After yesterday's attacks by Ukraine on the port city of Novorossiysk and against the SIG tanker, Russia retaliated by launching a large barrage of missiles and drones against Ukraine. For the first time in a while, missiles were launched from Belarus as well. Ukraine then declared that a half dozen Russian ports are now at "war risk", warning away merchant ships. Ukraine has, thus far, mostly restrained themselves to attacking coastal positions within occupied Ukraine, distant locations within the Black Sea, and Novorossiysk (the city has been hit several times). But now, many other Russian ports may be subjected to similar attacks. Ukraine also released footage on the attack against the SIG, with the attack looking quite purposeful. As mentioned yesterday, the vessel is widely believed to be a de facto part of Russia's fleet, but the optics of a Ukrainian drone slamming into the hull of an ostensibly civilian tanker is still jarring. Combined with their warning of "war risk", it will be interesting to see if merchant vessels begin to heed Ukraine's declared embargo, as they have with Russia's.
A bit to my surprise, combat is still ongoing in the Zaporizhzhia front even as the worst of the heatwave is hitting. Fighting is, as usual, focused on the Robotyne area, with Ukrainian troops trying to drive a wedge between it and Verbove to break through Russia's second, more formidable, defensive line. Despite their troops not being too far from Russia's fortifications, Ukraine is largely resorting to long range bombardment of the defensive lines to soften them up, meaning it will very well could be weeks weeks before Ukraine will launch armor and infantry to break through the line.
Urozhaine is reportedly coming under increasing strain as Ukraine is trying to push on the village from the north and east, as well as from the southwest from Staromaiorske. Russia has held onto the village of Urozhaine for longer than I expected, but it fits their fairly new modus operandi; see for instance, Klishchiivka, which they held onto for far longer than I feel was logical. I am pretty sure that Russia's strategy is to slow down Ukraine's offensive as much as possible, gambling that a harsh mud season and winter will arrive and political tides will change in Russia's favor. It's a gamble that is coming at a steep cost though, and it very well could backfire if international support for Ukraine doesn't falter, as it would instead give Ukraine time to receive even more military hardware.
Ukraine now claims to be in control of half of Klishchiivka. A lack of footage makes this difficult it verify, but it seems more probable than not to me. Russian troops almost certainly have had no presence in the village for a while now, and it's just taking a bit for Ukraine to comb through the village while also facing off against harsh Russian bombardments of the area. The important part of the battle for Klishchiivka (the high ground ringing the village) was already all but settled, in Ukraine's favor. Officially moving back into Klishchiivka doesn't do much for Ukrainian military operations, so it has also likely been a low priority. The focus is now shifting towards Kurdyumivka, where Ukraine is trying to break through. They have been stuck along the edges of the village for a while now, but managed to capture large amounts of territory between it and Klishchiivka in the meantime.
Russia has declared victory at Novoselivske, an important but tiny and utterly destroyed village along the Kharkiv and Luhansk front where Russia has been trying to advance. However, the most recent footage I have found from the front shows Ukrainian troops still in the area, albeit in badly damaged fortifications being shelled by Russian troops. I almost expect Russian troops to be in control of the village at this point as a result. Its probable loss means that Russia has lifted a lot of pressure from the northern part of the Svatove-Kreminna line. In addition, now that Russia controls part of the higher ground in the area, it means that they can credibly try to crack Ukraine's defenses from another angle.
Ukraine has yet again crossed the Konka river, establishing a third bridgehead on the far side of the river. The latest one puts Ukrainian troops around a mile from Oleshky, which certainly aligns with more public panic from Russian troops in the area. The situation along the Dnipro river delta is quite murky and difficult to map, due to the freedom of navigation that the rivers provide, but I think that this particular spot may be further than Ukraine had pushed even prior to the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. However, they still have ground to make up in other places, such as near the Antonovskiy bridgehead where Ukrainian troops used to control territory further away from the bridge before the Kakhovka dam was destroyed. Ukraine has also reportedly been active in the Kozachi Laheri area, located right in the middle of Oleshky and Nova Kakhovka. While there's been little fighting in the area and no footage of Ukraine trying a crossing here, it is next to Krynky, which Russian milblogger Rybar (and virtually no one else) has repeatedly claimed has witnessed Ukrainian incursion attempts. There is a sizable island directly to the north of Kozachi Laheri; if Ukraine were to capture it and then the city itself, they would actually be in a fairly decent position. On the other side of Kozachi Laheri is the Oleshky Sands national park; it's basically a bunch of giant sand dunes, which means Russian troops would have a very difficult time pushing through it. In effect, Ukraine could hypothetically establish a lodgement at Kozachi Laheri and only need to defend from two directions, instead of three.
There has been quite a bit of drama involving the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, due to begin this month according to Zelenskyy. Apparently, only a handful of Ukrainian pilots know English, and the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, etc. have been severely lacking in training the relevant people how to speak Ukrainian. Given the duration of the war, I find this to be rather astounding. The fact that only a handful of Ukrainian pilots know English fluently I think is a lot more understandable, given that they have been pretty occupied with fighting off Russia. In addition, much of the training is supposed to be hosted in Denmark and Romania, which makes me further question why this reporting (done by Politico) cites English specifically. I'm sure that it is a difficulty, but I feel there's more to the story. I think it's possible that the United States is still trying to slow the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine out of concerns that they are viewed as escalatory, and this is the latest issue being cited to delay their delivery time.