Latest in Ukraine: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Grinds On

Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster bombs and the right to use them if cluster munitions are used against its forces in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russian TV Sunday. Ukraine has pledged to only deploy the munitions it received from the United States to repel enemy soldiers from Ukrainian territory. Cluster munitions are banned in more than 100 countries.  
The Russian state has assumed control of the Russian subsidiaries of French yogurt maker Danone’s DANO.PA and Danish beer company Carlsberg’s CARLb.CO as a retaliatory move after Western countries froze assets of Russian companies abroad.
Since July 2022, the United Kingdom has trained 18,000 Ukrainian volunteer infantrymen under the Operation Interflex training program, the defense ministry said Saturday. Ukrainian soldiers have been trained to “survive and be lethal in their fight against the illegal invasion of their homeland,” it said.
President Putin could be arrested if he attends next month’s summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies in South Africa. A warrant issued against him in March by the International Criminal Court accuses him of the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. It is not clear if Putin will attend the talks. South Africa is a signatory to the ICC and would be obliged to arrest him if he enters the country.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine “somewhat intensified” as Ukrainian and Russian forces clashed in at least three areas on the eastern front, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on the messaging app Telegram on Sunday.

Ukrainian forces claim they are making steady progress along the northern and southern flanks of the war-ravaged city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces have been occupied since May.

Battles are also raging along the southern front in Zaporizhzhia, where Ukrainian forces are making minimal gains against formidable Russian fortifications.

Maliar recently claimed that Kyiv’s forces had destroyed six Russian ammunition depots in the space of 24 hours, a remark that hinted at Ukrainian tactics.

“We inflict effective, painful and precise blows and bleed the occupier, for whom the lack of ammunition and fuel will sooner or later become fatal,” she said.

British Admiral Tony Radakin, chief of the U.K.’s defense staff, said that Ukraine’s first goal is to starve Russian units of supplies and reinforcements by attacking logistic and command centers in the rear and then storm through when the front lines collapse.

“I would describe it as a policy of starve, stretch and strike,’’ Radakin told a British parliamentary committee.

Radakin said that Ukraine lacks vital air cover for its attacks. Kyiv has won pledges from its Western allies of F-16 fighter jets, but they aren’t expected to be seen over the battlefield until next year. Ukraine is also asking for long-range weapons and more ammunition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday in an interview with state television that Ukraine’s operation was “not succeeding” and that attempts to break through Russian defenses had failed.

In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” TV program, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine’s counteroffensive was never expected to be quick and easy. “We said before this counteroffensive started that it would be hard going, and it’s been hard going. That’s the nature of war. But the Ukrainians are continuing to move forward,” he said.

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Black Sea grain initiative

The last ship to travel under a U.N.-brokered grain deal that allows the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain left the port of Odesa early Sunday ahead of the initiative’s expiration deadline Monday. 

Putin is remaining silent about a possible extension of the deal.

In a phone call Saturday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Putin discussed “the need for a permanent and sustainable solution to the movement of grain from Russia and Ukraine to the international markets,” according to the South African president’s office. No further details were provided.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked Putin to extend the deal in return for connecting a subsidiary of Russia’s agricultural bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT international payment system, but he has not received a reply, according to a U.N. spokesperson Friday.

“Discussions are being had, WhatsApp messages are being sent, Signal messages are being sent and exchanged. We’re also waiting for a response to the letter,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters when asked about the negotiations.

Russia has said it would agree to extend the grain deal only if its conditions are met regarding implementation.

Wagner Group

Russia’s security apparatus experienced “a period of confusion and negotiations,” following the Wagner Group’s mutiny last month, the British defense ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence update about Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, however, an interim arrangement for the mercenary group’s future is shaping up, according to the report posted on Twitter.

Meanwhile, some social media groups associated with Wagner restarted their postings, focusing on Wagner’s activities in Africa. The ministry said recent announcements from Russian officials indicate that Russia is “likely prepared” to accept “Wagner’s aspirations to maintain its extensive presence on the continent.”

Both Ukraine and Poland Saturday confirmed the arrival of Wagner forces in Belarus, one day after Minsk said the mercenaries were training its troops.

“There may be several hundred of them at the moment,” Stanislaw Zaryn, Poland’s deputy minister coordinator of special services, said on Twitter.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, has not been spotted in Belarus or been seen in public since June 24.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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