Press digest – Ukraine

PRESS DIGEST – UKRAINE

Sixth month of heroic resistance of Ukraine against Russian military invasion

Key updates on the war against Ukraine as of August 12, 2022

#RussiaIsATerroristState #ArmUkraineNow

 

DESTRUCTION AND LOSSES

📌About 20-25% of missing Ukrainian servicemen were found in captivity — Commissioner on Persons Gone Missing under Special Circumstances Oleh Kotenko. As of July, the number of missing Ukrainian military men was estimated at more than 7,000 people.

📌The Russians caused 3,000 fires in Ukraine during the full-scale war. The fires covered an area of more than 1.5 million hectares, a third of which were agricultural fields and almost the same amount of forest land.

📌 131 women from the Azovstal remain in Russian captivity. Among them are those who served in the “Azov” Battalion, military medics, border guards, the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, the National Guard, the Armed Forces, and other formations. 33 medics are considered non-combatants according to the Geneva Conventions”, said the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk.

📌Russia seized $12.4 trillion worth of mineral resources in Ukraine. Russia has already occupied over 60% of coal deposits, 20% of gas deposits, and over 40% of metal deposits. Some of these deposits were seized back in 2014 during the annexation of Crimea or the start of the war in Donbas. These are the calculations of The Washington Post.

📌More than 1067 children were affected by the Russian armed aggression in Ukraine. 361 children were killed, and another 706 were wounded.

📌LUHANSK REGION:

  • The Russians began burying the townspeople they killed in March-April in the town of Rubizhne. The remains of 63 residents, whom they killed four months ago, were buried the other day. First of all, the Russians checked the territory of objects of social importance. 
  • Under the guise of humanitarian aid, the Russians organize meetings with residents of the recently occupied territories of the Luhansk region. Thus, the Russian administration is preparing to hold a pseudo-referendum. At present, the “campaigning and explanatory component” of preparations for “voting” for joining the Russian Federation has been activated. And “in exchange” for food, drinking water, and OSB boards, the occupiers extort personal data from residents.

 

📌 DONETSK REGION:

  • On August 10, Russian troops attacked the central part of Bakhmut. Seven people died as a result of the shelling. Six people received mine-explosive injuries and shrapnel wounds. The occupiers’ shells hit shops, private houses, and high-rise buildings.
  • On August 11, the Russians attacked Pisky with a heavy flamethrower system TOS-1A Solntsepyok. The city is completely destroyed.
  • Metal cages are constructed in the Philharmonic of the occupied Mariupol. The Russians are preparing a show trial of Ukrainian defenders. 
  • In occupied Mariupol, Russians, along with collaborators, are destroying public buses to prevent residents from evacuating, according to the Mariupol City Council.
  • The Russians staged a rock concert at the ruins of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.

 

📌 KHARKIV REGION:

  • Mass shelling of Kharkiv with Uragan multiple rocket launchers happened on August 5. Three civilians were wounded by cluster munitions debris. Residential buildings, cars, stores, and a school were damaged.
  • The Russian occupation forces launched a series of missile strikes on the city of Kharkiv again on the morning of August 7.
  • On August 8, there were at least 7 explosions in Kharkiv. According to the mayor, an infrastructure facility was shelled.

📌 ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION:

  • The Russian fire near Stepnohirsk destroyed 70 hectares of wheat crops.


  • In Melitopol, the invaders demand that the population pay for electricity on the accounts of a fictitious enterprise. The scale of fraud is more than 50 million UAH (approx. $1,4 million) per month.
  • On August 8, the Mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, said that the Russians brought about 700 extras to the city because they could not gather people from the local population to create an “image” for the Russian mass media.
  • On August 10, 10 people died at a checkpoint in Vasylivka, in line to leave the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. 

 

📌 Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant:

  • On August 5, the Russian military fired toward the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and three “arrivals” occurred near the plant’s industrial site. The Russians hit the high-voltage 330 kV HV line of the Zaporizhzhia thermal power station autotransformer. 
  • On August 6, the 4th power unit of the Zaporizhzhia NPP was disconnected from the power system. Previously, ZNPP shut down one of the three power units in operation due to Russian shelling. 
  • On August 6, the Russian military at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occupied all the basements where they hide from shelling. 
  • The EU has condemned Russia’s military activities in the ZNPP area, said Josep Borrell, EU representative for foreign affairs and security policy.


