Aug 4: E-Stories
Day 525: IzmailGrain Kherson Bakhmut Tokmak Kupyansk GrainPrices Crimea Buses Belarus Wagner UN Czech Poland/Lith RussianinGeorgia TUR Kazak China Trump Bilyi EU GER A&P Blinken NoelReports UKDef
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
Russia hit Kherson with artillery again. Three people that were traveling to work with public transportation were injured. Also four employees of the State Emergency Service were injured while they were extinguishing a fire at the St. Catherine's Cathedral.
Up-date: Russians continued shelling Kherson late Thursday night, hitting a Ukrainian medical facility.
Kyiv defended itself against the eighth consecutive nightly drone attack early on Thursday morning, the Kyiv regional military admistration said on Telegram.
Ukraine's Danube Port damaged in Russian drone strike. The Russian night strike against Odesa Oblast targeted Ukraine's Danube River port of Izmail, causing substantial damage to grain warehouses and other infrastructure, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Defense Ministry reported on Aug. 2.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, urged all countries at the UN on Thursday to tell Russia to stop using the Black Sea as blackmail after Moscow quit a deal that had allowed Ukraine to safely ship its grain to global markets. Chairing a UN security council meeting on famine and food insecurity caused by conflict, Blinken said:
Every member of the United Nations should tell Moscow ‘enough’.
Enough using the Black Sea as blackmail. Enough treating the world’s most vulnerable people as leverage. Enough of this unjustified unconscionable war.
The drones used by Russia to attack Izmail yesterday breached the territory of Romania, Tudor Cernega, the mayor of Ceatalchioi said. Locals confirmed that several drones passed in a straight line over their houses. The Romanian Ministry of Defense denies and said no evidence was found at the scene to confirm this information.
The acclaimed Romanian media outlet Digi24 claims that some of the suicide drones Russia used to strike the city of Izmail actually crossed into Romanian airspace. Witnesses say one of the drones crashed in Romania, a NATO member state. They reported windows being shattered. The Romanian Ministry of Defence has stated that the drones did not cross into Romanian airspace.
Kyiv, Odesa oblasts hit by Russian strikes. Russian forces launched large-scale drone strikes against Kyiv and Odesa oblasts overnight, local officials reported on Aug. 2. Some 11 oblasts in total came under attack over the past day, leaving two people dead and 15 injured, according to the reports.
Romania said on Thursday it will clear customs for up to 30 ships waiting to enter the country from Ukrainian ports on the River Danube over the next two days, a sign that trade has not halted despite a Russian attack on Ukraine’s main river port. Reuters reports that the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, said Russia’s continued attacks against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure on the Danube amounted to war crimes.
Wheat prices on Chicago NYSE jumped 4% following the recent Russian attacks on the port of Izmail and were still up around 2.5% later in the morning. Traders are worried about a hit to global supplies from Ukraine, one of the world's top exporters.
Aug 3- Ukrainian forces counteroffensive:
In Prymorsk, west of Mariupol explosions and 'audible detonations' are reported.
Explosions recorded in the Tokmak direction.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s security council, told Ukrainian national television on Wednesday:
“The number of mines on the territory that our troops have retaken is utterly mad. On average, there are three, four, five mines per square metre,” he said. Danilov restated assertions by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the advances, while slower than hoped, could not be rushed as human lives were at stake. “No one can set deadlines for us, except ourselves … there is no fixed schedule,” he said.
Russian forces have made no headway along the frontlines, but are entrenched in heavily mined areas they control, making it difficult for Ukrainian troops to move east and south, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.
The Russians are trying to advance in the direction of Bakhmut with no success, says Hanna Maliar, MoD spokesperson in her daily up-date. She records an increase in shelling in the Bakhmut direction, where the Ukrainian forces are dealing with “dense artillery fire, mining”, and a strong Russian resistance.
