Victory Chronicles
-DAY 513

Destroyed hangars and 120 tons of grain: the consequences of the Russian night attack on Odesa Oblast

At night, the enemy attacked Odesa Oblast with Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea. The enemy launched the missiles at a minimum altitude to bypass air defense systems, taking advantage of the landscape. After three nights in a row of powerful missile and drone terror of the port infrastructure, it switched to agricultural enterprises in the Oblast.

The missiles hit the granaries of one of the agricultural enterprises. A fire broke out, and a second alarm sounded while the fire was being extinguished. Another missile hit the same enterprise, damaging agricultural and rescue equipment. The fire on an area of more than 200 square meters was quickly extinguished. The enemy destroyed 100 tons of peas and 20 tons of barley. Two employees of the company were injured.

Latest news

• CIA chief: Putin may still seek revenge on Wagner boss
• John Kirby: The Ukrainians using cluster munitions quite effectively
• UK Defence Secretary: UK gave Ukraine 15 times more artillery shells than planned
• US Treasury and State: New US sanctions target Russian access to battlefield supplies for Ukraine war
• General Staff: Russia has lost 240,690 troops in Ukraine. Ukrainian defenders kill 680 Russians and destroy 18 artillery systems in one day

Symbolic number of the Day - 31

The destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant killed 31 people in the territories controlled by the Ukrainian government, stated Ihor Klymenko, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

War in Pictures

Officers of the civil-military cooperation unit of one of the military units of the Northern Military Group once again visited orphans in the Zhytomyr Oblast to help them.  In December 2022, a car carrying a married couple, Maria and Petro Dubrovtsy, from the village of Kopyshche, hit a mine. Volodymyr Dubrovets, a 24-year-old uncle, a fighter, and brother of the deceased, became a guardian for eight children, the youngest of whom was only two months old. 

“Almost from the very first days we have been supporting this family by providing various assistance,” comments one of the officers of civil-military cooperation, “We constantly monitor their needs. We brought them juices and sweets. Now the family needs food, such as cereals, canned food, and meat. In total, the cost of the assistance provided is over UAH 200 thousand (5.5 thousand USD), said Volodymyr Dubrovets.

Video of the Day

Police posts bodycam video showing aftermath of Russian bombing of Odesa. Patrol police of Odesa have helped search and evacuate victims at the site of destruction after the Russian night attack on 19 July.

ISW report

The Kremlin likely views the Black Sea Grain Initiative as one of its few remaining avenues of leverage against the West and has withdrawn from the deal to secure these concessions. The Kremlin now appears to be attempting to create a sense of urgency around its return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative by conducting intensifying strikes against Ukrainian port and grain infrastructure and threatening to strike civilian ships in the Black Sea. Ukraine harvests most of it grain between July and August, and Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian port and agricultural infrastructure can further complicate Ukraine’s ability to free up space for newly harvested grains. Prolonged disruptions to grain logistics in Ukraine will likely have increasingly cascading effects on grain supplies, adding to the sense of urgency that the Kremlin hopes to create.

The Kremlin routinely engages in escalatory rhetoric surrounding the West’s support for Ukraine in an effort to shape Western behavior, although Russia appears notably to be conducting these shaping efforts concerning the grain deal with kinetic operations instead of rhetoric. It is unclear to what extent Russian forces intend to strike civilian ships in the Black Sea, although the Kremlin likely believes the announcement will have a chilling effect on maritime activity in the Black Sea and create conditions reminiscent of the complete blockade of Ukrainian ports at the start of the full-scale invasion.

This attempt to achieve economic concessions from the West may undermine the Kremlin’s international outreach efforts by threatening the food supplies of several countries that are the intended targets of the Kremlin’s outreach. Russian strikes against Ukrainian port and grain infrastructure and naval posturing also continue to illustrate that the Kremlin is willing to use naval and precision strike assets to prioritize immediate economic concerns instead of operations in Ukraine that pursue the Kremlin‘s overall campaign objectives.

War Heroes

Senior Ukrainian defender Ostap Onistrat, with the call sign Bender, died on June 2, 2023, in a fierce battle near the town of Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast. The warrior would have turned 22 in a month. Ostap was born in Kyiv in the family of a banker, athlete Andrii, and tennis player Hanna. He graduated from the Prestige Lyceum in Kyiv; then, he entered the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He was fond of gaming.

He and his father went to the front when a full-scale war broke out. Ostap joined the ranks of the Air Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Later, he transferred to the 68th Separate Ranger Brigade, named after Oleksa Dovbush. He was an operator of a UAV strike unit. He dreamed of shooting down an enemy tank and serving in the Special Forces.

“My little hedgehog… You are gone. Time has stopped… When Ostap was little, he was very careful. Lately, we often talked about the war, about the victims at night, and he asked me how people in ordinary life go about their daily lives thinking that people are dying here in the East. And he would ask me why I wasn’t there, in the shooting… Like my father, I had no answer to this question. I didn’t know what to say… He was looking for a tank the day before yesterday. He really wanted to destroy the tank on the anniversary of his service. In the evening, he was upset that he failed… When he came home for the last time, he changed a lot. A year later, he became completely different… A man who made independent and difficult decisions,” wrote Andrii Onistrat.

“Our brother-in-arms Ostap Onistrat died. He and his father went to the front. I met him in our reconnaissance unit in Petrivske; he was the youngest – 21 years old. I remember his desire to go to fight, and I was holding him back, saying: don’t rush; the work you do is also important. He was motivated to work when others had already burned out. In my memory, Ostap will remain a young, courageous hero who gave his life for our motherland. Those who will live should know the stories of those who give their lives and be responsible in their lives and the country fighting for its future with sweat, blood, and tears!!!” wrote Dmytro Chernytskyi.