With 145 days to go before the start of the special operation in Ukraine, there is no prospect of dialogue or at any rate of meetings between Russia and Ukraine to bring about peace agreements. Putin’s spokesman Dimitrj Peskov said: “The special operation will undoubtedly end when all its objectives are achieved, there are no clear timelines, the important thing is efficiency”.
And now we come to the situation of the war on the different fronts at 08.44 on 18 July.
The fronts meanwhile expand. Unexpectedly, news arrived of the opening of a new direction at the border of the Glushkovsky district with the Sumy region. There, Russian troops began an active phase within the SWO. So far, the strategic intent on the part of the Russian Ministry of Defence has not been disclosed.
The battles for Ivano-Daryevka, not far from Seversk, continue in the direction of Slavyansk. The Russian army is advancing near Bilohorivka and Berestovoye.
In the Donetsk area there is fighting near Novobakhmutivka, on the road to Konstantinovka. DPR and Russian troops are advancing towards Avdiivka. There are counter-attacks by DNR forces in the direction of the village of Pavlivka and Novomikhailovka.
In the southern direction there are artillery exchanges. No active advance is noted.
In the border area with Russia, the Ukrainian army shelled the village of Zernovo in the Bryansk region; no one was injured. In the Kursk region, eyewitnesses report gunshots and explosions on the border with Ukraine.
US HIMARS MLRS were launched at night in Alchevsk in the LNR. Also towards evening there was an attack on an ammunition depot in Stakhanov. Donetsk was again hit by shelling. On the 18th morning, residents of Enerhodar discovered an improvised explosive device in the centre of the city. Police officers defused it. The explosive was placed at a bus stop where employees of the Zaporizhzhya PNP leave for their shift.
In Odessa, a warehouse for the storage of Harpoon anti-ship missiles transferred to Ukraine by NATO countries was attacked and destroyed. The command post of a battalion of the 59th Motorised Infantry Brigade near Zelenyi Gai in Mykolaiv Oblast was destroyed. Several military facilities were also destroyed in Zaporizhzhya.
Finally, according to online analyses, it was reported that the news that Russian troops attacked an industrial plant in the Kievsky district of Kharkov was untrue, an inaccuracy found in the coordinates of the attack. The municipal administration immediately accused the Russian armed forces of deliberately striking civilian enterprises without specifying the exact location.
After a review of the photographic and video material published by the Ukrainians, the team of social analysts determined the location of the impact: the Hartron-Express research and production facility. The nuclear power plant complex was already subject to destruction on 12 June but continued to operate. What is interesting about the vast territory of ‘Khartron’? It hosted military instructors from Great Britain and Poland. In addition to training personnel, they played an advisory role.
From there, departures were made for reconnaissance and planning operations to settlements near the line of contact. According to the Russians, it was on the advice of NATO experts that a couple of months ago, the Ukrainian command planned to carry out an offensive against Kazachya Lopan and Volchansk both in the Kharkiv region to push Russian troops to the state border and divert attention from the Donbass.
Graziella Giangiulio
