Ukraine is expanding their control over Krynky, particularly in the top of the western part of the town. It's important to recall that the town is oddly shaped, as it extremely thin and runs southwest to northeast along the side of the river. It is the part closest to the river in the southwestern part of the town that Ukrainian troops are consolidating control over. In other words, Ukraine is widening, but not deepening their control over Krynky. With the town being literally being no wider than two parallel roads at points, it's possible that Russian troops are still active in the southern part of Krynky, but not particularly likely; instead, they are likely focusing on artillery and drone strikes at the moment. Otherwise, combat would be extremely close quarters, and the footage from Krynky does not show that.
Russia's Avdiivka offensive is running into issues, to say the least. A Ukrainian forces pentrated several hundred meters behind the front line north of Krasnohorivka, which has been the primary staging point for Russia's offensive into the area north of Avdiivka. Russia's front line here bulges out, and Ukraine's advance as a result threatens to cut off a significant number of Russian troops if they can hold the ground and continue to advance. I find this unlikely and suspect that Russia will repel the push as Russia's troops density in the area is quite high, but it is an effective distraction. It also is demonstrates that Russia will need to commit more forces to their flanks, which directly reduces the amount of firepower they will have available for their main push, right as they are trying to crack heavily fortified Ukrainian positions in an industrial center.
Russia has been accused of dropping mines along the blpath used intermittently by civilian cargo ships in the Black Sea traveling to and from Ukraine. With Russia's Black Sea Fleet forces away from the coast under Ukrainian control, this seems to be Russia's new back up plan to try to enforce some sort of naval blockade on Ukraine. Russia has been accused of doing this a couple of times recently, but Ukraine said that Russia did this three times today, a notable uptick. If Ukraine had additional airpower, they could ward off the Russian planes dropping the mines. However, Ukraine does not have any F-16s yet.
Russia has also moved a large amount of air defense assets to Rostov oblast, and satellite imagery shows that they have moved a large number of helicopters to Taganrog airbase, also in Rostov oblast. Both are likely responses to the ATACMS strike on the airfields in Berdyansk and Luhansk, which devasted Russia's helicopter fleet. Moving them further back will provide Ukraine with the opportunity to discover Russian helicopter missions earlier, and also restricts their effective range.
The Wagner Group's ban on recruiting seems to be over, as recruitment within Russia has resumed. Notably, Wagner also has a new head, according to a recruiter for the group; Pavel Prigozhin. Pavel is the son of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former commander of Wagner who led the mutiny agsindt the Kremlin.
The steady drip of investigations being opened into corruption in Ukraine continues. Officials in Uzhorod, a city in far western Ukraine, have been detained. They face accusations of forging documents to grant unauthorized vacations and business trips abroad, activities which are prohibited (barring exemptions) under Ukraine's martial law. Even after Zelenskyy fired all of the heads of enlistment offices earlier this year, corruption regarding enlistment is still rampant. A new investigation has uncovered a draft dodging scheme which per the Kyiv Independent is "unprecedented". Bribery if enlistment office officials is evidently pretty common, still.
Related to this sort of investigation, Ukraine has also imposed new measures on agricultural exports. Companies which export Ukrainian agricultural products now face mandatory registration with the federal government, in order to close loopholes and outright tax avoidance.
Italy's Meloni has been embarrassed after falling victim to Russian pranksters, who posed as leaders of African countries on a phone call. During the call, Meloni expressed that many European leaders are "tired" of the war in Ukraine. Meloni has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, but broadly, both political and material support for Ukraine has been trending downward. Her statement on the prank call, while damaging, is also wholly unsurprising. It just merely said what European politicians have obviously been privately thinking for quite some time. However, it certainly adds further to the recent dour mood both Ukrainian and western media has been in relating to Ukraine's progress in the war.
Speaking of, Ukraine's Commander in Chief Zaluzhnyi gave an interview to the Economist. He said that the war is entering a new phase, a positional and attritional one. Personally, I think this acknowledgement is much delayed as neither side has scored a major strategic victory since last year. Regardless, Zaluzhnyi acknowledged that this type of warfare favors Russia, which has a much larger industrial base than Ukraine does. Zaluzhnyi requested several different types of aid necessary to overcome these obstacles. Predictably included were more artillery shells and more warplanes, but so was electronic warfare capabilities; Zaluzhnyi said that Ukraine had once reached parity with Russia in this regard, but had since lost the advantage. Zaluzhnyi also said that Ukraine needs to expand their pool of those eligible to be called up for service, one of the most public acknowledgements coming from Ukraine that they have manpower shortages. He also said the military is planning on instituting a "combat internship" which would see green recruits be inserted into experienced units at the front. This is a long overdue change in my opinion; a lot of the "elite" formations that spearheaded the offensive in Zaporizhzhia were trained by the west and given the best equipment available, but hadn't actually experienced combat. As a result, they were more prone to making rookie errors, which was costly as the west has only supplied Ukraine with so much advanced equipment. By blending experienced and inexperienced forces together, those who are experienced can help guide rookies without risking them making a large number of tactical errors. This is the kind of institutional flexibility that Ukraine had a notable advantage with at the start of the war, but regressed on as time passed.
North Korea has reportedly shipped approximately a million shells to Russia, an amount larger than previous estimates. The million or so shells will allow Russia to sustain their current artillery rate for around an additional two months, conditional on the state of the barrels of Russian artillery and Ukraine's ability to outright destroy and their prioritization with targeting Russian artillery pieces.