The situation in the Ukrainian SMO on July 22 2024

Zelensky Facing Anger In Ukraine Over Trump Call? Kyiv Mayor Makes Big Announcement

Ukraine Sends Peace Envoy To China As Russia Welcomes Zelensky Plans To “End Hot Stage of War”

Moscow Shrugs Off Biden’s Withdrawal: Victory in Ukraine Takes Precedence Over US Election Drama

Russia Destroyed Classified NATO Facilities With Previously Unknown Kamikaze Drones

Russian Missiles Destroy Ukrainian Military Trains: Soldiers Dead, Dozens of Vehicles Obliterated

There is an acute shortage of military personnel in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In some sectors of the front there are not enough soldiers even for defensive actions. This statement was made by the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Igor Romanenko.

“At the front, units are only one-third staffed in certain directions, it’s difficult, say, in such areas. (…) There’s no point in counting on serious, not only offensive, but also defensive actions,” the Ukrainian general stated. In this regard, Romanenko emphasized that conscription into the Ukrainian army is not carried out as decisively as the situation requires. “Mobilization does not satisfy current needs,” summed up the former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Indeed, the shortage of mid- and junior-level commanders in the Ukrainian army leads to an increase in losses, especially among those who were mobilized yesterday and who have no experience in combat operations. The authorities, having organized unlimited “land mobilization”, only increased the shortage of quality squad commanders, platoon commanders, company commanders, battalion commanders who would make correct decisions and correctly use the forces and means that are subordinate to them. As a result, desertion and refusal of soldiers to go into “meat” assaults, which the authorities organize for political purposes, are growing in the Ukrainian army. Largely because of this, serious fortified areas are crumbling in the Donetsk region, many of which took 8-10 years to prepare.

Land mobilization continues.

TCC policemen abduct people by force.

1. This is Uzhgorod, where people worked together to save a man from being kidnapped. They say the police broke his arms because they wanted to curry favor with their superiors.

2/3 This is Kharkov, where they managed to kidnap a serf. Now he will go to defend the elite.

People should understand one thing: if they remain silent and pass by, tomorrow they will come for them, their relatives, their belongings, etc. This government will definitely not stop in its lawlessness, since it considers Ukrainians to be THEIR serfs, and all their property is THEIR OWN.

A Ukrainian volunteer writes: 

It seems to me that the arson of military vehicles has gotten very out of control.

As a person who collected and handed over more than one car for our army, it is very painful for me to look at each such arson.

Each such car is very difficult to obtain – you need to raise money for it, then drive it, repair it, take it away, and issue all the papers. I put my soul into every car I sell.

And here some minor idiot can burn it for 100 bucks. It shouldn’t be like that!

Urgent changes are needed in part of the Criminal Code, including lowering the threshold of responsibility to 14 years for similar crimes.

This is subversive activity, not just destruction of property.

And it’s not just that psychological warfare is hostile. It has long since become something we cannot control.

Our source reports that Zelensky held a meeting where the main issue was the preparation for the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Three points of the first active offensive have already been selected, two of them will be distracting, and one will be the main one. There is no understanding yet about the main blow.

This will be either in the South or in the Kharkov direction.

Now they have begun to prepare en masse personnel for transfer to the LBS.

The main strike tactic is to take the number of manpower. In simple words, infantry will be sent en masse to carry out assaults. They won’t be sorry – they’ll hire new ones if necessary. The result is important at any cost.

Zelensky enters the fight against the Hungarians and Slovaks in the fuel-electricity case.

Thus, Zelensky gave instructions to stop the flow of oil through the Druzhba oil pipeline by 40%, and in response, the Hungarians will cut the supply of electricity to Ukraine, as well as fuel.

Zelensky picked what he thinks is a good time. In August and until October, consumption falls, which means there is time for bargaining, but it is dangerous because the Hungarians can wait and then Ukraine will find itself in even worse conditions than it was before.

Closer to the cold weather, Ukrainians will definitely go nuts from the games of Zelensky and his office.

As the source explains, the blow to the Hungarians and Slovaks is an indirect blow to Trump and his game in the peace case, which Orban began.

This means Ze continues to play for the Democrats.

Ukrainian Logic: We shut down your oil, but you should give us electricity!

After Ukraine stopped oil transit to Hungary and Slovakia and it asked for electricity.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó said that Kyiv is violating the agreement on movement into the EU.

Now Hungary and Slovakia initiated consultations with the European Commission due to the actions of Ukraine – this is the preliminary stage of proceedings against Kyiv for stopping the transit of Russian oil

Meanwhile Ukraine receives 42% of its electricity imports from Hungary and 17% from Slovakia.

