UN chief Antonio Guterres will meet with leaders of Ukraine and Türkiye this week, as Kiev reports an "unprecedented" cyberattack on its nuclear energy agency's website and fighting rolls into its 175th day.
In July, North Korea recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in eastern Ukraine's Donbass region, as independent states.
(Reuters Archive)
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
North Korea, Russia-backed separatists to develop 'bilateral cooperation'
North Korea and the Russian-backed
separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine will develop "equally
beneficial bilateral cooperation", Donetsk separatist head Denis Pushilin has said in a letter to Kim Jong-un, North Korean state media
reported.
In July, North Korea recognised the Donetsk and
Luhansk People's Republics in eastern Ukraine's Donbass region, as independent states.
Pushilin wrote a letter to congratulate Kim on the August 15 Korean liberation day, state news agency KCNA reported, two days after reporting a similar message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Kim.
"The people of the Donbas region, too, are fighting to regain their freedom and justice of history today just as the Korean people did 77 years ago," the report cited Pushilin's letter as saying.
For live updates from Tuesday (August 16), click here
Fierce fighting between Moscow and Kiev continues in eastern and southern territories on day 169 of the conflict even as both sides trade blame for imperiling Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with attacks nearby.
Smoke rises after the shelling of a brewery during the Ukraine-Russia fighting in the city of Donetsk.
(Reuters)
Thursday, August 11, 2022
Pro-Russia rebels: Ukraine shells brewery, causing ammonia leak in Donetsk
Pro-Russian separatists have accused Ukraine of shelling a brewery in the occupied eastern city of Donetsk, killing one person and triggering a leak of ammonia, Interfax news agency reported.
The emergency ministry in the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said a shell had hit an ammonia line late at night, sparking a fire that at one point covered 6,500 square feet.
Pictures from the scene showed flames lighting the sky above one part of the city as well as firefighters donning masks. One picture appeared to show a corpse on the ground.
For live updates from Wednesday (August 10), click here
Ukraine's president urged civilians on Saturday to evacuate the frontline Donetsk region, the scene of fierce clashes with the Russian military, as Kyiv called on the Red Cross and UN to gain access to its soldiers being held by Moscow's forces.
The eastern Donetsk region has faced the brunt of Russia's offensive since its assault on Kyiv failed weeks into the invasion launched on Feb. 24.
President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in his daily address that thousands of people, including children, were still in the region's battleground areas, with six civilians killed and 15 wounded on Friday, according to the Donetsk governor.
"There's already a governmental decision about obligatory evacuation from Donetsk," Zelensky said, underscoring authorities' calls to leave the besieged region in recent weeks.
"Leave, we will help," Zelensky said. "At this stage of the war, terror is the main weapon of Russia."
Official Ukrainian estimates put the number of civilians still living in the unoccupied area of Donetsk at between 200,000 and 220,000.
A mandatory evacuation notice posted Saturday evening said the coming winter made it a matter of urgency, particularly for the more than 50,000 children still in the region.
"They need to be evacuated, you cannot put them in mortal danger in the winter without heating, light, without the ability to keep them warm," Kyiv's Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said in a statement.
Zelensky, in his address, also once more pressed the international community, especially the United States, to have Russia officially declared a "state sponsor of terrorism."
He reiterated the call a day after a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Kremlin-controlled Olenivka was bombed, leaving scores dead, with Kyiv and Moscow trading blame.
On Saturday, Ukrainian human rights official Dmytro Lubinets said on national television he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission to go to Olenivka.
The ICRC has made a request but has not yet obtained authorization from the Russians, he said.
'Egregious provocation'
Russia's defense ministry accused Kyiv of striking the Olenivka prison with U.S.-supplied long-range missiles, in an "egregious provocation" designed to stop captured soldiers from surrendering.
It said Saturday that the dead included Ukrainian forces who had surrendered after weeks of fighting off Russia's brutal bombardment of the sprawling Azovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol.
The defense ministry said 50 Ukrainian prisoners were killed and 73 were taken to hospital with serious injuries.
"All political, legal and moral responsibility for this bloody massacre of Ukrainians lies with Zelensky personally, his criminal regime and Washington, which backs them," it said.
