Russia tried again to breach Ukrainian positions in Lastochkyne, and once again, were repulsed. Ukraine seems to have established decent defenses here, though the position of the village is a bit awkward. Ukraine will likely be forced to abandon it eventually, but in the meantime it is acting as an effective block against Russia. It's a similar story at Stepove, where Russia is trying quite hard to push Ukrainian troops out of the embattled village.
Russia's major assault on Robotyne seems to have died down for the moment, but they did capture important areas by the village. Russian forces were also documented committing a war crime, executing Ukrainian soldiers who had been taken prisoner. Seeing as this happened just days ago at Avdiivka, this is a concerning trend.
Russia launched another assault directly against Vuhledar, which met with disaster, taking doh le digit armored losses once again. However, way further up on the highway that Vuhledar sits on, Russian troops are reported to have captured the village of Pobieda. With Russia working on pushing through Novomykhailivka, Russia is chilling away at establishing a northern route to Vuhledar. Ukraine has held Vuhledar against repeated major assaults and withering bombardments against the compact city, but Russia has never had this northeastern route open before. If it falls, Ukraine may be forced to abandon their stronghold of Vuhledar as they will risk being surrounded. However, this is likely a couple of months away still, and is assuming that Ukraine doesn't launch any offensives of their own in the area. Ukraine has also hit back hard in this region today, launching a HIMARS strike on the village of Trudivske. This resulted in the deaths of dozens of Russian soldiers, who were awaiting a speech by an officer who had yet to show up. This is not the first time something like this has happened to Russian troops, and as with previous incidents, there was significant pushback from the Russian milblogger community for allowing these sorts of gatherings to happen within Ukraine's range.
A small group of Russian soldiers rushed into central Krynky, planted a flag, and beat a hasty retreat. This made it all the way up to Russian Minister of Defence Shoigu, who directly informed Putin that Russia had retaken the village. This news was met with widespread bewilderment from just about all observers. Several Russian milbloggers quoted soldiers on the ground, asserting the village is still contested, and Ukraine put out a statement saying as much as well as publishing footage confirming that the village is still being fought over. It's not clear what prompted such an obviously false and public statement from Shoigu to Putin, but it at least raises questions for me. If this is what Putin is being told in public about the state of the war, what is he being told in private?
Polish farmers have gotten a lot of self inflicted negative press today. They stopped a train carrying Ukrainian grain, and dumped two of the cars. The train wasn't bound for Poland; it's final destination was Germany. Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine's rail company, lodged an official complaint with the Polish authorities over the incident. They stressed that they adhere to the embargo on the sale of agricultural products to Poland, and that their containers are examined and sealed by Polish authorities at the border to guarantee that the products are not sold in Polish markets. The other major incident was a farmer protest, where a sign called for Putin to restore order in Ukraine, Poland, and "Brussels" (frequently used as shorthand to refer to the entire EU). Polish authorities are investigating the matter; the sign may fly afoul of Poland's speech laws, which bar explicit endorsements of totalitarianism.
Yulia Navalnaya created a Twitter account, and was promptly suspended today, further igniting support for her cause. Her account was quickly reinstated. Navalnaya is now publicly calling for the west to not recognize Russia's upcoming election results, setting the groundwork for a possible attempt at creating a government in exile. The United States and other countries are threatening additional major sanctions against Russia for the killing of Navalny. It has been reported that these sanctions from the United States will be announced on Friday. There has been some further reporting that likely explains the timing of Navalny's death. The RDK, one of the two major groups comprised of Russian citizens fighting for Ukraine, evidently has an extensive intelligence network operating deep into Russia. They had had plans to break Navalny out of prison; their intelligence was good enough that they even had access to at least some of the cameras in the prison where he was staying. It is worth emphasizing that the other similar organization, the LSR, is the one which is known to have received training in the United States. There is no known connection between the RDK and the United States, or any other external power for that matter beyond that the RDK uses equipment given to Ukraine, as they are part of the Ukrainian military.
Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, whose claims were used to establish an alleged corruption scheme involving President Biden's son and Ukraine, recently admitted that his claims were fabricated. Today, he released the bombshell that Russian intelligence agents directly handed him the necessary information to make these false claims. Smirnov was, to my extreme astonishment, released from custody as he was not deemed to be a flight risk. Given recent events, I would think that his life is likely in jeopardy as well. In other news pertaining to American and Russian relations, Russia has detained someone who is a citizen of both countries for fundraising $51 for Ukraine. Russia still holds other American citizens in custody, including journalists.