“In the Kupyansk, Lymansk, Svativsk directions, the enemy has concentrated people and equipment and is storming in order to pull our forces away from the eastern direction of the offensive. Our defenders have repelled the enemy assaults.”
General Staff: Russian counter-attacks at Staromaiorske and around Bakhmut fail. Russian forces made unsuccessful attempts to regain lost positions west of Staromaiorske on Aug. 2, according to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces. Russia was also unsuccessful in the Bakhmut direction.
Russia likely builds 'major new formations' for deployment in Ukraine. Russia has likely started forming major new formations over the last two months to "add depth to its ground forces in Ukraine," the U.K. Defense Ministry said in its latest intelligence report on Aug. 2.
6 drones shot down over Russia's Kaluga Oblast. Six drones were shot down overnight by air defenses over Russia's Kaluga Oblast, the regional Governor Vladislav Shapsha claimed on Aug. 3. An explosion in an oxygen-battery warehouse in the village of Achkasovo, near Moscow.
A fire has engulfed a warehouse in the village of Achkasovo in Moscow Oblast, covering an area of 300 square meters, according to a video published on social media on August 3. The warehouse is believed to store oxygen batteries and lithium, which has hampered efforts to put out the blaze. As a result, firefighters have had to rely on foam instead of water, as the latter would cause a toxic chemical reaction.
28 arson attempts on Russian military enlistment offices reported in 5 days. According to Russian independent media outlet Meduza, there have been at least 28 attempts to set fire to military enlistment offices and Defense Ministry buildings over the last five days in Russia and in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Kremlin: Erdogan, Putin discuss future meeting in Turkey. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a phone call on Aug. 2, discussing the grain deal and a possible meeting of the two leaders, the Kremlin announced on its website.
Russian man in Georgia and his thoughts on how he is being treated there. It is presumed that he is evading conscription.
Prigozhin-linked firms receive state contracts after Wagner rebellion. Companies associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin signed state contracts worth at least 2 billion rubles (up to $21 million) within a month after his Wagner Group rebellion, the Russian independent outlet Agentstvo reported on Aug. 3.
Lithuanian President, Polish PM meet to discuss Wagner threat. President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda announced on Aug. 3 that he met with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to discuss the presence of the Wagner Group in Belarus and the threats it poses.
Don’t buy buses from Belarus. Already two buses have been reported to have caught fire in Moscow. The use of Belarusian MAZ buses in St. Petersburg has been suspended. They are either made poorly or sabotaged during the manufacturing process.
Russia illegally holds at least 25.000 Kremlin prisoners on the temporarily occupied territories or in Russia. Some of them complain about torture or harassment. In this section, Svidomi talks about the latest cases of Kremlin's prisoners.
The Council of the European Union has implemented an additional ban on the export of firearms and ammunition, goods and technologies for use in the aviation and space industries in Belarus. The sanctions also apply to particularly sensitive goods and technologies that contribute to the military and technical progress of Belarus.
Russia said on Thursday that the BRICS group of countries would be strengthened by adding new members, in its most explicit endorsement yet of the idea of expansion, Reuters reports. Kremlin spokesman, Dmity Peskov, said that he hoped Saudi Arabia, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates, could join if they wished. Russia will be represented at this month’s BRICS summit by its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, after President Vladimir Putin decided not to attend in person due to a warrant for his arrest issued by the international criminal court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, something Moscow denies.
Behind the Frontlines:
Half of Ukrainians held by Russians in Kherson Oblast tortured. Nearly half of Ukrainians held in Russian detention facilities in the liberated parts of Kherson Oblast were tortured when the territory was under Russian occupation, with many also being subject to sexual violence, according to a report compiled by Western lawyers and published on Aug. 2.
Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territory are being forced to assume Russian citizenship or face retaliation, including possible deportation or detention, a new US report has said.
This is Dmytro Bilyi. He was killed on Aug. 1, on his first day of work, during a Russian attack on Yevhen Karabelesh City Hospital in Kherson. He was 25.
