Welcome to the 10^th edition of our regular weekly newsletter, where you will find an overview of pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine. Our newsletters offer a unique insight into two different worlds – the world of Russian state media and how they interpret the ongoing “special military operation” in Ukraine and the world of facts as reported by independent media.

If you like our newsletter, Media Insights – War on Ukraine, and wish to be regularly updated, please subscribe here. You can find all the previous issues on our website. Many experts opined that this summer would be crucial for the way how the war further develops. Russia has been making some gains in Donbas, but experts question its ability to supply its army with sufficient manpower. On the other side, Ukraine has been deploying foreign weapon systems and artillery, but will it be enough to push the Russian army of the occupied territories? These and other issues have been reported in the media over the summer. The current edition offers these narratives, topics, and events:
 

Main Events and Updates 

From 11 to 17 July, the monitored Russian media reported on:

• Ukraine is a “black hole” for U.S. weapons; the U.S. provided Ukraine with intelligence for shelling Donbass by HIMARS and ordered to use them against civilians (at Nova Kakhovka);
• The conflict is a world war; the West is fighting Russia with the hands of Ukrainians;
• The backlash of anti-Russian sanctions on Europe; Europe has shot itself in the lungs;
• Ukrainian refugees receive comprehensive assistance and a warm welcome in Russia;
• Crimes of Ukrainian army – ongoing very widespread narrative.

During the same period, international media coverage of the war focused on:

• Ukraine successfully struck the Russian military depots in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region, with US-supplied HIMARS;
• E.U. adopts one billion EUR aid for Ukraine and freezes the assets of Russian oligarchs;
• Turkey announces deal with Ukraine, Russia, and U.N. aimed at resuming grain exports;
• A deadly cruise missile strike on Vinnytsia killed at least 23 civilians and wounded; dozens in an “act of terrorism,” according to Ukrainian President Zelensky.
  
  

Photos of the Week        

Military delegations from Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine, along with U.N. officials, attend a meeting to discuss the shipment of Ukrainian grain stuck due to the blockade of Black Sea ports, Turkey, 13 July.
(Photo: Arif Akdogan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

 
New billboards in Moscow – For Russia, For the children of Donbas (13 July, NTV)

Quotes of the Week   

“This war may last longer than we all hoped or expected. But that does not mean we can sit back and passively watch how it unfolds. We have to stay focused and continue to support Ukraine every day politically, by frequently and openly stating our support, by keeping the pressure on Putin’s Russia, and by strengthening political cooperation with Ukraine bilaterally and multilaterally,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte during his visit to Kyiv. (11 July, CNN)

“The whole West is fighting with Russia through Ukrainians, this is a world conflict.” He goes on: “Almost all the continents are involved, including Australia and Oceania. The Western world, together with the USA, helps the Ukrainian side. I know what is waiting for us. As soon as Putin accomplishes what he planned in Seversk, Bakhmut, and Soledar, and then Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Avdeevka, he will offer peace negotiations, and if the West doesn’t accept it, we will all face hell,“ said Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. (14 July, Russia 1/Smotrim)
 

Media Insights

What were the main narratives on Russian state media? 

Televised political talk-shows (some key remarks)

11 July, Russia 1/Smotrim – Evening with Vladimir Solovyov 

• Anchor Solovyev:
  • “Zelensky could have withdrawn the armed forces from DNR/LNR before 24 February, and nothing would have happened. Zelensky is guilty.”
  • “Zaporizhizhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv will also disappear. It’s a liberation war for DNR and LNR.”
  • “Everything is ours, everything is the Russian empire. The largest prosperity of Ukraine was under the Russian empire. Zelensky doesn’t care about Ukrainian people, and his team of cocaine users is not interested either.”
    
    
• Spiridon Kilinkarov, a former Ukrainian politician, and deputy of the Ukrainian parliament (Communist Party), with pro-Russian views. Lives in Moscow since 2014.
  • “Zelensky has total control over Ukrainian television now. There is no single discussion place there now, and who did this? A democrat Zelensky.”
    
    
• Vasyl Vakarov (Ukrainian political scientist and social activist with pro-Russian views, left for Moscow in 2016, is a “Ukrainian expert” on various political shows):
  • “The law signed by Putin [about the simplified procedure of getting Russian citizenship] is the landmark event that will unite all of us.”
    
