Opening summary
We are restarting our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine and will give you the latest updates throughout the day.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said fighting in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine is “extremely challenging” and that Russian forces have continued to focus most of their offensive operations in the area in the direction of Pokrovsk.
Zelenskiy said in his evening address:
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.
Everyone who stops these Russian strikes and destroys this Russian offensive potential is performing one of the most important missions in this war.
His comments came after Russia said on Sunday that its forces had captured two villages in the Donetsk region, Progres and Yevgenivka, a few kilometres apart, as they pushed towards the city of Pokrovsk, northwest of the regional capital.
Despite the tense situation near Pokrovsk, “Ukraine has the strength to achieve its goals,” Zelenskiy added in his address.
In other developments:
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Ukraine air defence systems destroyed one guided air missile and nine out of the 10 attack drones that Russia launched overnight, Ukraine’s air force said on Monday.
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Kyiv launched more than two dozen drones on the Russian region of Kursk in several waves of attacks that started Saturday night and damaged an oil depot, Russian officials said on Monday. Nineteen drones launched from Ukraine were destroyed by Russia’s air defence systems overnight, Russia’s defence ministry wrote on Telegram. That follows 19 drones that Andrei Smirnov, Kursk’s governor, said defence systems destroyed over the region on Sunday.
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A utility infrastructure facility in the Voronezh region caught fire briefly from the falling debris of a destroyed Ukraine-launched drone, the governor of the southwestern Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday. The fire was quickly extinguished.
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Vladimir Putin has warned the US that if Washington deploys long-range missiles in Germany from 2026, Russia will station similar missiles within striking distance of the west. The US would start deploying long-range fire capabilities in Germany in 2026 in an effort to demonstrate its commitment to Nato and European defence, Washington and Germany said earlier this month. “The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes,” Putin said in a speech to sailors on Sunday. “We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.”
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Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit Ukraine in August, various Indian media outlets have reported in recent days, which would be his first visit to the country since Russia invaded in February 2022 and would come just weeks after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had expressed unhappiness and disappointment with Modi’s visit to Russia. India has refrained from directly criticising Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, while urging the two nations to resolve their conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.
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Ukrainians urged their government to do more to get Russia to release prisoners of war, voicing their anger on Sunday at a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50. Several thousand soldiers and civilians gathered at Kyiv’s Independence Square to commemorate the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50 Ukrainians that Russia was holding in the Olenivka prison barracks.
Key events
Russia inflicting heaviest assaults on strategic city of Pokrovsk, Kyiv’s military says
Russian forces are staging their heaviest assaults near the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, Kyiv’s military has said. This is in line with what Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his evening address (see opening summary for more details on that).
The general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine said in a battlefield update that fighting on the Pokrovsk front was the fiercest anywhere in the east of Ukraine, adding that Ukrainian forces had fought off 52 Russian assaults there in the last 24 hours.
“The greatest concentration of enemy attacks was around Zhelanne and Novooleksandrivka,” it said, citing two villages that lie to the east of Pokrovsk.
Pokrovsk, a transport hub with a prewar population of 61,000, lies on a main road that serves as an important supply route to other embattled Ukrainian-held outposts, such as the towns of Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka.
In a post on Telegram, the general staff of the armed forces added:
On the border with the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the enemy maintains a military presence, conducts sabotage and intelligence activities, attacks populated areas from the territory of the Russian Federation, and increases the density of mine and explosive barriers along the state border of Ukraine.
The total combat losses of Russian troops in Ukraine from 24 February 2022 to 29 July 2024 amounted to about 576,000 people, including 1,310 people over the past day, the general staff said. These figures have not been independently verified by the Guardian.
Eleven people, including three children, were injured in Russian strikes on the Kherson region on Sunday, governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
He said “critical infrastructure facilities”, a playground and residential quarters of populated areas of the region were targeted by the Russian military, adding that warehouse premises, garages and private vehicles were also damaged in the attacks.
The Japanese minister of education, culture, sports and science, Masahito Moriyama, has arrived in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
In a Facebook post, the Japanese embassy in Ukraine wrote that the minister plans to hold a series of meetings with Ukrainian officials to discuss joint projects and opportunities for further cooperation “in the cultural and educational spheres”.
