Dispatch for July 16-17

I made a mistake in the last report - I said that the British citizen Paul Ury, who died in the captivity of the "DNR", fought as a volunteer fighter on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; this is not so - he was a humanitarian volunteer who helped local residents get out of dangerous areas.

A report on another inspection trip by Russia’s Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu. This time he went to the command center of the group of troops "East"; From the news about the trip, we now know that Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov is now in command of this group of troops. In the past, he was deputy commander of the Southern Military District, and before that, commander of the Second Guards Army in the Central Military District.

At the moment, we know three commanders of different groups of Russian troops: Lieutenant General Muradov (“East”); General Surovikin ("South"), and General Lapin ("Center"). In addition, there is General Abachev, a Russian officer who commands the Second Army Corps of the LPR People's Militia.

Statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense about yet another “destruction” of a HIMARS launcher and its transport-loading vehicle (no such vehicle exists). There are transport vehicles (which are optional) but HIMARS is self-loading. Given the terrible quality of the video that the Ministry of Defense showed, we cannot rule out that a HIMARS was indeed destroyed, but so far we doubt it.

Information on Vinnytsia: an obituary of Lieutenant Colonel of the Air Force of Ukraine Kostyantin Puzyrenko appeared. It says that he participated in the "anti-terrorist operation" (that's what the war used to be called). In addition, information appeared about Colonel of the Ukrainian Air Force Dmytro Burdiko, who was the head of the department for the operation and repair of weapons of the anti-aircraft missile forces and the deputy head of weapons of the logistics command of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He died on July 14 (on the day of the attack on Vinnytsia).

Based on this information, the pro-Kremlin Telegram channels immediately concluded that this was proof that the meeting at the House of Officers took place. However, there are some important points. First, the rubble has been cleared and all the bodies have been recovered. We only know about two soldiers so far.

Secondly, on the day of the attack on Vinnytsia, we never saw any video recordings or photographs of rescuers working precisely in the destroyed House of Officers. We might have missed something; if you have additional materials on this topic, please send them to us; we will appreciate it.

It should also be taken into account that on that day there was preparation for the evening charity concert concert, and a sound check was probably held in the House of Officers. It's strange to hold meetings in such conditions. Even if we imagine that there was a meeting of two people on site and online with foreign partners, we are then still talking about a war crime in the form of disproportionate damage.

As a result of the strike on Chasiv Yar on July 9, 20 servicemen of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine were killed and 3 more went missing. It is reported that they lived in this dormitory together with civilians. We believe that this is a gross violation of the rules of war. It is wrong to place a large group of military men in a house where civilians live.

We still don't see the operational pause ending. Many cities are shelled every day, there are constant skirmishes along the front line, but we do not observe large-scale troop movements or offensives.

Various Russian vehicles are moving towards Siversk.

There are many reports of clashes in Bilohorivka (Luhansk region). Apparently, the Ukrainians hold the hills to the west of the village.

Fighting is going on in the area of ​​Hryhorivka and Verkhnekamyanske.

Russian forces are trying to take control of the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway, but so far without success.

The city of Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region was attacked with Grad missiles, damaging 12 five-story apartment blocks, a school and a community college building

The city of Chuhuiv was shelled, there are dead and wounded.

The city of Pokrovsk was shelled, there are dead and wounded.

Mykolaiv was actively shelled for two days.

The head of the Luhansk regional military administration, Serhiy Haydai, says that Russian forces are already moving to “work from wheels,” that is, they are not stockpiling ammunition in warehouses, but are transporting it directly to the front line. According to him, earlier the Russians had an advantage in the number of artillery strikes, but as a result of attacks on ammunition depots in the rear, the logistics of Russian forces were severely disrupted.

A western analyst, who runs the DefMon3 Twitter account, made an interesting map. How will the logistics of the Russian forces change if the warehouses are moved to such a distance that they cannot be reached by the GMLRS rocket for the HIMARS MLRS? The distance from potentially invulnerable warehouses to the front line is approximately doubled from the current one. Accordingly, either more vehicles and drivers are needed (both are perhaps in the shortest supply in the Russian army), or with the existing number of drivers, the frequency of hauls and the speed of delivery of ammunition to the front line is halved.

We learned about another advantage of the HIMARS MLRS. The relatively small HIMARS can be transported on C-130 Hercules, while the M270 system requires a large C-17 Globemaster.

Russian journalist Irina Shikhman released an interview with the family of a Russian soldier who died on February 25. Many people noticed a refrigerator at his family's house with a warranty sticker in Ukrainian. We do not think that the deceased himself managed to loot this refrigerator, and we believe that his colleagues presented the stolen refrigerator to the family of the deceased as material assistance and compensation.

The Telegram channel "Voenny Osvedomitel" publishes a video about Russian Su-25s at the front. We note from this video that they began restoring the WW2 monument at Savur-Mohyla, which was destroyed during the battles with the Ukrainian army in August 2014. We have no idea why it is such a priority to restore and why they do this only now.

“The Pskovskaya Guberniya” independent publication told how residents of Pskov, Russia collected money for quadcopter drones for the Russian military, and now they are raising money for a lawyer for a Pskovian who went to Estonia to get these quadcopters. The Estonian authorities detained him while trying to take a batch of commercial drones out of the country, as they regarded this as support for an "act of aggression by a foreign state."

RIA Novosti published a report that an improvised explosive device (bizarrely, signed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine) was allegedly found in the city of Energodar.

The head of the joint coordination center of the Defense Forces of the South of Ukraine, Natalya Humenyuk, said that Russian troops continue to fly out and bomb Snake Island. We do not quite understand what the purpose of the bombings is.

Ilya Shumanov published a table where he showed what is happening with Russian investigative journalism. Of the 40 most notable media outlets, 22 were blocked, 10 were designated as foreign agents, 5 ceased their activity, 5 were designated as undesirable organizations, and 1 publication was designated as extremist.