Thursday, July 21. Russia’s War On Ukraine: News And Information From Ukraine

Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Sabina, center, cries next to her killed husband Artem Pogorelets after Russian shelling at . . .

[+] Barabashovo market in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved Dispatches from Ukraine, provided by Forbes Ukraine’s editorial team.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues and the war rages on, reliable sources of information are critical. Forbes Ukraine’s reporters gather information and provide updates on the situation. Thursday, July 21.

Day 148. By Dmytro Aksyonov Kharkiv. Russian shelling of the city of Kharkiv has caused three civilian deaths and 23 injuries, and damaged civilian infrastructure in one of the city’s most populous districts, a ccording to the Kharkiv regional Prosecutor’s Office, ADVERTISEMENT A spokesman for the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced that Ukrainian military leadership believes recent comments by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov describing the “expansion of territorial limits of the special military operation” to be a pretext for annexing parts of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation.

This statement echoes comments by some Western officials who believe Russia is preparing to conduct “referendums” in currently occupied territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as a pretext for formally annexing the provinces as part of Russia. The U. S.

-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has published a report claiming that Russia is likely to exhaust its offensive potential in the Donbas before capturing any major settlements in the Donetsk region. They point to the generally underwhelming progress by the Russian forces in recent weeks as well as manpower shortages as potential reasons for the culmination of the Russian offensive. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s office has announced that Russia, Ukraine and Turkey will gather on Friday to sign a deal proposed by the United Nations to free up grain exports from Ukraine’s besieged Black Sea ports.

The talks will be attended by U. N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

While the exact content of the deal has not yet been revealed to the public, it is likely to involve Russia allowing safe passage of civilian ships in exchange for having sanctions on its food and fertilizer industries lifted. ADVERTISEMENT According to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, EU member states have finalized an agreement on the 7th sanctions package against Russia. The package includes a full embargo on the Russian gold industry, aims to close loopholes used by Russia to evade previous sanctions, and prioritizes directly targeting the Russian military-industrial complex.

The U. K. government has announced its own round of sanctions, which includes an immediate, full embargo on Russian gold, an embargo on Russian coal starting from August 10, and an embargo on Russian oil from December 31.

The National Bank of Ukraine has , for the first time since the start of the war, changed the official exchange rate for the it’s currency, the Hryvnia, setting its value at 36. 5686 hrn per $1 USD. This move aims to increase the competitiveness of Ukrainian exports and help the Ukrainian government balance its budget during the serious economic crisis caused by the war.

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