Daily Flyer - July 7, 2023
A voice of Ukraine to the West
Russian forces attack Ukraine with drones overnight
Russian troops launched 18 Shahed-136/131 drones at Ukraine overnight on July 7, the Air Force reported. The Ukrainian military shot down 12 drones in the country's east and south.
Six of them were destroyed over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, according to Serhii Lysak, the regional governor. Drone debris fell on a highway, killing two men in a moving car, Lysak said on Telegram.
Another drone hit an enterprise in the Kryvyi Rih district, causing a fire over an area 100 square meters in size, the governor added. There were no casualties.
According to the Air Force, Russian forces launched the drones from Primorsko-Akhtarsk, a Russian town on the Black Sea coast in Krasnodar Krai.
Russia has used Shahed-type kamikaze drones, produced and supplied by Iran, to attack Ukraine since last fall, killing dozens of civilians and heavily damaging the country's energy system.
Death toll of Lviv missile strike rises to 10
As of around 7 a.m. local time on July 7, 10 people are known to have been killed and 42 injured as a result of Russia’s July 6 missile strike on Lviv, according to the city's mayor.
Another woman’s body was found under the rubble of an apartment building hit by a Russian Kalibr missile early in the morning of July 6, Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi reported on Telegram.
"The tenth body has just been found. Woman. The first responders are now taking the body out of the rubble," Sadovyi wrote on Telegram.
According to the mayor, after the discovery of the woman's body, rescue operations at the apartment building are now finished.
Following the attack, the State Emergency Service evacuated 64 people from the apartment building that was hit, where 60 residences were heavily damaged. Another 35 buildings and 50 cars were also damaged by the missile strike.
Lviv Oblast, located in western Ukraine and sharing a border with Poland, is far from the front lines. While not a common target of Russian attacks, there have been sporadic Russian strikes on essential infrastructure in Lviv since the onset of the full-scale war.
Russia to move cruise missile-carrying ships to Azov Sea
Russia will move eight warships, including three Karakurt class corvettes capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles, to the Azov Sea, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on July 7.
The ministry wrote in its latest intelligence update that the warships would be commanded by Russia’s newly created Azov Naval District headquartered in Mariupol's occupied Ukrainian port city.
Russia reportedly established the district, subordinate to the Black Sea Fleet, on July 1.
According to the ministry, it will likely focus on logistical and counter-partisan missions, enabling the Black Sea Fleet to concentrate on long-range strike operations and extend its naval power abroad.
“The Azov Sea is a vital maritime area for Russia because it links its inland waterways to international maritime routes,” reads the report. “In the context of the war, it also offers an alternative military resupply option should Russia’s over-land routes to southern Ukraine be disrupted.”
In its previous intelligence update, the U.K. Defense Ministry wrote that Russia had redeployed its military units from strategic Russian regions to counter Ukraine’s large-scale counter-offensive.