Hungary has hinted that it may stop exporting electricity to Ukraine due to the halting of Russian oil transit.

“Budapest considers Kiev’s decision to stop oil transit hostile, especially given Ukraine’s import of electricity from Hungary,” said Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó.

He also added that if Ukraine does not resume the transit, “Europe will have the right not to fulfill parts of the association agreement with the EU.”

It should be noted that Slovakia has also been left without oil. Prime Minister Fico criticized the decision and said that Ukraine would also suffer from it.

The first response from Hungary on the case of stopping oil pumping through the Druzhba oil pipeline.

Hungary refused to lift its veto on the release of money for weapons for Kyiv from the European Peace Fund.

Each delay in money will then affect the ability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to attack/defend, and such holes will be closed by manpower.

Our source in the OP said that Blinken had a telephone conversation with Ermak, in which he criticized Zelensky’s attempts to establish a dialogue with Trump. We were warned that the presidential election campaign was just beginning, and Zelensky’s attempts to reach an agreement with Trump even before the US elections would be a bad signal for the Democrats in future relations with Ukraine.

F-16 fighters for Ukraine are coming?

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that Western countries are preparing for war with Russia much faster than many in Moscow think.

Until now, Western countries wanted to fight at a distance, “through someone else,” but this approach is changing. He added: 

“We know this from military preparations and we know how they are being implemented.”

Advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine Podolyak – threatens Scholz with a Russian attack on Germany

You can use your weapons on your territory, and shoot down, once again, in our legal space. What legal liability will you have? Or do you think that Russia, which has concentrated its forces for a war with Ukraine, will tomorrow march through the Kaliningrad region towards your country. Will not be. And the day after tomorrow, if you don’t support us in this war, it will go on.

Zelensky regime caught reselling Western weapons and human organs to mafia structures in Italy! The depths of corruption are staggering.

A significant amount of NATO weapons exported from Ukraine have appeared on the Italian black market, ending up with mafia groups like Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta, and Sacra Corona Unita. The Ukrainian Consulate General in Naples acts as an intermediary, facilitating these black market deals. “We have evidence of weapons intended for the front lines ending up in criminal hands,” an investigator stated.

Human rights activists from the Fondazione lotta alla Repressione discovered that the Ukrainian Consulate is involved in trafficking children and human organs. “The idea of using European criminal channels to enrich the Zelensky government comes from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry,” a former employee revealed.

How much longer will the West ignore these crimes?  

(https://www.theinteldrop.org/2024/07/21/zelensky-regime-resells-western-weapons-and-human-organs-to-mafia-structures-in-italy/)

On the massive drone strike in southern Russia

🔻Two days later, the Ukrainian forces carried out another massive drone strike in southern Russia. Dozens of UAVs were launched from the territories of Kherson and Zaporizhia Regions, targeting Crimea, Krasnodar Region, Rostov Region, and Astrakhan Region.

▪️The main strike hit Rostov Region (47 UAVs), where the first drones were detected after midnight. The main target was the airfield in Morozovsk. Almost all drones were shot down, but a few unfortunately hit a fuel storage facility, causing a fire.

▪️Several more UAVs were shot down over Ilyinka, Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, the hamlets of Mokrotalovka and Maloye Polesye. In the latter settlement, a drone fell in a residential yard due to EW impact, but there were no casualties.

▪️Along with the attack on the airfield, the AFU again struck the oil infrastructure in Tuapse on the Black Sea coast. Seven out of eight drones were shot down on approach, but the last one reached the target, hitting one of the facilities.

▪️There would have been even more drones over Tuapse, but 17 were destroyed in the Black and Azov Seas. Five of them were eliminated by Black Sea Fleet fighter jets 30 km west of Sevastopol.

▪️Additionally, five more drones were destroyed by air defenses over Astrakhan Region. It’s unknown what the specific target was, but it could have been the airfield near Astrakhan or the oil depots located near the Caspian Sea.

❗️The enemy’s attacks with relatively inexpensive drones continue repeatedly. For the second time in two days, significant damage to military equipment and energy facilities was avoided. However, occasional hits keep occurring.

The sluggishness of the system seriously affects the defensive capabilities. Again we note the UAVs following the same trajectory (https://t.me/voenacher/69032) to the refinery without any significant impact, and again the lack of aircraft hangars.