    

 14 July, Russia 1/Smotrim – Evening with Vladimir Solovyov

• Vitaliy Tretiakov (Dean of the Higher School of Television at the Moscow State University):
  • “Yes, this is a war of the West against Russia, but this is more, this is a global revolution. Russia has decided to break the current world order. The world countries are tired of being ruled by the USA and Europe, and someone had to speak the first word – Russia did that. We are the avant-garde of the world revolution. Democracy should be a global democracy, and Russia should introduce that.”
    
    
• Andrey Gurulev (State Duma deputy, Lieutenant general in reserve):
  • “Contrary to all those Western leaders, Putin has such support that they can’t even dream about. Democracy is when all the people follow their leader on one democratic path. I think escalation on all the continents will only grow. Today the system of the one polar world, of one world policeman, doesn’t suit anyone”.
  • “We are winning in a special military operation because we have dominance in aviation, artillery, missiles, and infantry. Everything is good, and the offensive is continuing.”
    
    
• Vladimir Oleinik (Former mayor of Cherkassy, Ukrainian deputy for a Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko and Party of Regions. Since 2014, working and living in Moscow):
  • “The crime of both Zelensky and Poroshenko is that they allowed using Ukraine’s territory and Ukrainians in the interests of USA and NATO. It’s a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, and Zelensky is guilty of that. Zelensky is the same terrorist as Azov militants who were keeping civilians as hostages. He is keeping Ukraine in this nightmare.”
    
    

15 July, Russia 1/Smotrim – 60 minutes

• Anchor Skabeeva:
  • “They are afraid of a nuclear war, let them be afraid.”
  • “This is not just a military operation, and this is a great patriotic war, the third world war with the West. Either the West will win, or we will win, this is the war for survival. Ukrainians are a victim, a side effect of this war. Americans are enjoying Slavic people killing Slavic.”
    
    
• Apty Allaudinov (Commander of the Tschechen special military unit “Akhmat,” Assistant to the Head of Tschechen Republic Kadyrov on defense issues):
  • “This war is a holy war, and I was raised for it. Putin has refused to accept European values, which are Satanist values, and we are not under LGBT flags. I am thankful to God for Putin and Kadyrov. What we are seeing now is that the Akhmat military unit is the army of Jesus Christ. All the forces of Russia are the troops of Jesus. NATO is the army of the anti-Christ. Reznikov (defense minister), who is a henchman of the devil, сan tell many fairytales, but they have already lost. Russia will stand, and the USA and Europe will fall and come to us to ask for forgiveness.”
    
    

Top officials’ statements

The Russian special operation is not directed against Ukrainians - Peskov
Russia's special military operation is aimed not against Ukrainians but against the Kyiv regime, press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said. Peskov made this statement while commenting on Vladimir Putin's decree on the simplified acquisition of Russian citizenship for all residents of Ukraine, DNR (Donetsk People’s Republic), and LNR (Luhansk People’s Republic). (12 July, NTV)

Crossing over to the side of the enemy during war equated to treason in Russia
Putin signed a law equating switching to the enemy's side during war as treason. (14 July, RIA Novosti)

The West is fueling the conflict in Ukraine

NATO and the E.U. are thinking about creating a system for tracking supplied weapons
A hot topic in the foreign press is Ukraine is a "black hole" for Western weapons. In order to somehow control the supply of weapons to Ukraine, it was proposed to create a special supervisory body, according to the 1^st Channel report. Billions of dollars and euros are spent, belts are tightened, and what is the result? The same Javelins, “Enlow,” drones, and rifles arrive at the border with Poland, only to soon find themselves in trucks, going to an unknown destination. Military experts admit an inconvenient truth: there is no guarantee that all this arsenal is even deposited on Ukrainian territory. And there is nothing to be surprised about: the traditions of corruption and smuggling are very strong in Ukraine. (13 July, 1st Channel)

The U.S. provided Ukraine with intelligence for shelling Donbass from HIMARS and ordered to use them against civilians - Zakharova
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said at the briefing that Ukraine's armed formations had used HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, received from the U.S., everywhere and had done so with the direct assistance of the American side, which not only provided the necessary intelligence information but also secretly seconded instructors. She added that Ukrainian troops received orders from Kyiv to use them against civilians. (14 July, NTV)

