Articles and Reporting
Another excellent analysis video from Australian military analyst Perun, this time assessing Russian armor losses and speculating about the future trajectory of Russia’s vehicle fleet.
Relevant Statistics
All vehicle losses are visually confirmed only and thus represent the lowest possibly figure (sourced from Oryx, here and here); they are updated to the nearest 25 daily. All personnel losses are estimates or projections and should be viewed as such; they are updated as new information becomes available.
Russia
Ukraine
War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
Russian forces in Ukraine have committed and continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied regions of Ukraine, in violation of international law and basic human decency. Russian crimes in Ukraine constitute genocide and ethnic cleansing, with Russia’s stated war aims including the elimination of Ukrainians as a separate country, language, culture, and people.
No especially notable atrocities reported today.
Overview
Ukraine
Russia continues to launch drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, infrastructure, and military installations.
The last Russian warship in occupied Crimea has reportedly left the peninsula, leaving the Black Sea *de facto* uncontested. Ukraine’s success in crippling and ultimately defeating the Black Sea Fleet is an enormous achievement and one of the most important victories of the war.
Russian forces continue to make small raids into Sumy Oblast, northwest of Kharkiv Oblast.
Russia
Ukrainian forces continue to launch near-daily long-range strikes on Russian oil, gas, and industrial facilities.
International
Czechia announced that its efforts to buy artillery shells on the international market was on track to deliver tens of thousands of rounds this month and up to 100,000 per month for the rest of the year.
Regional Military Updates
Northern Theatre
🟧 Significant action. Russian attacks north of Kharkiv made marginal gains. Fighting reported around Vovchansk. Ukrainian counterassaults in Vovchansk made marginal gains. Ukrainian counterattacks northeast of Kupyansk made limited gains. Russian attacks southeast of Kupyansk made gains. Russian attacks west of Svatove made marginal gains. Russian attacks southwest of Svatove made limited gains. Russian assaults in Makiivka, southwest of Svatove, made limited gains. Russian attacks west of Kreminna made marginal gains.
Assessment: The Kharkiv Front remains stagnant. Russian forces have begun making marginal advances along the Svatove Front, possibly due to local Ukrainian units being redirected towards Kharkiv.
Eastern Theatre
🟧 Significant action. Fighting reported east of Siversk. Russian forces captured Ivano-Darivka, southeast of Siversk. Russian forces captured Spirne. Fighting reported north of Soledar. Fighting reported around Chasiv Yar. Fighting reported south of Bakhmut. Russian attacks towards Toretsk made gains. Russian assaults on Niu York made limited gains. Russian attacks northwest of Avdiivka made gains. Russian forces captured Prohres, northwest of Avdiivka. Russian attacks west of Avdiivka made gains. Russian assaults in Krasnohorivka made marginal gains. Fighting reported around Marinka. Fighting reported around Novomkyhailivka.
Assessment: Russian forces continue to make limited gains around Siversk. The situation around Chasiv Yar remains static. Russian forces have resumed making games around Toretsk. Russian forces have resumed making gains around Avdiivka.
Southern Theatre
🟩 Limited action. Russian attacks around Vuhledar made gains. Russian forces captured Urozhaine, south of Velyka Novosilka. Russian attacks south of Hulilaipole made marginal gains. Fighting reported around Orikhiv.
Assessment: No change from previous assessment.
Dnieper Theatre
🟩 Limited action. Fighting reported around Krynky. Fighting reported around Kozachi Laheri.
Assessment: No change from previous assessment.
Weekly Conclusion
Note: This Week’s Conclusion is a vignette abridged from a longer New York Times article, which can be read in full here.
After Russian forces took control of his village in 2022, Volodymyr Vakulenko, a well-known Ukrainian author, sensed he might soon be arrested. So he buried his new handwritten manuscript [titled “I Transform,” referring to a poem he wrote before the invasion foreseeing his work as “doomed”] in his backyard, under a cherry tree.
Best known in Ukraine for his cheerful and lyrical children’s books, Mr. Vakulenko was seething with anger at Moscow’s occupying forces. As his village [near Izyum] lost cellphone service and news from the outside world dried up, he filled his new work with reflective, sometimes morose, descriptions of life under Russian control… Soon enough, Russian soldiers indeed arrested Mr. Vakulenko.
Deeply troubled by Mr. Vakulenko’s disappearance, [fellow Ukrainian author] Ms. Amelina became fixated on his fate, agitating for rights groups to ascertain if he was in Russian captivity. [She] found the manuscript by chance after the Ukrainian Army reclaimed Mr. Vakulenko’s village… in September 2022. She visited the author’s father, Volodymyr… [who] told her of the buried manuscript, and the two dug it up together.
After the Ukrainian Army drove the Russians out of [Izyum], war crimes investigators excavated the [nearby forest] and found Mr. Vakulenko in a grave marked number 319[, along with more than 400 others from the area.]… An autopsy found that he had been shot at close range with a pistol.
[In June 2023], after ensuring “I Transform” was published, Ms. Amelina was mortally wounded in a missile strike on the pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine… She died later in a hospital.
In May [2024], in a final blow, Russian missiles blew up the printing plant in Kharkiv that had published the work. That strike killed seven employees, wounded 22 others and took out about a third of Ukraine’s overall book-printing capacity.