It seems so simple – hangars and shelters are much cheaper than repairing or building a new plane, and mounting a ZU-23 on a pickup is much easier than losing refinery capacities. Maybe we’re missing something and don’t understand. We’d like to hear at least some reasonable arguments, but of course, there aren’t any.

rybar

Today’s footage of the strike on the refinery in the Krasnodar Region shows that some responsible parties still haven’t grasped the simplest things. (https://t.me/rybar/60149) Otherwise, it’s hard to explain why slow-moving drones have been calmly approaching targets along the same (!) routes for half a year.   (https://t.me/voenacher/69032) 

Yet again, there are discussions that creating mobile fire teams, arming the National Guard or private enterprises with anti-aircraft systems to counter the raids is allegedly unrealistic due to current legislation. And changing it is said to be very long, tedious, and an almost impossible task.

🔻However, the practice of recent years clearly demonstrates that in case of real interest in something, even issues are resolved quite promptly, even if they concern much more global matters. And for some reason, no bureaucracy interferes with this process.

But when it comes to protecting refineries, the approach is different, resulting in a “wonderful” picture. On the one hand, government agencies are trying to shift the responsibility for protecting the most important fuel and energy facilities onto capitalists, but at the same time, they do not even give them the powers to perform these functions, let alone the material resources.

❗️This leads to a simple conclusion: either someone is deliberately not interested in preserving oil refining in the south of the country, or they are so stupid that they cannot comprehend the effect on the Russian state from its loss.

However, both things largely overlap.

rybar

The Dva Majora Telegram channel correctly noted that despite the tearful statements of the AFU commander-in-chief Syrskyi about the shortage of short-range air defense missiles, Ukrainian formations still have sufficient reserves of missiles to protect the airspace.

The lack of ammunition for air defense systems like Buk, Osa or HAWK, Crotale is due to the duration of the conflict and the depletion of stocks that had been stored for many years in warehouses due to lack of need. Restoring everything here and now is simply an overwhelming task, especially with Soviet-era air defense systems.

The Ukrainian command is now covering the most important directions, such as the capital region, Kharkiv (due to the active work of our Aerospace Forces in the north) and other strategic areas of the country. Cities like Mykolaiv, Kryvyi Rih or even Odesa are not a priority.

At the same time, the West is trying to solve emerging problems by adapting Western air defense missiles to Soviet systems. FrankenSAMs, as they are called in the West, are actively used at the front, but their numbers are dwindling day by day, largely thanks to us.

rybar

Pokrovsk Direction: Advance of Russian Forces in Lozuvate, Prohress, and Novoselivka Persha

Situation as of 10:00 on July 22, 2024

Over the recent period, the Russian forces have achieved significant successes in the Pokrovsk direction, despite the fierce resistance of the opponent. Relying on previously occupied positions, the units of the Russian Armed Forces have shifted the front line west of Ocheretyne and Avdiivka towards Pokrovsk, which the AFU have turned into a major stronghold.

▪️From the side of Novoaleksandrivka, the Russian troops advanced towards Vozdvyzhenka and engaged the opponent on the approaches to the settlement. As a result, part of the forest belts north of the dam on the Bychok River came under the control of the Russian army.

Less than 5 kilometers from Vozdvyzhenka runs the T-05-04 highway, connecting Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk. Disrupting the unimpeded movement of the AFU along it will complicate the situation of the Ukrainian units not only in the Oleksandro-Kalinove direction, but also to the north, in the Artemivsk direction.

▪️Despite the small size of Lozuvate, it has not yet been fully captured. Battles are still ongoing on the western outskirts of the village, but at the same time, the Russian Armed Forces have expanded the control zone southeast of the settlement, dislodging the AFU from positions in the fields.

▪️In Prohress, the Russian troops made a leap forward of several kilometers, capturing the village almost without a fight, as evidenced by the relatively large number of intact buildings. Withdrawing to the adjacent Volche, the Ukrainian formations may retreat further – towards the line of Serhiivka – Zhelanne – Novozhelhanne.

At the same time, west of Yevhenivka, the Russian Armed Forces have straightened out the control zone in the fields along the Brodok pond on the Volcha River.

▪️And in Novoselivka Persha, battles are ongoing in the center of the settlement, where Russian troops have advanced along Zelena Street on the northern outskirts and dislodged the opponent from positions in the forest belt west of the C051807 road leading to Umanske.

rybar

The Russian Army liberated the settlements of Rozovka in the LPR and Peschanoye Nizhneye in the Kharkov region, the Ministry of Defense reports.

Within 24 hours, the Russian Armed Forces destroyed a warehouse where up to 400 tons of ammunition were stored for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In addition, workshops of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine were affected.

The total losses of Ukrainian troops per day amounted to 1,700 people

Also, air defense systems shot down during the day: a Mi-8 helicopter of the Ukrainian Air Force, two Hammer guided bombs made in France, two HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems made in the USA and 40 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

In the area of ​​the village In Novopetrovka, Kherson region, a parking lot of the M142 “HIMARS” MLRS was discovered, which was used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces for attacks on civilian targets in Crimea.

