on Sunday are expected to anchor near Istanbul on Monday evening, the Defence Ministry said. They are due to be inspected on Tuesday.
3. Amnesty 'regrets distress and anger' caused by Ukraine report as criticism persists
The furore over Amnesty International's report accusing Kyiv of endangering civilians continued on Monday, drawing angry reactions from Ukrainian officials and criticism from Western diplomats.
The report also sparked fears it would serve as a further justification for Moscow in its increased bombardment of civilian targets in recent weeks.
On Sunday, the rights group said it regrets the pain caused by the report, which infuriated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and triggered the resignation of its Kyiv office head.
In the meantime, the Russian Mission in Geneva tweeted that if a civilian building "is used for military purposes, it turns into a legitimate target for a precision strike", causing further reactions against the report.
The rights group published the report on Thursday, saying the presence of Ukrainian troops in residential areas heightened risks to civilians during Russia's invasion.
4. UN chief calls for end to attacks on Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
The head of Ukraine's state nuclear power company Energoatom called on Monday for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to be made a military-free zone, warning of the risk of a Chornobyl-style nuclear disaster after the site was hit by shelling.
He called for a team of peacekeepers to be deployed at the site in comments on television after Ukraine and Russia accused each of shelling the nuclear power plant -- Europe's biggest -- which lies in Russian-controlled southern Ukraine.
"The decision that we demand from the world community and all our partners... is to withdraw the invaders from the territory of the station and create a demilitarized zone on the territory of the station," Petro Kotin said.
Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for the end of military operations around Europe's largest nuclear plant.
Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine has been hit by a series of bombardments since last Friday, with both Russian and Ukrainian forces blaming one another for the attacks.
"Any attack on nuclear power plants is a suicidal thing," the UN's secretary-general told reporters in Tokyo, adding that international inspectors should be allowed to access the nuclear plant immediately.
"I hope that these attacks will end," said Guterres. "At the same time, I hope that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] will be able to access the power plant."
Russian forces captured the plant in Ukraine's southeast in early March, shortly after Moscow's 24 February invasion of its western neighbour, but it is still run by Ukrainian technicians.
Reports from Ukraine on Monday claim that the Russian military has mined the power plant with explosives, while the Russian commanding officer at the site has allegedly expressed his readiness to blow up the plant.
5. No Zelenskyy-Putin meeting in sight, says Kremlin
There is no basis for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents at the moment, the Kremlin said on Monday.
In response to a question about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's offers to broker peace talks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could meet only after negotiators from both sides had "done their homework".
Negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv have been stalled for months, with each side blaming the other for a lack of progress.
"The Ukrainian delegation has gone off the radar, there is no negotiation process now," Peskov said on Monday.
"As for a meeting between Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy, it is possible only after all the homework has been done by the delegations. This is missing, so there are no necessary prerequisites for the meeting," he added.
6. Plans are afoot in Zaporzhizhia to hold referendum on joining Russia
The head of the Moscow-installed administration in the occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on social media that authorities are pressing ahead with plans to stage a referendum on joining Russia.
"I signed a decree... to start working on the issue of organising a referendum on the reunification of the Zaporizhzhia region with the Russian Federation," he said shortly after indicating the vote could be held in autumn.
The south-eastern Ukrainian region has been under Russian occupation since the early days of the war, and rumours of the potential referendum have been circulating since.The latest from Balitsky indicates that Russia might push for a referendum in Zaporizhzhia, but also in other occupied regions such as Kherson and Mariupol, as a way of justifying its territorial claims as "the will of the people".
These referendums would be similar to the ones in 2014 in Moscow-occupied Crimea and the separatist-held self-proclaimed republics, LNR and DNR, in the eastern region of the Donbas.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia would lose any chance of negotiating with Ukraine should it conduct referendums in the occupied territories.
"If the occupiers follow the path of these pseudo-referendums, they will close any possibility of negotiations with Ukraine and the free world for themselves," he said in his nightly address.
There is no basis for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents at the moment, the Kremlin said on Monday.
In response to a question about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's offers to broker peace talks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could meet only after negotiators from both sides had "done their homework".
Negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv have been stalled for months, with each side blaming the other for a lack of progress.
"The Ukrainian delegation has gone off the radar, there is no negotiation process now," Peskov said on Monday.
"As for a meeting between Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy, it is possible only after all the homework has been done by the delegations. This is missing, so there are no necessary prerequisites for the meeting," he added.
6. Plans are afoot in Zaporzhizhia to hold referendum on joining Russia
The head of the Moscow-installed administration in the occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on social media that authorities are pressing ahead with plans to stage a referendum on joining Russia.
"I signed a decree... to start working on the issue of organising a referendum on the reunification of the Zaporizhzhia region with the Russian Federation," he said shortly after indicating the vote could be held in autumn.
The south-eastern Ukrainian region has been under Russian occupation since the early days of the war, and rumours of the potential referendum have been circulating since.The latest from Balitsky indicates that Russia might push for a referendum in Zaporizhzhia, but also in other occupied regions such as Kherson and Mariupol, as a way of justifying its territorial claims as "the will of the people".
These referendums would be similar to the ones in 2014 in Moscow-occupied Crimea and the separatist-held self-proclaimed republics, LNR and DNR, in the eastern region of the Donbas.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia would lose any chance of negotiating with Ukraine should it conduct referendums in the occupied territories.
"If the occupiers follow the path of these pseudo-referendums, they will close any possibility of negotiations with Ukraine and the free world for themselves," he said in his nightly address.
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