The Russian authorities love to repeat that the sanctions are nothing to us, they only help Russia: they will press us, and we are stronger. The example often gives a transition in foreign trade calculations from the dollar and euro to national currencies - rubles, yuan, rupees. The harmful West cut off almost all the largest banks from operations in dollars, euros and other oin pounds-so what? And nothing!

At night, the Russian army attacked southern Ukraine with cruise missiles and kamikaze drones. The Joint Command “South” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported the downing of six Caliber missiles and 25 Shahed drones over the Odessa and Nikolaev regions. In Odessa, port infrastructure facilities and several private houses were damaged, one person was injured.

On Monday night, traffic was launched along the automobile part of the Crimean bridge, where two explosions occurred the day before. It is carried out in reverse mode along one of the two lanes of Taman-Kerch, wrote Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin. At 3:30, TASS wrote about large jams on the entrances to the bridge, from the side of the Crimea the cork reached 3 km.

Türkiye and Saudi Arabia have launched secret negotiations on the repatriation of children abducted by Russia to Ukraine. This was reported by The Financial Times, citing four interlocutors familiar with the progress of the negotiations. The process involves the oligarch Roman Abramovich, who was previously a participant in the failed peace negotiations between the parties. The process has been going on for several months.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who oversees construction in the occupied territories of Ukraine, said that the restoration of the Crimean Bridge after the explosion on July 17 will require from 1 billion to 1.3 billion rubles. His words are quoted by Kommersant. The Deputy Prime Minister also stated that it is impossible to carry out repair work on the bridge from the sea, so first it is necessary to build a temporary bridge 250 meters long.

Sberbank unblocked the cards of dozens of Russians who sent donations to Ukrainian refugees. this on Facebook . reported Legislative Assembly deputy Boris Vishnevsky “Without any explanation, access was simply restored. I think the wide publicity worked,” he wrote. However, not all cards are unblocked, and “some people can’t even withdraw their funds,” St. Petersburg volunteer Ekaterina Evchenko said on social networks.

32-year-old Yakub Zakriev (son of Ramzan Kadyrov’s sister, Zargan) became the general director of Danone Russia LLC after the company was transferred to temporary management by the Federal Property Management Agency, The Bell writes , citing data from Spark. Zakriev was the mayor of Grozny from 2018 to 2020 (one of the youngest mayors in Russia), and now heads the Ministry of Agriculture of Chechnya.

In Belarus, 2000–2500 mercenaries of the Wagner PMC, the Belarusian Gayun monitoring project reports . “We have data that from July 11, at least five columns of Prigozhin’s mercenaries have arrived in Belarus - these are at least 382-400 cars, and the number of mercenaries in Belarus, according to our estimates, is already 2000–2500 people,” the project said. “Belarusian Gayun” notes that in July 18 the arrival of two columns was recorded - approximately 170-185 cars.

The State Duma deputies in the third reading adopted a law on increasing the age limit of stay in reserve. The maximum age of the residence of the storerooms in the mobilization reserve was increased for senior officers - from 60 to 65 years, for junior officers - from 55 to 60 years, for other titles - from 45 to 55 years.

Bus service between the Rostov region and Crimea has been restored, TASS reports citing the regional Ministry of Transport. Chartered buses travel to the peninsula through “new regions,” as Russian authorities call the occupied territories of Ukraine. Only chartered buses will travel across the land bridge to Crimea. “All regular flights will travel along previously approved routes using a ferry crossing,” the Ministry of Transport of the Rostov Region explained to RBC.

Vladimir Zelensky proposed to the UN Secretary General Antoniu Guterris and Turkish President Recep Erdogan to continue to fulfill the grain transaction without Russia's participation. “Ukraine, the UN, Türkiye can jointly ensure the work of the food corridor and the inspecting of the courts,” the Ukrainian leader said. The day before, the Russian side left the agreement and withdrew guarantees of shipping safety in the North-Western Black Sea.

The Russian army went on the offensive in the Kupyansky direction. The front line there passes to the west of Kupyansk, approximately along the border of the Kharkov and Lugansk regions. The Ukrainian military says that the Russians gathered a 100,000th group near Kupyansk and want to defeat parts of the Armed Forces to continue the attack deep into the territory of Ukraine.