Ukraine Claims to Secure Foothold in South

Facts

• Ukrainian's Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, claimed on Tuesday that 'Ukraine's Defense Forces have gained a foothold on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro' and are closer to 'demilitarizing Crimea.'¹
• This comes after Zelenskyy said Kyiv is building additional defense measures, including enhanced intelligence and air defense, in Kherson as Russia ramps up its attacks on the Ukrainian cities Avdiivka and Kupyansk as well as the Donetsk region.²
• Meanwhile, the governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region claimed that Moscow hit the Nikopol region 11 times with kamikaze drones and artillery, reportedly killing a 26-year-old man and damaging a nine-story building and a power line.³
• However, over the past day, Ukraine's Air Force has reportedly launched eight strikes on Russian 'manpower, weapons, and military equipment clusters' as well as struck their anti-aircraft missile system.⁴
• In other news, Germany delivered 10 LEOPARD 1 A5 tanks, 14 tracked all-terrain Bandvagn 206 vehicles, one mine clearing tank, and five All Terrain Tracked Vehicles Warthog Ambulances to Ukraine as part of Berlin's latest military aid package to Kyiv.⁵
• Meanwhile, Slovakia has announced that it will end military assistance to Ukraine, claiming it needed to preserve its own defense capability. However, Bratislava will still provide humanitarian, civilian, and technical non-lethal assistance to Kyiv.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²CNBC, ³The Guardian, ⁴Ukrinform, ⁵MENAFN and ⁶RBC.

Narratives

• Pro-Ukraine narrative, as provided by Washington Post. While Western war fatigue is on the rise and Ukraine may not come out of this stalemate victorious, Kyiv and its allies can still work to weaken Russia's oil revenue to put Ukraine in the best position possible should negotiations be the outcome. Ukraine can still become a significant economic partner with the West, so Ukraine's allies must not allow Putin to be in charge of if or how this war is prolonged.
• Pro-Russia narrative, as provided by RT International. As the US grows closer to halting its military support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's dominance, Europe is now the last partner Kyiv has to lean on before peace negotiations take place. However, the EU's talk about continuing to support Kyiv and even bringing it into the bloc is just lip service, as Ukraine has improved neither its economic nor political standing, the two main factors during accession talks. Kyiv is about to be left high and dry as its temporary friends stop funding their proxy war and tag it along this dead-end road.

Predictions