July 24, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has criticized Moscow's strikes on Ukraine’s river port infrastructure, calling them an “escalation" in the war.

“I strongly condemn the recent Russian attacks against the Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on Danube, very close to Romania,” Iohannis tweeted on Monday.

Romania, a NATO country, shares a border with Ukraine along the Danube River. The Danube, near the area that was struck overnight, is less that one kilometer wide.

“This recent escalation pose[s] serious risks to the security in the Black Sea,” he added. “It also affects further [Ukrainian] grain transit [and] thus the global food security.”

Russia targeted Ukrainian grain stocks overnight, the Ukrainian Army said earlier, days after Moscow withdrew from a crucial grain deal that allowed for the safe export of Ukrainian wheat to international markets — worsening a global food crisis.

Images shared with CNN by a witness on the Romanian side of the Danube show damage to the Ukrainian port of Reni, just across the river. The damage matches images shared by Ukrainian authorities earlier on Monday. In this area, the Danube River is less than 500 meters wide (1,640 feet). 

Why this matters: From all available information, CNN believes this to be the closest to NATO territory a Russian-fired weapon has landed since the war began. In March 2022, an attack on the Yavoriv military base – which killed dozens – struck roughly ten miles from the Polish border.

In November last year, two people were killed when a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile landed in Poland.

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, an arm of the Ministry of Defense, says it carried out a drone attack on Moscow early Monday morning, a Defense Intelligence official has told CNN.

The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because they had not received authorization to talk publicly about the incident.

Russian authorities said that Ukrainian drones hit two non-residential buildings in Moscow, calling the incident a "thwarted" attack. The Kremlin said later that all the drones targeting the Russian capital had been neutralized.

Russian air defenses successfully neutralized all drones that targeted Moscow on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“All the drones have been neutralized today, and measures are being taken,” Peskov said. “As for the development of the defense system, ensuring its more intensive work, this is a question for the Ministry of Defense.”

When asked about potential retaliation for the strike, Peskov reiterated Moscow will carry on with what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“The special military operation is ongoing, it will continue, and its goals must be accomplished,” he added.

A Ukrainian security official has claimed Kyiv’s responsibility for the drone strikes that hit the Russian capital of Moscow and Crimea overnight.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claims remnants of explosives were found aboard a bulk carrier crossing the Black Sea, which had made a stop at a Ukrainian river port earlier this year.

“On July 22, in the hold of a foreign dry cargo ship en route from Turkey to the port of Rostov-on-Don to load grain crops, traces of explosives -- dinitrotoluene and tetryl were found,” the FSB said on Monday, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

“Signs of third-party interference in the structural parts of the dry cargo ship were also revealed.”

The vessel allegedly visited the Ukrainian river port of Kiliya, on the Danube River, and in July its 12-sailor Ukrainian crew was swapped out and the name of the vessel changed, the FSB claimed, according to TASS.

“These circumstances may indicate the possibility of using a foreign civilian ship to deliver explosives to the territory of Ukraine,” the FSB added.

The port of Kiliya was not part of the now defunct UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative, which included the ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa and Yuzhny/Pivdennyi, with a much larger export capacity. Moscow announced last week it was pulling out of the grain deal.

The expired grain deal allowed for the safe shipment of grain from docks in southern Ukraine, after Russia barricaded ports and exacerbated a global food crisis.

Russian drone strikes have ramped up in the region along the Danube port, amid threats from Moscow against civilian ships crossing the Black Sea.

Overnight, Russia launched what Ukrainian authorities on Monday described as “4-hour-long attack by Shahed-136 drones” directed at its port infrastructure on the Danube. The attacks hit infrastructure used to export grain, but it was not immediately clear which port was hit.

Three drones were destroyed by air defense forces, although “some got through,” according to military officials in Odesa.

One of the drones spotted in Moscow on Monday was brought down near a Russian Ministry of Defense complex. Social media footage of the aftermath, verified by CNN, showed damage to one of its buildings.

One of the buildings seen damaged in footage geolocated by CNN houses the Russian Ministry of Defense military orchestra. It was not immediately clear if the damage had been caused by the drones.