Ukraine today began negotiations with the US on a bilateral agreement on the provision of security guarantees, as provided for in the Joint Declaration on Support for Ukraine, which is the basis for the development of relevant bilateral agreements, Zelenskyi's office reported.
On August 2, president Zelensky and members of the military authorities met with representatives of the Hungarian community in Ukraine. He said:
“We are all citizens of Ukraine, ethnic Hungarians, ethnic Ukrainians, and all our other national communities. We all defend our country, we all help our warriors – all our heroes. I thank our defenders. I thank the Hungarian community and the entire Zakarpattia region for their respectful and caring attitude towards the IDPs, for welcoming all our people.”
The German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, on Thursday again ruled out supplying Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles, saying it was “not a top priority” right now. Ukraine asked Germany in late May to provide it with Taurus air-to-surface cruise missiles which have a range in excess of 500 kilometres (310 miles), but the government has so far rebuffed the request.
Zelensky: F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots to begin this month. In an address to heads of Ukrainian diplomatic missions on Aug. 2, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots is to begin this month.
Ukrainian-made demining machine officially certified. The authorities have certified a Ukrainian-made demining machine, Ukraine's Economy Ministry said on Aug. 2.
Baltic nations agree to disconnect from Russian power grid. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia signed an agreement on Aug. 2 to disconnect from the Russian power system and connect to the European grid, the Lithuanian Energy Ministry announced.
Delegates of the United Nations Security Council criticise Russia for consuming resources of the Council. They have enough of the useless meetings, Russia imposes. SHINO Mitsuko, Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations, at the United Nations.
Zelensky: 12 countries join G7's 'security guarantees' declaration for Ukraine. As of Aug. 2, 12 countries have already joined the G7's joint declaration on "security guarantees" for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated during an Aug. 2 meeting with the heads of foreign diplomatic missions.
US delivers military aid to Moldova. The U.S. has delivered military aid to Moldova as part of the modernization process of the Moldovan military, the U.S. Embassy in Moldova announced on Aug. 1.
G7 ambassadors meet with PM, discuss reforms and reconstruction. Ambassadors to Ukraine from the Group of Seven (G7) met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Aug. 2 to discuss the reforms needed for their country's private sectors to be involved in Ukraine's reconstruction.
Ukrainian Military official helped draft-age men to evade mobilization. The State Bureau of Investigation reported on Aug. 3 that it had detained an official of the Kyiv City Military Administration, who allegedly helped draft-age men to evade mobilization by leaving Ukraine.
Reuters: On 1 August, Russia-based hackers reportedly disrupted bank websites in Italy, according to the Italian cyber agency. A spokesperson for the agency told Reuters that targeted banks included Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI), Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI) and BPER Banca (EMII.MI), along with FinecoBank (FBK.MI) and Banca Popolare di Sondrio (BPSI.MI). The attacks were carried out by Noname Noname057(16) group via a rolling DDoS attack.
Prosecutor: 98,000 Russian war crimes identified in Ukraine. Yurii Bielousov, the head of the War Crimes Department of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office, has stated that his team had recorded 98,000 war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, tweeted that prosecutors and law enforcement officers uncovered a large-scale scheme operating under the guise of surrogacy services in a crackdown on organised crime. He said crime organisations “sold” newborn babies and sought out vulnerable women in the Kharkiv region, took advantage of their complicated circumstances, and offered them money to become surrogate mothers. He said the investigation revealed that eight babies were illegally taken abroad and that the unlawful transfer of another child was prevented.
Scott Lucas’s hot-take on Trump’s latest indictment
Former president Donald Trump was arraigned today in a D.C. court for four counts mapped out and explained in the most recent indictment.
NYT: Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in court to charges that he conspired to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss. The former president appeared before a judge in a Washington courthouse in the shadow of the Capitol, where his supporters rampaged in an effort to undermine the peaceful transfer of power.
Thanks Monique