  • On August 7, the Russian military shelled the ZNPP again. They hit the ZNPP site right next to the plant’s dry storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Three radiation-monitoring sensors were damaged due to the shelling, so it is now impossible to determine the radiation level at the plant territory. One ZNPP worker was also wounded and taken to the city hospital. At the same time, all Russian troops who were on the territory of ZNPP hid in bunkers.
  • On August 9, the occupiers began to implement a plan to connect the Zaporizhzhia NPP to the energy system of the Russian Federation and disconnect it from the Ukrainian.
  • On August 11, the Russian military again fired at the ZNPP and areas near the nuclear facility – a total of ten “arrivals” were recorded, five of them near the radiation sources storage. Also, they damaged the domestic sewage pumping station. Smoke is rising there.

 

📌Results of the meeting of the UN Security Council regarding ZNPP on August 11:

  • IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi urged the parties to provide the mission with access to the ZNPP. However, he noted that at present there is no threat to the safety of the nuclear power plant;
  • Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Nebenzya, accuses the Ukrainian Armed Forces of shelling the nuclear power plant. He argues this position by the fact that Russia has no reason to attack “neither itself, nor the station, nor Enerhodar.” Nebenzya also said that the Russian Federation is ready to support the IAEA mission and will do everything to make it happen before the end of August;
  • Permanent Representative of Ukraine Serhiy Kislitsa said that the only way to eliminate the nuclear threat is to withdraw Russian troops and return control of the station to Ukraine. The US also called for the same;
    • The representative of China, who currently chairs the UN, called on Russia and Ukraine to return to peace talks.

    📌 MYKOLAIV REGION:

    • At noon on August 5, Russian troops attacked Nikolaev. As a result, more than ten people were wounded, including a 13-year-old boy, and there were casualties.
    • On August 10, Russians shelled Mykolaiv with Smerch multiple rocket launchers overnight. Eight private houses were damaged, and one of them caught fire which was extinguished. According to preliminary information, three people were wounded, including a 13-year-old girl.

    📌DNIPROPETROVSK REGION:

    • Russia opened fire on the Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih districts four times on August 6.

      The Russian army sent 60 shells with “Grad” multiple rocket launchers to the Nikopol district. Two people were wounded, and nearly 50 private houses, several cars, and a bus stop were damaged. The shelling hit a gas pipeline and the power grid. Several thousand Marhanets residents of the Nikopol district are left without power. 

    The Kryvyi Rih district was struck by the “Uragan” multiple rocket launchers and barrel artillery. 

On August 8, the Russians again shelled Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih. Nikopol district was attacked three times. Four villages in two communities came under shelling.

On the night of August 9, Nikopol was shelled three times with Grad missiles. 120 rockets flew at the city, and several residential buildings were damaged. Workshops, workrooms, administration premises, and cars were destroyed at three enterprises. A 46-year-old employee of one of the enterprises was wounded.

  • On August 10, the Russians again shelled the Nikopol with Grad multiple rocket launchers. 11 dead, 13 wounded.
  • On the night of August 11, the Russians attacked four districts of the Dnipropetrovsk region. As a result of 120 hits from the Grad MLRS in the Nikopol district, 2 people were killed, and 7 more were injured. Among the victims was a 13-year-old girl.
  • On August 12, the Russian army hit Marhanets 40 times and Nikopol 10 times. Three people were injured in Marhanets, two of them are in the hospital. Among those hospitalized is a 12-year-old boy.

📌 VINNYTSIA REGION:

  • On August 8, the enemy shelling of Vinnytsia: Russians hit military facilities, and there are casualties. Now specialists are determining the type of missiles used by the Russians.

