Dispatch for July 30-31

The operational pause is gradually coming to an end. The General Staff of Ukraine reports that the Russian forces are advancing toward Avdiikva and are somewhat successful there. They are also attacking in the direction of Pisky from the villages of Vesely and Lozove.

Тhe direction of Bakhmut-Soledar-Siversk: the 2nd Army Corps of the People’s Militia of the so called LPR and the Wagner group are conducting an attack. As reported previously, the Vuhlehirsk Power Plant and Novoluhanske were captured earlier and Semihiria was attacked. Now we receive reports from the village of Pokrovske which is located literally two to three kilometers from Bakhmut. Also, the fighting is very close to the city of Soledar, Russian troops are on the outskirts of the city.

The Bakhmut-Soledar-Siversk line of defense is fortified and the supply routes are functioning, so the Ukrainian forces have no reason to abandon their positions in a hurry. Therefore, despite the fact that Russian troops are within two to three kilometers from Bakhmut and Soledar, we think that the fighting will continue for a long time and we don’t expect Bakhmut to fall into the enemy’s hands soon. 

Strelkov/GIrkin writes that there are street fights in  Pisky and there are some advances of the Russian forces in the suburban area of Marinka, but part of this territory continues to be disputed. 

Kherson direction: during the last week we saw the movement of the Group of Forces East  (exiting from the Luhansk Region into either the Belgorod or the Rostov regions and following through the Crimea into the southern areas of Ukraine). So far, we don’t see any movement of this convoy towards Zaporizhzhia, but we can see that part of the forces, specifically the paratroopers, are moving towards Kherson and are being transferred to the right bank. It is not clear at this point whether the remaining forces (part of the Group of Forces East is still moving through the Russian territory) will remain on the left bank in the rear of the Kherson direction or will transfer to Zaporizhzhia. It is also not clear how Russia is going to solve the problem of supplying the forces on the right bank of the Dnipro where at this point only one bridge (at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Plant) and one ferry crossing remain in operation.

Shelling of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Nikopol continues with MLRS, artillery, and rockets including S-300 systems. 

The chairman of the regional council, Anna Zamazeeva, declares that Mykolaiv is becoming the second Mariupol. “About 40 rockets struck Mykolaiv last night. This is one of the most extensive attacks on the city since the start of the full-scale invasion.”

Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk reports that the Ukrainian authorities are announcing a mandatory evacuation from the Ukraine-controlled part of the Donetsk Region. The reason for the evacuation is a threat of freezing in winter: gas pipelines have been destroyed in the Donetsk Region and it will not be possible to heat cities and villages. 

Olenivka: there is still no entirely trustworthy version of what exactly happened there. 

• We do not believe in undermining from within as it’s impossible to carry something in and hang it on a beam without disturbing anyone of 200 sleeping. The survivors also say they've heard one incoming blow far away and then went back to sleep. 
• The version of an FAE (fuel-air explosive) incoming through the windows is of doubt as well. Although we don’t see any significant crater, some walls are covered with mini-craters made by fragments, i.e., it obviously was a HE projectile round, not a thermobaric one. Also, most windows there have bars or frames at least, a thermobaric munition would have detonated impacting the window, so the center of the explosion would be there. 

• Regarding the version of TOS-1A Solntsepyok heavy MRLS, it’s hard to imagine the Russian military demonstrating such accuracy and precision, managing to avoid hitting any of the buildings surrounding the target.
• We agree that this is clearly not HIMARS. It makes no sense to shoot the GMLRS from such a short distance, and there would be much more destruction made to the interior side (and the fragments shown lying on the bench could have been brought from anywhere else). 
• The version that it was Ukraine who deliberately killed their own people seems to us an absolutely improbable conspiracy theory. 
• Another untenable version is that Ukrainian forces were trying to hit the pro-Russian separatists’ positions, accidentally striking this hangar. It has long been well known that there was a POW colony in Olenivka. 

It is worth special noting that by keeping POWs this close to the front line (10 to 15 km), Russia violates international humanitarian law (Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva July 27, 1929).

Our hope is that experts from the UN and the International Red Cross will be able to inspect the scene and conduct an investigation. On July 30, the officials of the Red Cross International Committee in Ukraine were not allowed to get into the colony in Olenivka.

Returning to the theme of Friday's special issue about the cruel murder of an Ukrainian prisoner. During the past weekend, we (with our readers' help) have been reviewing different videos of the “Akhmat” Special Forces Unit and have found the very person of Asian appearance with the same signs of uniforms. By a number of features we can conclude that it was definitely  him who wielded an office knife in the murder video. We don't know his name and we do not agree with someone's identification on social media. We think the identification was made poorly and the wrong man was found.

Sevastopol: as Russians reported, a DIY kamikaze drone has struck the territory of the headquarters of The Black Sea Fleet, there were injured. Ukrainian forces don't confirm it was them. We haven't seen photos and videos of the drone or its wreckage. So we can't confirm or deny the Russian version about a Ukrainian provocation. 

The body of another civilian tortured to death by Russian soldiers was found in a forest park next to Novoe Zalesie village in Bucha area  of Kyiv region. 

For several days (reportedly for more than a week) Donetsk has been shelled by cluster bombs wuth “butterfly” mines. Mostly such mines were found at the city outskirts,on the streets in direction of Krasnohorivka and Marinka, but some were found not far from the city center, on the Universitetska street. he strikes could have been conducted by the Ukrainian forces with Uragan MLRS for instance, in order to mine the roads leading to the frontline. Russian side`s provocative actions seem to be improbable for us. We are not aware of any military objects at the Universitetska street, thus shelling by the Ukrainian forces would have been an indiscriminate attack, violating international humanitarian law.

Antonivsky bridge an the Kakhovskaya HPP bridge, which were damaged last week, are under repair. 

On newly published satellite images of Antonovsky road bridge and Antonovsky rail bridge, it`s seen that radio “corner” reflectors were installed by the bridges. They cause interference for radio guided missiles and satellites capturing radar images. Similar reflectors were previously spotted by the Crimea bridge.

CNN published an investigation of Russia smuggling gold from Sudan under guise of cookies. Evgeny Prigozhin`s company, affiliated with Wagner and Russia, along with corrupt local military authorities are involved. An equivalent of $2 bn to $13 bn of gold is exported annually. 

A Ukrainian businessman Oleksiy Vadatursky was killed in Mykolaiv by a missile strike. 

Head of the Kryvyi Rih Military Administration Oleksandr Vilkul announced a reward for providing information regarding traitors and spies. He guarantees that, one will be payed 50,000 hryvnyas for information which would lead to detaining real spies. For the “Russian World” propagandists (proved by audio and video evidences), the reward will be equal to 10,000 hryvnias.