Victory Chronicles
-DAY 530

One person has been killed and 12 others injured due to a Russian attack on the city of Kherson on the night of 6-7 August. This was reported by Oleksandr Prokudin, Head of Kherson Oblast Military Administration: “Tough night in Kherson. The Russian army continued to fire on Kherson residents’ homes in the central part of the city.”

Prokudin said Russian forces fired on a residential building at around 00:50. Due to this attack, eight residents have been diagnosed with shock. One person with limited mobility was taken to hospital. Two rescue workers were wounded while extinguishing a fire caused by the Russian strike. They were taken to hospital with heat exhaustion. Russian forces continued their attacks on the city half an hour later. A 59-year-old woman has been killed, and a 60-year-old man has suffered a concussion due to an artillery projectile hitting the building. The Russian occupiers attacked the building again at around 03:15, wounding a 93-year-old woman. She was taken to hospital with a mine-blast injury and concussion.

• European Pravda: Slovak President allows nine citizens to fight in Ukraine’s Armed Forces, refuses three times as many applications
• UK Defense Ministry: Russia deploys its air force “without decisive operational effect”
• General Staff report: Ukraine’s Defense Forces hold back the Russian offensive in the east and advance in the south
• Commander of the Tavriia Operational and Strategic Group of Forces: Ukraine’s defense forces destroy 6 Russian ammunition storage points
• The head of the permanent delegation of the Verkhovna Rada to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly: Germany ready to send long-range missiles Taurus to Ukraine

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported on Aug. 7 that Russia had lost 249,700 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 last year. This number includes 540 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.

According to the report, Russia has also lost 4,244 tanks, 8,270 armored fighting vehicles, 7,451 vehicles and fuel tanks, 4,977 artillery systems, 709 multiple launch rocket systems, 467 air defense systems, 315 airplanes, 311 helicopters, 4,154 drones, 18 boats.

Another 22 Ukrainian Armed Forces warriors, including two officers, privates, and sergeants, have been brought back from Russian captivity, reported Andrii Yermak, Head of the Office of the President: “Today, another 22 Ukrainian fighters were returned home from captivity. These are fighters of the Armed Forces, 2 officers, privates and sergeants. They took part in battles in different directions. There are wounded among the released.”

Khmelnytskyi Oblast came under attack during a missile barrage on Ukraine. As a result of an enemy attack, a fire broke out in a corn waste warehouse on the territory of an elevator in the city of Starokostiantyniv. 

Sixteen rescuers were working at the scene using three pieces of fire and rescue equipment. The fire was extinguished over an area of 1400 square meters. An employee of the facility was injured in the explosion.

Ukrainian strikes on bridges along critical Russian GLOCs are a part of the Ukrainian interdiction campaign focused on setting conditions for future decisive counteroffensive operations. A prominent Wagner-affiliated Russian milblogger argued that the Ukrainian strikes on August 6 show that Ukrainian forces are methodically trying to cut off the Russian grouping in southern Ukraine and disrupt its logistics in a way similar to the Ukrainian interdiction campaign during the Kherson counteroffensive.

The milblogger noted that Russian defenses on west (right) bank Kherson Oblast broke down in a matter of days following months of Ukrainian strikes on Russian logistics and expressed concern that the situation could repeat itself. The Ukrainian strikes on the eastern crossing points will likely disrupt the transport of Russian personnel, materiel, and equipment from occupied Crimea to critical Russian defensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and the Zaporizhia-Donetsk Oblast border area for some, undetermined, time. Ukrainian forces appear to be also expanding their interdiction efforts to target Russian naval targets involved in Russian logistics in the Black Sea as ISW has previously observed.

Ukrainian officials have routinely stated their commitment to a deliberate interdiction campaign against Russian military targets to degrade Russian logistics and defensive capabilities to set favorable conditions for future Ukrainian counteroffensive activity.

Defender Yulia Shevchenko died on July 31, 2023, due to an enemy air strike on the positions of Ukrainian defenders in one of the hotspots in eastern Ukraine. In June, the defender turned 24 years old.

Yulia was born in Kyiv. She studied at Lyceum #241. In 2022, she graduated from the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University in Kharkiv. In the same year, she became a Ph.D. student at the Department of Criminal Law at her home university. In 2021, in her 5th year of study, she won the Anti-Corruption Landing project and joined the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption in the Department of mandatory inspections. She wrote poetry and loved walking and hiking. 

From the first days of the full-scale invasion, she went to defend her country. Yulia joined the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade “Magura.” She was the deputy commander for moral and psychological support.

On the eve of Yulia’s death, her family visited her at the front line. The girl’s mother, Tamara Mazhuga, wrote about it on her page:

“We raised you to be a very strong and strong-willed person; you could move mountains if necessary… a little insect with incredible willpower who could tell the truth to the face and stand up for justice. You reached incredible heights and would have soared even higher if not for the damn war… The Russians killed you. And they did not let your dreams come true… You did not even have time to really live… After graduating from university, you immediately joined the Armed Forces. You met an incredible love that happens once in a lifetime. A man who was everything to you… and you were everything to him… The day before you died, we came to meet you… we brought goods from volunteers, necessary things… we held hands like in childhood and walked together… we did not want to go back to Kyiv, as if something bad was already creeping into our minds… but we had to go and let you do your job… that evening there was an air raid, and a guided bomb killed you… If only I had known that this was the last time we would meet… if only I had known that I would never see you again, I would not have let go of your hand then… and I would have gone there instead of you, because you had to live… Your life had just begun and ended so quickly… it’s not fair. You were the best daughter on Earth! With principles and ideals. People follow people like you. Because you are the light. You will forever remain not only in my heart, but in the hearts of many people whom you were able to touch with your rays of kindness. You are a true Hero of your country! And you will live forever in our memory, our little insect.”

Yulia met her love, a fighter named Taras. They planned a wedding and dreamed of a family and children. But they didn’t have time.

“On July 31, the heart of this beautiful girl, bride, my future wife, stopped beating. A person who was a match for anyone with her courage, hard work, and perseverance is gone. She is an angel among people. She helped everyone. She always stood for justice in this world. She always told me: “Taras, we are inseparable parrots, we will always be together,” and I always answered her: “It will always be like that, my little insect,” but unfortunately, it didn’t happen…. Our love story will always be in our hearts… You will always be my “little insect Lyulia”. And I will always be your favorite little gopher. I love you very much and will always love you.” …. She died like a hero, fighting for our Ukraine,” wrote Taras Suhenyuk, the defender’s fiancé. The defender is survived by her family, fiancé, friends, fellow fighters and colleagues, who are grieving her tragic loss.