News from the frontline

The strike in Vinnitsa has hit the nationalists' housing site - Simonyan
The strike in Vinnitsa targeted the Officers’ House, where a temporary accommodation facility for nationalists was located, Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia Segodnya media group and RT, said on her Telegram channel: "I asked the Defense Ministry where they hit in Vinnitsa. The answer was – “the House of Officers where there was a temporary Nazi station,'" she wrote. (14 July, RIA Novosti)

Minister of Defense instructed to increase the efforts of groups involved in the special military operation
The head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu, made an inspection visit to the groups of troops "South" and "North" taking part in a special military operation in Ukraine. He gave instructions to further increase the actions of the groupings in all operational directions.  These actions will be taken in order to deprive the Ukrainian military of the ability to carry out mass rocket and artillery attacks on civilian infrastructure and civilians in Donbass and other regions. (16 July, Russia 24)

Russia integrating the “liberated” territories into Russia

Berdiansk and other liberated territories restore monuments and Russian cultural heritage that was “banned” by Ukraine
The traditional narrative in Russian media is how good life is in the “liberated” territories, as seen in this report by the 1^st Channel. The residents of the “liberated” Berdiansk are shown receiving Russian passports and speaking about new life and a new chance. A woman called Elena Smirnova says: “I am happy, I am returning to my homeland.” The report says that Berdiansk residents were presented with the “history deprived of everything Russian.” A woman who was said to be the head of the youth theatre complains that the notion of the “Great Patriotic War” was replaced with “Second World War” and that the St. George ribbon was allegedly prohibited in Ukraine and Ukrainians could have been beaten or arrested for carrying it. Further, Berdiansk, as well as other Azov Sea resorts, are supposedly already welcoming tourists. (14 July, 1^st Channel)

A referendum on the inclusion of Zaporizhzhia region as a federal subject of Russia will be held in early fall - Balitsky
According to Balitsky, the head of the civil-military administration of Zaporizhzhia region, a referendum on the inclusion of the region into Russia will be held in early fall, most probably in the first decade of September. He claimed in an interview with Russia 24 that an overwhelming majority of local residents support the inclusion into Russia. According to him, Ukraine “has turned into ISIS with the shelling and intimidation of civilians,” and the Zaporizhzhia region will follow Crimea in future proceedings. (14 July, Russia 24) 

Alleged crimes of Ukrainian army and Kyiv regime

In Sloviansk, nationalists plan to blow up a lyceum and blame it on Russia
According to Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Management Center of the Russian Federation, Ukrainian nationalists are preparing another cynical provocation involving the deaths of civilians to accuse the Russian armed forces of carrying out indiscriminate strikes against civilian objects. Residents of nearby residential areas are being held in the building of the Vocational Agrarian Lyceum in Sloviansk under the pretext of allegedly ensuring security. At the same time, the building is mined, and the militants plan to blow it up when the Russian troops launch artillery strikes on military facilities in the city. (12 July, NTV)

The scale of destruction is horrific: the center of Nova Kakhovka was scorched after a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces
According to the administration of Nova Kakhovka, Ukrainian forces have stricken saltpeter warehouses. The powerful explosion destroyed and damaged hundreds of buildings, leaving some people dead and bringing the number of wounded to 90 people. Forty tons of humanitarian aid and warehouses with household chemicals, seeds, and fertilizers have been allegedly destroyed. The report claims that the Ukrainian army is attacking civilian objects here in an attempt to provoke a humanitarian crisis and sow panic. President Zelensky personally gave the order to attack the peaceful sleeping city, considering that a few days ago, Kyiv announced a blitzkrieg in the southern direction. (12 July, NTV)

Zaporizhzhia authorities: Ukraine conducted banned experiments at the local nuclear power plant
A member of the main council of the Zaporizhzhia regional administration, Volodymyr Rogov, said that prohibited experiments were conducted at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant while it was under the control of the Ukrainian authorities. "The Poroshenko-Zelensky regime sanctioned forbidden experiments at the nuclear power plant. Starting with a large number of nuclear materials, which are not necessary for the operation of the plant and could not have appeared as a result of the operation of its reactors and ending with a host of other interesting things,” he said. (13 July, RIA Novosti) 

