Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,241

What’s going on with Saturday, July 19?

Fighting

At least one multistory apartment building has been set on fire by Russian forces in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa, according to the city’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov, who was there early on Saturday. In the early hours of this morning, at least 20 drones gathered in front of the city.
10 Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow overnight on Friday were intercepted or destroyed by Russian air defenses, according to Sergei Sobyanin, the city’s mayor.
Oleksandr Syrskii, the head of Ukraine’s top military, stated that his forces are standing firm in defending the city of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in the eastern Donetsk region that has withstanded months of Russian attacks, and the settlement of Novopavlivka in the Zaporizhia region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the troops defending Pokrovsk, stating that any advance by Russian forces “to enter Ukrainian cities and villages” has no “chance of survival.”
Authorities in the Russian-controlled Crimea have implemented a data blackout to stop Ukrainian drone, missile, and sabotage attacks. The head of Crimea under Russian rule Sergei Aksyonov said he had signed a decree forbidding social media users from publishing photos, videos, or other information that revealed the presence of Russian forces or details of Ukrainian attacks on the Black Sea peninsula.

As part of a 245 million Australian dollars ($160 million) package, the Australian government announced that it had given Ukraine M1A1 Abrams tanks as part of their ongoing war.
Germany will now be able to get the next Patriot air defense systems off US production lines before Switzerland. Berlin will now be able to send two Patriot batteries to Ukraine thanks to the expedited delivery, according to a report in the US media.
According to Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, leaders in Ukraine and Washington are in close consultation over a deal involving US funding of Kyiv’s domestic drone production. She added that the US would eventually acquire “a sizable number of Ukrainian drones” as a result of the agreement.
In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, President Zelenskyy said he had discussions about funding interceptor drones and missile supplies to counteract Russian attacks. Zelenskyy said on X, “I would like to especially draw attention to our agreement on pilot training for Mirage jets. France is willing to train additional pilots using additional aircraft.”

Eighteen Russian military intelligence officers, known as the GRU, and three units were subject to sanctions from the United Kingdom for their involvement in a 2022 bombing that killed hundreds of civilians in a southern Ukrainian theater. Additionally, the officers were accused of attempting to reach out to the family of a former Russian spy who had been poisoned with a nerve agent in the UK later.
President Zelenskyy thanked the European Union for the most recent sanctions imposed on Russia and demanded that Moscow take additional sanctions. He said, “This decision is crucial and appropriate, especially now, as we respond to the fact that Russia has increased the brutality of the strikes on our cities and villages.”
Dmitry Medvedev, the ex-President of Russia, predicted that Moscow would increase its strikes against Ukraine and that the Russian economy would support the EU sanctions. After Brussels punished Russia with sanctions that included a Rosneft oil refinery in Gujarat, India has declared it opposes “unilateral sanctions” by the EU.
Russian oil exports are expected to continue despite the EU’s new wave of stricter sanctions, according to shipping sources, according to Reuters news agency.
A lawmaker in Moscow who oversees the IT industry warned that the messaging app owned by Meta Platforms is very likely to be included on a list of restricted software in Russia on Friday, saying WhatsApp should prepare to leave the country.

The Kremlin added that it concurred with Zelenskyy’s statement that peace negotiations between the two conflicting countries needed to take longer.
Rustem Umerov, the former head of the nation’s National Security and Defence Council, was appointed by Zelenskyy in a decree released on Friday on the president’s website. Following the appointment of a new prime minister and the reshuffle of the Ukrainian government, Umerov was appointed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke about Ukraine on Friday, according to the Kremlin’s press service. Putin thanked Erdogan for facilitating Russian-Ukraine bilateral discussions and said Russia was “committed to a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has doubted whether Ukraine will be able to join the EU by 2034, claiming that it was unlikely to do so until the bloc’s medium-term finance plans, which run until 2034, were in doubt. If Kyiv continues to implement its reforms, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that the country could join the EU before 2030.
In connection with a large-scale anti-Israel protest held at an airport in the predominantly Muslim Dagestan region in October 2023, Russian courts on Friday handed down 135 lengthy prison sentences, according to the country’s Investigative Committee. Israel’s occupation of Gaza sparked a flurry of protests at an airport in Makhachkala, where a plane from Tel Aviv had just arrived.

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, a senior US general’s recent remarks about NATO’s ability to capture Kaliningrad’s Russian Baltic exclave have been viewed as hostile by Russia. According to a report, US Army Europe and Africa commander General Christopher Donahue claimed that NATO could seize Kaliningrad “from the ground in a time that is unprecedented and faster than we’ve ever been able to do”
A new survey found that only 16% of those in the fighting age are willing to take up arms, compared to a third of Italians who predict a war to start within five years.
According to the Center for Social Investment Studies survey, 39 percent of Italians between the ages of 18 and 45 would declare themselves to be pacifist conscientious objectors, 19 percent would try to avoid conscription in another way, and 26 percent would prefer that Italy employ foreign mercenaries.

Source: Aljazeera