📌OLENIVKA SITUATION:

  • The terrorist attack in Olenivka was a special operation by the Russian Federation against weapons supplies. According to the intelligence, Russia is resorting to various atrocities to prevent the supply of Western high-precision weapons to Ukraine.
    • Tsymbalyuk during a special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council. The Ambassador of Ukraine noted that satellite images show that only one building was damaged in the colony, where prisoners of war were transferred immediately before the attack, and analysis of the photo indicates a thermobaric explosion from the inside.Ukraine has enough evidence that the Russians staged a planned massacre of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Olenivka. This was stated by the permanent representative of Ukraine to international organizations in Vienna Yevhen.

    📌The world economy will lose $1 trillion this year alone due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine — The Economist.

    📌 15 people were buried in Bucha, whose bodies could not be identified. Among them are 14 men and one woman. Eight people were found in the nearby village of Mirotske, the victims were tortured and shot. There are signs of torture on all the bodies, Skoryk-Shkaryvska, an adviser to the mayor of Bucha, said.

    📌 The United Kingdom has applied to participate in the case of the genocide of Ukraine against Russia, which is considered by the International Court of Justice.

     

    RUSSIAN AND BELORUSSIAN CONTEXT 

    ⚠️Russians continue to transfer weapons to Belarus. On August 9, the Russian Il-76 VKS arrived at Gomel Airport. Earlier, another batch of missiles for the S-300/400 was brought on board. According to the Belarusian Gayun, the missiles could be transferred to the Zyabrovka airfield, controlled by the Russians. Il-76 flights with missiles on board became daily.

    ⚠️️ The Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked the Saky military airfield in Crimea, — The New York Times, citing an unnamed high-ranking official of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.“This is an air base from which planes regularly flew out to strike at our troops in the southern theatre of operations,” a source told The New York Times. He also added that the blow was delivered by a purely Ukrainian-made weapon.

    ⚠️️Russia may be illegally importing weapons from Syria under the guise of commercial cargo — Bloomberg. European intelligence officials, who have been following the Sparta II ship, said it was carrying military vehicles.

    ⚠️️ Russian soldiers begin training to fly Iranian drones – CNN. According to the publisher, Russian officials have been training in Iran over the past few weeks as part of an agreement to transfer Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 UAVs from Iran to Russia.

⚠️️Russia’s continued attempts to redraw borders by force constitute a flagrant violation of international law, including a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations, and seriously undermine the rules-based international system, G7 foreign ministers said.

⚠️️Approximately 13,000 Belarusian servicemen have agreed to fight against Ukraine on the side of the Russian army — the General Staff. Six battalions of the Belarusian armed forces are currently on duty along the Ukrainian border.

 

DEFENSE UPDATES

📌The Armed Forces of Ukraine have already liberated 1,060 settlements since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The absolute majority of them require significant restoration work, demining, and construction of social facilities — Zelensky.

📌On August 6, the three ships with grain that left the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk arrived at the shores of Istanbul. They are a Navi Star grain carrier under the flag of Panama, which is heading to Ireland and transporting 33,000 tons of corn. Rojen under the flag of Malta transports 13,000 tons of corn to the UK, and Polarnet — 12,000 tons to the Turkish city of Karasu.

📌 On August 6, the first commercial vessel since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion is entering the seaport of Chernomorsk near Odesa. It’s a Turkish cargo ship “Fulmar S,” sailing under the flag of Barbados.

📌On August 7, four vessels with Ukrainian grain received permission to leave the ports. They are leaving Chornomorsk and Odesa with 161,084 tons of food.

📌 On August 9,  two more vessels with Ukrainian grain left the port of Chornomorsk. The ship “Rahmi Yagsi” is carrying about 5 thousand tons of cargo to Istanbul, “Ocean Lion” – about 65 thousand tons of corn to South Korea.

📌 Amnesty International Polska has condemned the Russian war crimes in Ukraine after the agency’s central office published a report claiming that Ukrainian soldiers put civilian lives in danger.

📌The Pivdennyi Seaport should resume work next week, which will expand the existing corridor from the ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk. In total, these three routes will allow reaching 3 million tons of exports of agricultural products within a month, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Mustafa Nayyem said.

