Ukraine

DONETSK REGION (AP) — All over the Donetsk region, close to the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Nataliia Voronkova turns up at Ukrainian field positions and hospitals wearing high heels. A colleague bought her running shoes, but Voronkova gave them away.

A helmet and a protective vest aren’t part of her uniform, either, as she distributes first-aid kits and other equipment to Ukrainian soldiers and paramedics. She is a civilian, the founder of a medical non-profit, and looking like one is something no one can take from her, even in a combat zone.

KYIV, July 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Monday its forces had used U.S-supplied HIMARS rocket systems to destroy 50 Russian ammunition depots since receiving the weapons last month.

In comments on national television, Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov underlined the growing impact that the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) are having as Ukraine tries to repel Russia's invasion.

"This cuts their (Russian) logistical chains and takes away their ability to conduct active fighting and cover our armed forces with heavy shelling," Reznikov said.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s top diplomat said Moscow’s overarching goal in Ukraine is to free its people from its “unacceptable regime,” expressing the Kremlin’s war aims in some of the bluntest terms yet as its forces pummel the country with artillery barrages and airstrikes.

The remark from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov comes amid Ukraine’s efforts to resume grain exports from its Black Sea ports, something that would help ease global food shortages, under a new deal tested by a Russian strike on Odesa over the weekend.

24 July 2022; MEMO: Ukraine pressed ahead on Sunday with efforts to restart grain exports from its Black Sea ports under a deal aimed at easing global food shortages but warned deliveries would suffer if Russia's strike on Odesa was a sign of more to come, Reuters reports.

President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Saturday's attack as "barbarism" that showed Moscow could not be trusted to implement a deal struck just one day earlier with Turkish and United Nations mediation.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian defense ministry officials on Sunday insisted that an airstrike on the port of Odesa — less than a day after Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement on resuming grain shipments from there — had hit only military targets.

“In the seaport in the city of Odesa, on the territory of a shipyard, sea-based high-precision long-range missiles destroyed a docked Ukrainian warship and a warehouse with Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied by the U.S. to the Kyiv regime,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a daily briefing.

KHERSON, July 23. /TASS/: A seven-member election committee to conduct a referendum on acceding to Russia is being created in the Kherson Region, the press service of the region’s military-civilian administration said on Saturday.

July 22 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a ceasefire with Russia without reclaiming lost territories would only prolong the war, according to an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

He warned that a ceasefire that allows Russia to keep Ukrainian territories seized since the invasion in February would only encourage an even wider conflict, giving Moscow an opportunity to replenish and rearm for the next round.

July 23 (Reuters) - Heavy fighting has been taking place in the last 48 hours as Ukrainian forces continued their offensive against Russia in Kherson province, west of the Dnipro River, British military intelligence said on Saturday.

Russian forces are using artillery fire along the Ingulets River, a tributary of the Dnipro, the UK's Ministry of Defence said.

"Supply lines of the Russian forces west of the river are increasingly at risk," the ministry said in an intelligence update.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa just hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals to allow grain exports to resume from there. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry denounced Saturday’s airstrikes as “spit in the face” of Turkey and the United Nations, which brokered the agreements.

LUGANSK, July 22. /TASS/: A referendum on the accession of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) to Russia will be held at 492 voting stations, Chairman of the republic’s Public Chamber Alexey Karyakin said.

"Work began on forming the group of observers at the polling stations, there will be a total of 492 of them in the LPR," the Luganskinformcenter news agency quoted him as saying.