Moriyama’s visit comes a month after Ukraine and Japan signed a 10-year security agreement on the sidelines of the G7 summit which Volodymyr Zelenskiy said had defence assistance, humanitarian aid and technical/financial cooperation at its core.
Russian authorities have issued arrest warrants for nine prisoners under contract with the country’s armed forces who escaped from a military training ground in Russia’s Belgorod region, according to local media reports.
The escaped convicts, who joined the Russian armed forces likely in exchange for the opportunity of parole, include two convicts convicted of murder, three for causing bodily harm, one for unlawful confinement, and the others for unspecified lesser offences, according to local outlet Pepel Belgorod.
According to a wanted posters shared by Pepel Belgorod, the inmates allegedly escaped on 26 July and 27 July. No details were provided as to how the alleged managed to escape the training grounds.
The warrants indicate that the escaped convicts are likely within the vicinity of the city of Belgorod.
Moscow has been recruiting convicts for its war since summer 2022, first under the auspices of the Wagner mercenary company and then directly under the Russian defence ministry.
Toward the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, prisoners, even those convicted of violent crimes, were promised a pardon after completing a six-month military contract.
As we mentioned in the opening summary, several thousand soldiers and civilians gathered at Kyiv’s Independence Square on Sunday to commemorate the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50 Ukrainians that Russia held in the Olenivka prison barracks (you can read more about it here).
Impassioned speakers at the ceremony urged the Ukrainian government to work harder to get the soldiers freed in a prisoner exchange.
Here are some pictures of the ceremony:
Opening summary
We are restarting our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine and will give you the latest updates throughout the day.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said fighting in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine is “extremely challenging” and that Russian forces have continued to focus most of their offensive operations in the area in the direction of Pokrovsk.
Zelenskiy said in his evening address:
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.
Everyone who stops these Russian strikes and destroys this Russian offensive potential is performing one of the most important missions in this war.
His comments came after Russia said on Sunday that its forces had captured two villages in the Donetsk region, Progres and Yevgenivka, a few kilometres apart, as they pushed towards the city of Pokrovsk, northwest of the regional capital.
Despite the tense situation near Pokrovsk, “Ukraine has the strength to achieve its goals,” Zelenskiy added in his address.
In other developments:
-
Ukraine air defence systems destroyed one guided air missile and nine out of the 10 attack drones that Russia launched overnight, Ukraine’s air force said on Monday.
-
Kyiv launched more than two dozen drones on the Russian region of Kursk in several waves of attacks that started Saturday night and damaged an oil depot, Russian officials said on Monday. Nineteen drones launched from Ukraine were destroyed by Russia’s air defence systems overnight, Russia’s defence ministry wrote on Telegram. That follows 19 drones that Andrei Smirnov, Kursk’s governor, said defence systems destroyed over the region on Sunday.
-
A utility infrastructure facility in the Voronezh region caught fire briefly from the falling debris of a destroyed Ukraine-launched drone, the governor of the southwestern Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday. The fire was quickly extinguished.
-
Vladimir Putin has warned the US that if Washington deploys long-range missiles in Germany from 2026, Russia will station similar missiles within striking distance of the west. The US would start deploying long-range fire capabilities in Germany in 2026 in an effort to demonstrate its commitment to Nato and European defence, Washington and Germany said earlier this month. “The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes,” Putin said in a speech to sailors on Sunday. “We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.”
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Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit Ukraine in August, various Indian media outlets have reported in recent days, which would be his first visit to the country since Russia invaded in February 2022 and would come just weeks after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had expressed unhappiness and disappointment with Modi’s visit to Russia. India has refrained from directly criticising Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, while urging the two nations to resolve their conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.
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Ukrainians urged their government to do more to get Russia to release prisoners of war, voicing their anger on Sunday at a ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50. Several thousand soldiers and civilians gathered at Kyiv’s Independence Square to commemorate the second anniversary of an explosion that killed more than 50 Ukrainians that Russia was holding in the Olenivka prison barracks.