📌On the morning of August 8, the first vessel with Ukrainian food left the port of Pivdennyi since February 24 — dry cargo ship SACURA is heading to Italy.

📌 Estimated losses of the Russian Federation Army in Ukraine:

📌Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed the control centre of the Russians in the south. On the southern borders, the Ukrainian army attacked enemy command posts. Enemy losses: 41 invaders, 3 Msta-B howitzers, 7 units of armoured and automotive vehicles. In addition, the enemy army was left without an ammunition depot.

📌Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has already lost at least 5,083 pieces of military equipment, according to the Oryx international research group.

📌Armed Forces of Ukraine shelled Antonivskyi and Kakhovskyi bridges on the night of August 8.

📌Ukraine returned the bodies of 17 more of its defenders — Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine.

📌 Ukraine and the World Bank signed an agreement on providing a $4.5 billion grant. The funds were allocated by the United States.

📌 On August 10, the G7 foreign ministers released a statement regarding the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, demanding that Russia immediately return control of the Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine.

 

PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT OF UKRAINE

📌The Embassy of Latvia in Russia stopped issuing any visas to Russians. The only exception is the funeral of close relatives.

📌 Bulgaria sent 4,200 tons of weapons to Ukraine – the supplies went secretly through Poland — Acting Bulgarian Minister of Economy Alexander Mikhailov.

📌 Italy provided Ukraine with 200 million euros of credit assistance. It was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Finance.

📌 The Biden Administration is preparing a new $1 billion military aid package for Ukraine – it will include ammunition for long-range weapons and armoured medical vehicles.

📌The session of the Parliament of Moldova ended with the performance of the national anthem of Ukraine. A choir from Vinnytsia was invited to perform the anthem.

📌Denmark has offered to provide Ukraine with 35 excavators through the EU civil protection mechanism to rebuild war-torn infrastructure.

📌Meta announced that it had shut down a “troll farm” linked to Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin and his “Internet Research Agency”.

📌 American actress Jessica Chastain, known for the films “Interstellar”, “It Chapter Two” and “Molly’s Game”, arrived in Kyiv.

📌 Sweden will send up to 120 military instructors to the UK for basic training of Ukrainian military personnel, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Gillquist said. In general, about 10,000 citizens of Ukraine will take part in training in the UK.

📌The U.S. provided Ukraine with “several hundreds” of ammunition for the HIMARS multiple rocket launchers — the Pentagon. The United States provides GMLR precision-guided munitions for the HIMARS systems, not the longer-range ATACMS.

📌France banned Russians from visiting the Château de Vincennes. 

📌Finland, Denmark and Norway have joined the training of the Ukrainian military in the UK. 

📌Twitter has blocked the English version of the official account of the Russian Foreign Ministry for 7 days. The reason is incorrect information.

📌At one of the generating enterprises of PJSC “Centrenergo,” the first 39 wagons with Australian grade G coal are unloaded – in total, 79,000 tons of coal are to be delivered to Ukraine. 

📌In Malbork, Poland, a monument to the Red Army was dismantled due to the Russian attack on Ukraine. The Polish authorities say that this is the completion of the de-communization of Malbork, which began back in 1989.

📌Over the past week, Germany handed over four more Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine. In total, 12 have been transferred so far, and 18 more are expected. The Germans also handed over 13 armoured vehicles to Kyiv – three evacuation vehicles and 10 HMMWVs.

📌The UK will provide Ukraine with three more M270 MLRS in addition to those three already in Kyiv and a “significant” number of missiles for them.

📌 Estonia closes its borders to Russian citizens with Schengen visas.

📌The Spanish railway operator Renfe Mercancías sent an experimental railway warehouse to Ukraine to transport 600 tons of corn, bypassing Ukrainian seaports.

📌Denmark will increase financial support for Ukraine by 110 million euros, – Reuters.

📌 The EU reported on providing Ukraine with a record 60,000 tons of vital aid. Assistance includes 180 ambulances, 125 fire engines, 300 generators, 35 heavy vehicles and 4 pontoon bridges.