Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 715

Summary for Thursday, 8th February 2024 - DAY 715

BBC Summary:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has replaced the commander-in-chief of the armed forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi
  
• The post will be filled by Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi - a seasoned battle commander who led the defence of Kyiv at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022
  
• The move marks the biggest change to Ukraine's military leadership in two years
  
• President Zelensky said he expected a detailed plan for the armed forces this year, taking into account the real situation in the war with Russia
  
• Zelensky said he had thanked Gen Zaluzhnyi for defending Ukraine for two years and proposed that he remained part of the team
  
• The general acknowledged there were now new challenges and said everyone must adapt to change
  

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The Guardian:

• Republicans in the US Senate have defeated a bipartisan bill to bolster US-Mexico border security and fund Ukraine’s defence that had taken months to negotiate, but senators said they might still separately approve aid for Ukraine and Israel, without tying it to the border crisis.
  
  
• Ukraine has urged the west to speed up and increase deliveries of artillery shells after a Russian missile attack on Kyiv and other regions on Wednesday killed at least four in the capital and wounded more than 40. Officials said one person was also killed in the southern Mykolaiv region.
  
  
• Leaked documents obtained by hackers are reported to reveal that Russia paid Iran $1.75bn in gold bullion weighing about two tonnes for thousands of the Shahed drones used to attack Ukraine. Based on the quantity ordered in the leaked documents, the deal worked out at $193,ooo each for 6,000 drones, with the balance made up by licensing fees for Russia to build its own, cheaper copies. A hacker group calling itself the Prana Network said it took the files from servers of the drones’ Iranian manufacturer, Sahara Thunder, the Telegraph reported.
  
  
• The Ukrainian parliament passed at first reading a bill tightening army mobilisation rules aimed at allowing the government to draft more people as war with Russia nears its third year, lawmakers said. “This is not the final decision. There will be a second reading, and changes will be made before it,” said Oleksiy Honcharenko, one of the lawmakers.
  
  
• A major Chinese international bank has cut off some of its Russian clients, reportedly fearing it could be caught up in sanctions over the Ukraine war, according to the Vedomosti business daily of Moscow. Zhejiang Chouzhou Commercial Bank is one of the main banks for Russian exporters. The paper said other banks had tightened compliance checks, hampering currency transfers in and out of China for Russian businesses. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the government was “working” on addressing the problem with the Chinese government.
  
  
• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Russian-occupied Ukraine is “relatively stable” with a reduction in shelling nearby, the UN’s nuclear energy chief, Rafael Grossi, has said. Grossi, who visited the plant on Wednesday escorted by Russian soldiers, said he inspected water supply wells that had to be drilled after “the episode at the Nova Kakhovka dam”. The dam, which supplied water to stop the nuclear reactors melting down, was blown up on 6 June 2023. The European parliament on 15 June 2023 condemned the dam’s destruction as a Russian war crime.
  
  
• Sources in the German government said it was examining the possibility of nationalising Russian oil company Rosneft’s operations in Germany. Berlin took control of them following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
  
  
• Germany is not big enough to make up the difference should the US fail to deliver weapons to Ukraine, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has said ahead of a trip to Washington. “That is, I believe, the real danger we currently face.”
  
  
• Russia’s statistics agency has claimed the economy grew by 3.6% in 2023 thanks to a boost in military spending because of the offensive in Ukraine, although it admitted there are long-term economic challenges. Inflation rose to 7.4% in 2023, the ruble has fallen, interest rates sit at 16% and worker shortages are driving up the cost of labour, with a continued exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians after the Ukraine invasion depriving key sectors of qualified personnel.
  

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Al Jazeera:

Here is the situation on Thursday, February 8, 2024.

Fighting

• At least five people were killed and 50 injured, after Russia fired a wave of missiles and Shahed-type drones at six regions of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv. The Ukrainian military said it intercepted 44 of the 64 drones and missiles that Russia launched. About 20,000 homes were left without power in Kyiv. Moscow claimed it was targeting Ukrainian weapons factories.
  
  
• A preliminary assessment of the Russian attacks concluded that two of the five missiles that targeted Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine were made in North Korea, said Serhii Bolvinov, head of the National Police’s investigation unit in the region.
  
  
• Russia said its air defence systems intercepted two separate Ukrainian air attacks, destroying 12 rockets and drones over the southwestern region of Belgorod. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said two people were injured.
  
  
• The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said civilian casualties in the war have begun mounting again after falling last year. Last month, it documented 158 civilian deaths and 483 wounded, up 37 percent from last November. So far, the conflict has killed more than 10,000 civilians and wounded nearly 20,000 others, according to the UN.
  
  
• Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, visited the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. He welcomed the reduction in shelling around Zaporizhzhia but said security remained fragile.
  

Politics and diplomacy

• Sweden dropped its investigation into the 2022 explosions that crippled the Nord Stream gas pipelines transporting Russian gas to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. Russia, Ukraine and Western countries have blamed each other for the incident. Sweden said it had passed the evidence it had gathered to Germany.
  
  
• An amended bill to lower the age of the military draft and make service harder to avoid passed its first reading in Ukraine’s parliament. Further revisions are expected and it is not expected to become law for weeks.
  
  
• Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said he hoped China would “give us a hand” in Ukraine peace talks it agreed to host after a request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine has said it invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to participate in the summit of world leaders. A date and venue have yet to be set.
  
  
• Russian courts jailed two Russians in separate cases for treason over their support for Ukraine, according to state-run news agencies.
  
  
• After a brief discussion, the upper house of Russia’s parliament unanimously backed a bill allowing the authorities to confiscate money, valuables and other assets from people convicted of spreading “deliberately false information” about the country’s military.
  