A backlash of anti-Russian sanctions on Europe

European countries are looking for a way out of the crisis caused by anti-Russian sanctions
The dependence of Europe on Russian resources is so high that no more sanctions will be discussed, according to the report of 1^st Channel. The Romanian deputy prime minister warned that this winter could be the worst for all of Europe in 60 years. Meanwhile, Russia has drastically increased the import of its oil products to the Middle East. (13 July, 1^st Channel)

Europe shot itself in the lungs with sanctions and now suffocates - Orban
Hungarian Prime Minister Orban said that Europe has shot itself in the lungs with sanctions and is suffocating now, and the sanctions did not justify themselves.  “I have to say, at first, I thought we just shot ourselves in the foot, but now it seems like the European economy shot itself in the lungs, and that's why it's choking everywhere now,” emphasized Orban. (15 July, RIA Novosti)
 

Ukrainian refugees in Russia

Ukrainian refugees in Russia receive comprehensive assistance
The report shows the warm welcome and comprehensive assistance that Ukrainian refugees allegedly receive in Russia. Olga Matafonova from Mariupol has already found a job at the Kostroma agricultural academy and has already received housing. A center helping refugees with food, house utilities, and clothes has been opened in Ivanovo, and the report shows the volunteers working there. The report also informs about another humanitarian center in Severodonetsk, liberated from nationalists, and there are already 26 centers in Donbas. (13 July, 1^st Channel)

Foreign mercenaries in Ukraine

Almost 400 foreign mercenaries were annihilated in Ukraine in three weeks
According to Konashenkov, an official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, in the last three weeks, almost 400 foreign mercenaries were annihilated in Ukraine, among them 166 from Poland, 50 from Georgia, 23 from the United Kingdom, and others. He emphasized that the detection of foreign mercenaries is carried out even before their arrival in Ukraine. (12 July, NTV)

What did independent media say about the main topics?

Grain deal in Turkey

Turkey announces deal aimed at resuming grain exports
Turkey has announced a long-awaited deal with Ukraine, Russia, and the U.N. aimed at resuming Ukrainian grain exports blocked by Russia, raising prospects for an end to a standoff that has exposed millions to the risk of starvation. Turkey would also set up a coordination center with Ukraine, Russia, and the U.N. for grain exports. Turkey’s defense minister, Hulusi Akar, said on Wednesday that the deal would be signed when the parties meet again next week and would include joint controls for checking grains in ports and Turkey ensuring the safety of Black Sea export routes for Ukrainian grain. The talks in Istanbul between Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish, and U.N. officials took place behind closed doors at an undisclosed location. (14 July, Guardian)

Russian attacks on civilians

Zelensky calls Vinnytsia cruise missile strike “an act of terrorism”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned the air strikes on Twitter:  “While Accountability Conference in The Hague is underway, Russia commits another war crime. At least one child killed, among other victims of a missile strike on Vinnytsia." (14 July, CNN)

A Russian missile attack has killed at least 23 people, including three children, and wounded dozens in the city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine. A further 64 people, including four children, have been hospitalized — 34 of whom are in a serious condition and five in critical condition, said Ukraine's State Emergency Service, adding that the search continues for 42 people who are unaccounted for. (15 July, CNN)

A four-year-old victim of Vinnytsia strike has become a symbol of a conflict where death often comes without warning and from above
A series of videos and still images posted on social media appear to track the last hours of Liza Dmitrieva, who turned four in March in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was killed by the Russian missile strike in Vinnytsia. Liza, who had Down syndrome, was one of three children killed in the attack in a busy street in a city that had escaped relatively untouched by the invasion. (15 July, Guardian)

Liza Dmitrieva’s pram lies by the road in Vinnytsia after the attack. She was a four-year-old girl killed in a deadly missile strike on Vinnytsya. (Photo: Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Ukraine says nearly 350 children have been killed since Russia's invasion began
A total of 349 children have been reported killed and more than 1,000 injured in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began in February, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said Thursday. The Donetsk region has seen the highest rates of children affected, followed by Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. (14 July, CNN)

Ukraine says nearly 70% of Russian missile strikes civilian target objects
Ukraine’s defense ministry has said up to 70% of Russian missile attacks are deliberately inflicted on “peaceful” Ukrainian cities after recent strikes, including this week’s targeting of the crowded city center of Vinnytsia. Oleksandr Motuzianyk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s ministry of defense, said in remarks quoted by Ukrinform: “Yesterday’s insidious criminal missile attack on the center of a peaceful city in Ukraine is yet another fact of Russia’s absolutely proven genocide against Ukraine. This is the extermination of Ukrainians as a nation, and this is an attempt to break the spirit of Ukrainians and lower the level of their resistance.” (15 July, Guardian)