The area also houses the Russian Foreign Military Intelligence, known as GRU, 26165 unit, which carries out cyber activities, according to multiple Western sources. It’s also in the vicinity of the Russian Ministry of Defense’s National Defense Management Center.

Drones struck two non-residential buildings in Moscow in the early hours of Monday morning and were “suppressed” by defenses there, Russian authorities said, describing the incident a “thwarted” attack.

A Ukrainian security official has claimed Kyiv’s responsibility for the drone strikes that hit the Russian capital of Moscow and Crimea overnight.

Fedorov’s ministry is in charge of the Ukrainian “Army of Drones” initiative, the government’s drone procurement plan. 

Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks that have taken place on Russian soil or in Russian-occupied territories during the course of the war, but has recently admitted its role in the huge explosion of the Crimean bridge in October.

What happened? The Russian Ministry of Defense says Ukraine launched 17 drones toward Crimea overnight through Monday, referring to strikes on the peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russian forces in 2014, as a “terrorist attack.”

A Russian ammunition depot was hit by the Ukrainian drone attack in Crimea.

Meanwhile in Russia, Ukrainian drones struck two non-residential buildings in Moscow in the early hours of Monday morning and were “suppressed” by defenses there, Russian authorities said, describing the incident a “thwarted” attack.

The Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov has said he will share a report with the United States about the use of US supplied cluster munitions in Ukraine this week.

The minister, speaking to CNN’s Alex Marquardt in Kyiv over the weekend, said he is awaiting the report which he will then pass on to the Pentagon “probably Monday or Tuesday,” meaning July 24 or 25.

Reznikov, speaking exclusively to CNN added, “we'll report about the consequences of this using [cluster munitions] so I think that next week I would have first report and I will share with my partners in Pentagon this reports. I hope that they will be more efficient than normal ammunition." 

On Thursday the White House’s John Kirby said that Ukrainian forces are using US-provided cluster munitions against Russia “appropriately” and “effectively” in combat.”

Reznikov wouldn’t offer detail before the report comes but said he expects them to be most effective "especially against the artillery systems, especially during the counter battery fighting and also they will be efficient against the armored personnel carriers, for the infantry fighting vehicles, they will also be good against their infantry in the fields."

The sharing of the report is part of the deal with the Pentagon to obtain the cluster munitions, called DPICMS, Reznikov said. 

The US has said the decision to provide Ukraine with DPICMs is due to a low supply of the standard unitary 155mm artillery round. The supply of clusters is “temporary,” according to US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

CNN was first to report that the US clusters had arrived in Ukraine.

Why is it controversial? Cluster munitions scatter “bomblets” across large areas, which would allow Ukrainian forces to target larger concentrations of Russian forces and equipment with fewer rounds of ammunition.

But the bomblets can also fail to explode on impact, and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines.

The UK, France, Germany and other key US allies have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban.

The Russian Ministry of Defense says Ukraine launched 17 drones toward Crimea overnight, referring to strikes on the peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russian forces in 2014, as a “terrorist attack.”

The ministry said 14 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) "were suppressed by means of radio-electronic warfare".

Three of the drones were shot down by Russian air defenses, three fell into the Crimean peninsula and 11 of the drones fell into the Black Sea, the Russian Ministry of Defense said.

“There were no casualties,” the MOD added.

Some context: Earlier on Monday, Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed governor of Crimea had said an ammunition depot and a house had been destroyed in strikes hitting Crimea overnight into Monday. He also said road and rail traffic had been suspended in certain areas of the peninsula. 

Traffic on the railroad and highways of parts of Crimea have been suspended “for safety reasons" following drone attacks on transport infrastructure, Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed governor of the annexed region said on Monday.

The northern part of the occupied Crimean peninsula were heavily affected, with the railroads of the Dzhankoi district and the Dzhankoi-Simferopol highway closed off, according to Aksyonov.

He added that residents within a 5 kilometer (3 mile) radius from the site of the accident in Dzhankoi district “would be evacuated to temporary accommodation centers.”

There were no reported casualties in the attack, he added.

Aksyonov earlier said that Ukrainian strikes hit Crimea overnight into Monday, damaging an ammunition depot in the peninsula.

CNN has not independently verified the reports of the attacks.