  
• The Ukrainian Olympic Committee asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to investigate the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the Paris Olympics following alleged breaches of neutrality.
  
  
• The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had granted an interview to right-wing US television host Tucker Carlson who used to work for Fox News.
  

Weapons

• Zelenskyy urged Ukraine’s Western allies to speed up and increase their delivery of artillery shells as he offered his condolences to the families of the victims of Wednesday’s Russian attack. Zelenskyy earlier met visiting European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to discuss weapons deliveries and other aid. Borell said the EU needed to provide Ukraine with “whatever it takes” to defeat Russia.
  
  
• US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States “can and will” deliver further military aid to Ukraine, as NATO chief Jen Stoltenberg stressed such support was “vital”. The two men made the comments after a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
  

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Euromaidan Press:

Russo-Ukrainian war, day 715: President Zelenskyy appoints Syrskyi to lead Ukrainian army, replacing Zaluzhnyi

In a significant military leadership reshuffle, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, replacing General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi. Ukraine returns home 100 POWs in latest prisoner exchange with Russia.

Exclusive

Scholz: West must sustain support for Ukraine, keep unity, boost NATO’s credible deterrence. In his WSJ op-ed, Germany’s Chancellor Scholz stresses the global peril of a Russian win in Ukraine, advocating for continued Western aid and a fortified NATO to counteract Russia’s threat to Ukraine’s independence and European security.

Russian war’s cruel whims: some Ukrainian towns rebuild, others remain decimated. Thirty kilometers from the Ukrainian capital, the villages that saved it from the Russian invasion are now either ghost town or success story

Military

Zelenskyy dismisses Ukraine’s army chief Zaluzhnyi, appoints Syrskyi. Following weeks of rumors regarding General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi’s potential dismissal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in his evening address the appointment of Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Commander: Ukrainians down Russia’s Ka-52 attack helicopter near Avdiivka. On 7 February, Ukraine downed another Russian Ka-52 ground attack helicopter near Avdiivka, a Ukrainian commander said. Russia lost 325 helicopters during its all-out war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian General Staff says.
UK intel: Russia steps up assaults on Avdiivka with bombs and troops. Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast, remains a primary focus of Russia’s operations as the Russians escalate Avdiivka bombardment from the air and are expected to leverage air strikes to sustain aggressive operations, per UK intelligence.
One killed, seven injured in Russian night shelling of Donetsk’s Selydove. Russian shelling attacks kill one and injured seven civilians in Selydove, Donetsk Oblast, damaging residential buildings, educational facilities, and cars, per local authorities.

As of 08 Feb 2024, the approximate losses of weapons and military equipment of the Russian Armed Forces from the beginning of the invasion to the present day:

• Personnel: 392380 (+910)
  
• Tanks: 6383 (+11)
  
• APV: 11899 (+20)
  
• Artillery systems: 9411 (+24)
  
• MLRS: 980
  
• Anti-aircraft systems: 666 (+1)
  
• Aircraft: 332
  
• Helicopters: 325 (+1)
  
• UAV: 7191 (+14)
  
• Cruise missiles : 1880 (+31)
  
• Warships/boats: 24
  
• Submarines: 1
  
• Vehicles and fuel tanks: 12513 (+27)
  

Intelligence and technology

Intel: Ukrainian cyberattack cripples Russian drone control system. Russian troops lost manual override for DJI drones after Ukrainian cyberattacks crashed key servers linked to custom friend-or-foe recognition software.
UK intel: Wagner group sets up new Russia-approved base after leadership change. Wagner Group establishes state-approved headquarters to expand volunteer forces supporting Russia’s Ukraine campaign, and global influence goals after a leadership change, per UK intelligence.

International

US tightens sanctions on Russian diamond imports. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on four entities and one vessel for violating the price cap on Russian oil, while also banning certain Russian diamond imports.
US Senate advances $95 bn aid bill for Ukraine, Israel. After overcoming a previous impasse, the US Senate has agreed to consider a targeted aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan amid persistent Republican divisions.
Taiwan expands export controls on machine tools to Russia, Belarus. Taiwan escalates its export controls, banning 77 machine tools to Russia and Belarus, targeting items that represented $45 million, or 1.47% of its total exports to Russia last year.
Ukraine, Denmark begin talks on bilateral security agreements. “Denmark’s security commitments reaffirm the unwavering and powerful support, including military assistance,” Ukraine’s Presidential Office stated.
US Senate Republicans block own demanded border-Ukraine aid deal; Democrats to offer passing stand-alone aid bill. Despite earlier demanding the border security add-ons, US Senate Republicans now obstructed passage of the compromise border-Ukraine aid bill following opposition from Trump, prompting Democrats to call a vote on the standalone assistance package without the extra immigration measures.

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine returns 100 POWs from Russian captivity (photos). Ukraine returns home 100 POWs in latest prisoner exchange with Russia.
Ukraine repels Russia’s Shahed suicide drone attack, as debris injures two police officers. Russia’s nighttime drone attack injured two police officers in Odesa. Ukraine reportedly downed 11 of 17 explosive drones in four regions, where the attack caused minor damage to civilian infrastructure.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine Parliament passes mobilization bill in first reading amid disputes. If the bill is adopted in the second reading, it could come into force in April.
“Shame on you”: Polish PM lashes out at US Republicans amid Ukraine aid impasse. “Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave,” Tusk admonished the Republicans

New developments

Defense Express: Missile debris in Kyiv resembles Russia’s secret Zircon “hypersonic”. Putin showcased Zircon missile in 2019 as Russia’s latest innovation, but experts doubt its stated capabilities.