News from the battlefield

Ukraine boasts 'tremendous successes in striking Russia's military stockpiles'
Kyiv says it has destroyed an arms depot as part of a barrage of rockets and missiles on Russian military targets in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian military officials say the strikes destroyed artillery, armored vehicles, and a warehouse with ammunition. The analyst Peter Zalmayev claims that US HIMARS has been extremely effective. According to him, at the end of July, Ukraine will be able to conduct an effective counteroffensive due to the weapons that are expected to arrive within the framework of the land lease. (13 July, France 24)

Russia is likely to take several small Donbas towns in the coming week - the British Defense Ministry
Russian forces are likely to focus on taking several small Donbas towns during the coming week, including Siversk and Dolyna, on the approaches to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense. The urban areas of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk likely remain the principal objectives for this phase of the operation, the British intelligence report said. Russia also continues to seek to undermine the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state and consolidate its own governance and administrative control over occupied parts of Ukraine.  (13 July, Guardian)

More than 40 settlements in Kherson region back in Ukrainian control, official says
Dmytro Butriy, the acting head of the Kherson region military administration, said that 44 settlements in the largely occupied area had been liberated. Butriy said that the settlements were still suffering as they were under constant Russian bombardment." We urge people to evacuate to protect themselves and their families. Russian occupiers are not human." (14 July, CNN)

Russian war crimes

The U.S. accuses Russia of war crimes, alleging hundreds of thousands of forced Ukrainian deportations
Russian authorities have “interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported” between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes into Russian territory, often to isolated regions in the far east, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Wednesday. Mr. Blinken described the transfers as “a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians” and “a war crime.” Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said during a speech in Vienna in May that many witnesses had given detailed accounts of Russia’s “brutal interrogations” in filtration camps that at least several thousand Ukrainians had been forced into, and deportations on the order of at least tens of thousands. (13 July, NYT)

'They started hunting me': Ukraine politicians face torture in Russian detention
According to the U.N., hundreds of Ukrainians, including civilians and local politicians, are being subjected to forced detentions by Russian forces in occupied regions. Officials said they had verified some 271 cases of forced detentions, with many of those seized facing torture. A spokesperson for the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) told the BBC that at least 65 local politicians had been detained by Russian forces since the invasion. (15 July, BBC)

Russia has used more than three thousand cruise missiles against Ukraine - Zelensky
In his latest national address, Volodymyr Zelensky said: “As of 7 pm today, Russia has already used more than three thousand cruise missiles against Ukraine. It is impossible to count the number of artillery and other projectiles that were used against our country and our people. But it is definitely possible to bring all Russian war criminals to justice.” (17 July, Guardian)

Top officials’ statements in Ukraine

Ukraine rules out ceding territories and will seek 'full liberation'
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the military is "planning and preparing for full liberation" of Russian-occupied cities near the country's Black Sea coast. He also added: "I’m pretty confident that once these territories are liberated, the vast majority of people will burn their Russian passports quietly in their fireplaces.” (13 July, Deutsche Welle) 

Political and military support for Ukraine

E.U. adopts one-billion-euro aid for Ukraine, freezes the assets of Russian oligarchs
The Council of the European Union, which represents the bloc's 27 individual member states, has agreed to send €1 billion ($1bn) in financial aid to Ukraine as Russia's invasion intensifies. It will be provided in the form of loans, building on an initial €1.2 billion loan package from February. A further €9 billion remains held up because some member states have questioned whether a war-torn country like Ukraine is in a position to sign on to long-term loans. On the same day, it announced the aid package, the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, also said it had frozen the assets of sanctioned Russian individuals and entities to the tune of €13.8 billion. (12 July, Deutsche Welle)

The U.S. treasury will send an additional $1.7bn in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services”
The U.S. Treasury announced on 12 July that it was sending an additional $1.7bn in economic aid to Ukraine to help continue funding the country’s “essential services.” The move follows an announcement by European foreign ministers approving €1bn, the first installment of a €9bn rescue package agreed in May. (13 July, Guardian)

