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Conflict reporting rarely strays beyond Gaza these days, such is the unfathomable scale of the slaughter and destruction. On Saturday, Israeli forces fired three missiles into a girl’s school inside of which was also a makeshift hospital. 30 people were killed, including women, boys, girls, and wounded, and 100 people were injured.
Beyond these ghastly scenes are small updates of small battles that Ukraine is losing. The settlement of Lozuvatske in the Pokrovsk sector of Ukraine’s Donetsk region and the villages of Progres and Yevgenivka, a few kilometers apart have all been taken this week. Chasiv Yar, just west of the city of Bakhmut, the small industrial city of Toretsk; and in rural terrain west of Ocheretyne, Russians are rapidly advancing under cover of glide bombs and drones.
It’s as close to a dominos tumbling moment as there’s been in the last 2 years of fighting, with one frontline Sergeant calling the situation on the Ukrainian side “serious chaos”.
Unofficial military bloggers also noted the demise of Prohres and Vovche, increasing the number of captured positions to 5.
“It is extremely challenging in the Donetsk directions, and it is in the Pokrovsk direction that there have been the biggest number of Russian assaults these weeks – the most intense enemy attacks are precisely there,” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said in an evening address to the nation on Sunday.
The Institute for the Study of War, a partisan think tank with deep ties to some of the Military Industrial Complex’s most notorious recent figures, reports that fighting is now ongoing for control of 3 of the 4 largest cities in Donetsk under Ukrainian control, which their members took to mean “wider operational planning changes” by the Russians had taken place.
The Washington Post recently reported that the sweltering summer heat of over 100°F (35°C) is sapping the will to resist from Ukrainian forces, who recently saw their 47th Mechanized Brigade forced into a “chaotic retreat” due to a lack of soldiers.
Moscow has repeatedly announced their willingness to negotiate in recent weeks.
“Basically, Russia is open for a negotiation process but first, we need to understand how prepared Ukraine is and whether it has permission for that from its handlers. At this point, you can see that contradictory statements are being made and things are not quite clear,” Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov told reporters.
Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said at a meeting with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi that Ukraine was preparing for talks with Russia, with Kuleba saying that “talks need to be rational, substantive and aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace”. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: Chasiv Yar after rocket strike on July 9th, 2022. PC: National Police of Ukraine, CC BY 4.0
