Victory Chronicles-DAY 716

Russia continued its attacks on Ukraine, shelling nine oblasts in the last 24 hours. These attacks killed at least four civilians and injured twelve others. Kharkiv Oblast was the hardest hit, with 15 settlements shelled with artillery and mortars, damaging buildings and infrastructure. 

In Kherson Oblast, 82 attacks took place, killing two people, wounding one, and damaging residential areas and critical infrastructure. Areas of Donetsk Oblast, including Avdiivka and Selydove, also came under fire, killing two civilians and injuring seven others. Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts were also affected, causing injuries and property damage. 

Nikopol in Dnipropetrovska oblast and Marhanetska community were targeted by shelling, which damaged houses, gas pipelines and power lines. Other Oblasts, such as Luhansk, Odesa and Sumy, were also shelled, but no casualties were reported.

During a joint press conference in Vienna, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas emphasized that the coalition’s military power supporting Ukraine is 13 times greater than that of Russia. Kallas suggested that if these countries provide Ukraine with at least 0.25% of their GDP, it would be a significant turning point in the ongoing war and ensure Ukraine’s victory. She called on coalition members to support Ukraine by sending aid and highlighted the importance of taking steps to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s recovery. Kallas mentioned that her government had already submitted a bill to allow the use of these assets and hoped that other EU member states would follow suit.

Another 100 Ukrainians have returned home to Ukraine, stated the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine report. These are members of the National Guard, border guards, and the Armed Forces. Most of them are defenders of Mariupol.

“These are all our people who have returned to their homeland. We are working to bring back every Ukrainian who is still in captivity, and we will not stop until we do,” said President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The paratroopers are learning to overcome their own fear, constantly leaving their comfort zone, practicing tactics and accuracy of fire. During the intense training, there are many factors that can distract a fighter’s attention, such as the sound of an FPV drone flying over the training area, or the roar of an approaching tank that starts firing, or the explosion of a mine as an assault team approaches a trench.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to use an interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson published on February 8 to present to a wider Western audience a long-standing Kremlin information operation that falsely asserts that Russia is interested in a negotiated end to its war in Ukraine. Putin illustrated throughout the interview that Russia has no interest in meaningful or legitimate negotiations, however, and that Putin still seeks to destroy Ukraine as a state. Putin also displayed his overarching hostility towards the West and falsely accused the West of forcing Russia to attack Ukraine. Putin repeatedly stressed that Russia is open to negotiations in order to falsely frame Russia as a reasonable actor and “Western ruling elites” as the main obstruction to a negotiation. 

Putin also repeatedly reiterated a Russian information operation alleging that Western officials coerced Ukraine to reject an agreement favorable to Russia during negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul in March 2022. Western leaders, in fact, offered to help President Volodymyr Zelensky escape Kyiv in the days immediately following the invasion, and Zelensky responded that he needed “ammunition, not a ride.”

The Kremlin routinely frames the West as the only meaningful negotiating party in Ukraine as part of its effort to gain Western acceptance of its premise that Ukraine has no independent agency in order to secure concessions from the West on Ukraine’s behalf that undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and destroy Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

The Kremlin has periodically intensified this information operation feigning interest in negotiations to seize on actual Western interest in a negotiated settlement to undermine Western support for Ukraine and degrade Western efforts to send more security assistance to Ukraine. Putin and the Kremlin have intensified rhetoric in recent weeks indicating that Russia continues to pursue maximalist objectives in Ukraine that ISW assesses would amount to full Ukrainian and Western capitulation. 

ISW continues to assess that Putin’s negotiating position has not changed: He still seeks the destruction of Ukraine and seeks to use an armistice to set favorable condition for the Russian military to launch a subsequent more successful war against Ukraine. 

Paratrooper Yevhen Volosyan, with the call sign Sonechko, died on November 24, 2023, while performing a combat mission near the village of Novomykhailivka, Donetsk Oblast. The defender is forever 37.

Yevhen was born in the city of Beryslav, Kherson Oblast. He graduated from Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University with a degree in Economic Cybernetics. He lived with his family in Kyiv. He worked in the IT field. He loved traveling, author’s movies, Ukrainian literature and history, black coffee, his dog Laduska, delicious breakfasts, and good music. He sincerely loved life, his family and his country. He dreamed of buying a boat and growing grapes in his free native Kherson Oblast.

In March 2023, Yevhen voluntarily joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He served in the 79th separate airborne assault brigade. He was a scout-radiotelephone operator, an aerial reconnaissance man in a reconnaissance platoon. With his fighters-in-arms, he defended Donetsk Oblast, particularly the Maryinka direction.

“I want to liberate the country and take you to Crimea. I am here for you and for the sake of the country…” Bright, sincere, selfless. In the most difficult moments of the war, he did not change his motivation – to bring the Victory closer, to end the horror of war as soon as possible, so that he, we and the whole country could live our happy lives. He believed in the victorious power of small unmanned aircraft: “You’ll see, one day I will become a general of drone troops,” said Olha Chesnokova, the wife of the fallen fighter.

Posthumously, fighter Yevhen Volosyan was awarded the Order “For Courage” of the III degree. The fighter was buried in the Alley of Heroes at Berkovetsky Cemetery in Kyiv. He is survived by his parents, wife, sisters, other relatives, friends and fighters-in-arms.

*Yevhen’s story on the Heroes Memorial – a platform for stories about the fallen defenders of Ukraine.

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