Mark Rutte tells Zelensky that the Netherlands stands ready to support Ukraine
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Kyiv, reiterating his country is ready to support Ukraine “now and in the years to come.” Rutte praised the Ukrainian people for their fight against Russia and said they “deserved persistent attention of the world.” (11 July, CNN)

The Americans and the Europeans are wary of sending too much equipment before Ukrainian soldiers can be trained
According to the NYT report, the United States and the Europeans are wary of sending too much equipment before Ukrainian soldiers can be trained. The Pentagon is concerned about potentially depleting its stockpiles in the coming months. Some U.S. officials are also concerned that pulling too many Ukrainian artillery specialists off the front lines for weeks of training on the new weapons could weaken Ukrainian defenses, accelerate Russian gains and make any future counterattacks more difficult to carry out. Key to Ukrainian survival and the further slowing of the Russian advance will be additional Western training and hardware. The first group of Ukrainian soldiers arrived in Britain last week to attend a new program that officials there say will ultimately train as many as 10,000 Ukrainian recruits in weaponry, patrol tactics, first aid, and other skills, Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, recently said. (12 July, NYT)

Ukrainian refugees

Most of the refugees from Ukraine hope to leave their host countries and return home eventually, a new U.N. study shows
Although most want to return home eventually, around two-thirds of refugees, mainly women and children, expect to stay in their host countries until the security situation improves after Russia’s invasion, according to a survey by the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR. The study, conducted between mid-May and mid-June, surveyed around 4,900 people from Ukraine now living in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. More than 5.6 million Ukrainian refugees are now recorded across Europe, with 8.8 million people crossing out of Ukraine and nearly 3.3 million crossing back in since the Russian invasion. (13 July, Guardian)

At least 9,000 people have been missing since the start of the war in Ukraine
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, at least 9,000 people, soldiers, and civilians have gone missing. The report by France24 shows a laboratory where DNA samples are checked in order to identify the dead people, and only 3-5% of results match. (11 July, France 24) This figure includes 7,200 Ukrainian service personnel who have gone missing since the start of the Russian invasion, according to Ukraine's ombudsman Oleh Kotenko. The majority of them are in Russian captivity, he told Ukraine's Suspilne TV channel. He said he hoped that "sooner or later" they would be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war and returned home. (12 July, BBC)

Zelensky fires Ukraine’s head of security office and general prosecutor
The head of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Ivan Bakanov and war crimes prosecutor Iryna Venediktova were dismissed after their officials were found to be collaborating with Russia. In a Telegram post, Zelensky said he had fired the top officials because it had come to light that many members of their agencies had collaborated with Russia, a problem that he said had touched other agencies as well. He said 651 cases of alleged treason and collaboration had been opened against prosecutorial and law enforcement officials and that more than 60 officials from Bakanov and Venediktova’s agencies were now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied territories. (17 July, Guardian)
 

Anti-war / Peace protests in Russia

Russian Journalist Yevgenyi Kiselev who is working in Ukraine, is wanted in Russia
The Russian Interior Ministry has put Yevgenyi Kiselev, a well-known journalist in the past and one of the central figures of Russian television in the 1990s-2000s, who now works for anti-Russian Ukrainian channels, on the wanted list, according to the database of the agency. "The reason for the search: wanted under the article of the Criminal Code," reads the statement.

Marina Ovsyannikova was arrested in Moscow
The Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova was reportedly taken to a police department in the Krasnoselsky district but was later released on Sunday night. Ovsyannikova uploaded a series of photos (see one of them below) of her arrest to her official Telegram account. Earlier she had protested alone near the Kremlin.

Margarita Vaseva at the single-person picket in Moscow to support the arrested Ilia Yashin and Kirill Ukraintsev. She was detained and brought to the internal affairs department.
                         
A man conducted a single-person picket in Volgograd with a citation of Yuriy Shevchuk “Motherland return home.” (Both pictures from Telegram channel “No War”)

Celebrities against the war

Musicians of the German band Rammstein raised the Ukrainian flag at a concert
The video was published on the Warsaw 2022 Today Facebook account, Ukrinform reports. "As a sign of solidarity with Ukraine, the Rammstein band raised the Ukrainian flag at a concert in Warsaw," the post reads.

Here is the Russian version of the newsletter #10.