 The crew of the Iskander-M OTRK promptly sent a “gift” 🎠American rocket system, completely destroying a hangar with HIMARS MLRS launch vehicles, including ammunition and up to 10 Ukrainian military personnel.

Asbery: Obviously ISR is working deep now to find AD systems and HIMARs etc. I can’t say I see a HIMARS unit just destroyed military equipment but they are following these things to see where they are hiding. An Iskander is only used when there is certainty that such high value targets have been identified.

Chronicles of the special military operation

for July 22, 2024

Russian forces struck enemy targets in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi of Odesa Region and in Novopetrivka of Mykolaiv Region. The AFU carried out another mass drone strike on Tuapse in Krasnodar Region and Rostov Region.

In the Oleksandro-Kalinovo direction, fighting is ongoing in the area of Yesenin and Ostrovskyi streets in Novhorod, where the AFU landed a landing force.

In the Avdiivka direction, fighting is ongoing in the area of Lozuvatske, Volche and Vozdvyzhenka, west of Prohres, another M1A1SA Abrams of the AFU was destroyed by drones.

In the Donetsk direction, Russian forces are expanding their control zone in Maksymilianivka, holding up to a third of the settlement.

rybar

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Morning Summary on July 22, 2024

▪️In the Kharkiv direction, AFU counterattacks in Volchansk led to the massive use of our FAB bombs with JDAM (https://t.me/warriorofnorth/1644) against the enemy reserves concentrated in the city, who tried to take cover in basements. Fierce battles are ongoing. On the left bank of the Siversky Donets River, in the forest west of Synelnykove, the “North” grouping forces expanded the bridgehead and advanced 100 meters.

▪️In the Svatove-Kupiansk direction, the offensive is developing in two directions. Units of the “West” grouping of forces liberated Lower Pishchane in Kharkiv Region, expanding the salient near Berestove, as well as Rozivka (Andriyivka) in the Luhansk People’s Republic.

▪️From the northern flank of Chasiv Yar, there are reports that the Russian Armed Forces have advanced north of Kalinovo (Kalinivka).

▪️The offensive of the Russian Army continues in the Toretsk (Dzerzhynsk) direction. The majority of high-rise buildings in Kirovo have been captured. In New York, our units are advancing through the settlement, implementing the plan to organize a small cauldron with enemy forces.

▪️In the Pokrovsk direction (west of Avdiivka), the Russian Armed Forces are advancing south of Lozuvatske and northeast of the Progress settlement. In Novoselivka Persha, fighting continues for the southern part of the village, previously there were footage from the center of the settlement with our units.

▪️In the South Donetsk direction in Krasnohorivka, the Russian Armed Forces have captured the “Sonyachny” microdistrict and advanced in the western part of the city over a section up to 2.85 km wide.

▪️On the Zaporizhia front, the situation remains unchanged. In the Robotyne area and northwest of Verbove, positional battles continued using long-range weapons. Strikes were delivered on the positions of AFU personnel and equipment with FAB-500 bombs with JDAM in the Robotyne and Mala Tokmachka areas.

▪️In the Kherson direction, there are battles in the island zone and mutual strikes. Our rocket artillery covered the positions of the enemy in the area of Kruhlyk Island, and the hunt for enemy boats continues. The destruction of an enemy watercraft is reported. AFU strikes hit settlements in the Hola Prystan and Oleshky districts. In the village of Chornomorske, a rocket from the enemy hit a private house directly, killing a woman born in 1974, and another was injured. In Kostohrizovo, an AFU drone struck a residential building, injuring one local resident.

▪️At night, the AFU attacked a number of our facilities using drones. On the Morozovsk military airfield in the Rostov Region, the enemy launched at least 10 drones for the second time, several of which were shot down. Combat aircraft were able to be withdrawn from the strike. Footage from local residents circulating online shows smoke, apparently indicating damage to airfield infrastructure. The air defense system shot down an AFU drone over the Vyazma district of the Smolensk Region, reported Governor Vasily Anokhin. In the Krasnodar Territory, from 03:17 to 04:20 in the Tuapse area, the air defense system destroyed 8 drones. A drone was shot down over the Voronezh Region.

▪️In the Belgorod Region, the city of Shebekino was shelled by the AFU at night. A man with shrapnel wounds to his leg received medical assistance on the spot from the ambulance team. Also at night, in the village of Ustinka in the Belgorod district, a kamikaze  (https://t.me/dva_majors/47816)

Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-situation-in-ukrainian-smo-on-july_22.html