Zelensky laid the blame squarely on Russia.
"This was a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war," he said.
Members of the Azov regiment were among those who surrendered at Azovstal.
Azov regiment commander Mykyta Nadtochiy said he considered the attack on the jail to have been "an act of public execution."
Gazprom cuts off Latvia
Also on Saturday, Russian energy giant Gazprom suspended gas supplies to Latvia, in the latest tightening of gas provision to European Union states, which have accused Russia of squeezing supplies in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Conexus Baltic Grid confirmed to Latvia's LETA news agency that Gazprom had informed it of the suspension of deliveries, but said other suppliers were continuing them.
"Today, Gazprom suspended its gas supplies to Latvia... due to violations of the conditions" of purchase, the company said on Telegram.
Latvia's Economy Minister Ilze Indriksone told LETA that his country "was not counting on natural gas flows from Russia."
Gazprom drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20% of its capacity. It had reduced gas flows to Europe twice in June.
The Russian state-run company had earlier announced it would choke supply to 33 million cubic meters a day — half the amount it has been delivering since service resumed last week after 10 days of maintenance work.
Gazprom cited the halted operation of one of the last two working turbines for the pipeline due to the "technical condition of the engine."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has blamed EU sanctions for the limited supply.
The EU this week agreed a plan to reduce gas consumption in solidarity with Germany, where the Nord Stream pipeline runs to, warning of Russian "blackmail."
Grain fields set alight
Russian strikes continued to rain down on Ukrainian towns and cities on Saturday.
Ukrainian authorities said Russian bombardments targeting the south and east of the country had left one dead in southern Mykolaiv and one dead in eastern Bakhmut.
The death toll from a strike on a Mykolaiv bus stop on Friday climbed to seven after two men died in hospital, he added.
In the eastern city of Kharkiv, three Russian S-300 missiles struck a school, mayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram, adding that the main building was destroyed.
A Ukrainian spokesman said his country's forces had set fire to grain fields around Mariupol so they could not be used by the Russians.
"The Mariupol resistance forces set fire to the fields with grain so that it would not be stolen by the occupiers," Sergiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration said.
Moscow and Kiev accuse each other of bombing a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners in Russian-held territory amid fierce fighting on day 157 of the military conflict.
Russian army trucks drive across a wheat field in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict near the settlement of Olenivka in the Donetsk region.
(Reuters)
Saturday, July 30, 2022
Zelenskyy calls for evacuation of Ukraine's frontline Donetsk
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for the evacuation of the eastern Donetsk region which has seen fierce clashes between his country's forces and the Russian military.
"There's already a governmental decision about obligatory evacuation from Donetsk region," he said in his daily address.
"Please, follow evacuation. At this phase of the war, terror is a main weapon of Russia."
Russia suspends gas supplies
Russian energy giant Gazprom suspended gas supplies to Latvia, a day after a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war was bombed leaving scores dead.
"Today, Gazprom suspended its gas supplies to Latvia... due to violations of the conditions" of purchase, the company said on Telegram.
Gazprom drastically cut gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20 percent of its capacity. It had reduced gas flows to Europe twice in June.
Red Cross requests access to Ukraine prison after POWS die
Russia launched nighttime attacks on several Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian officials said as they and Moscow blamed each other for the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in a pro-Russian separatist-controlled area of the country's east.
The International Red Cross asked to visit the prison to make sure the wounded had proper treatment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have a duty to react.
“It was a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war,” Zelenskyy said in a video address.
Ukraine condemns Russian call to 'hang' Azov fighters
Ukrainian officials denounced a call by Russia's embassy in Britain for fighters from the Azov regiment to face a "humiliating" execution.
The Russian tweet came as Moscow and Kiev traded blame over a strike on a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-controlled territory that killed around 50 people, reportedly including members of the Azov regiment.
"Azov militants deserve execution, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they're not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death," Moscow's diplomatic mission wrote in an overnight Tweet.
Latvia says Russian energy giant Gazprom's decision to halt gas exports would have little impact on its supplies pic.twitter.com/JIltzyHdze
US envoy: Russia intends to dissolve Ukraine from world map
The US ambassador to the United Nations has said there should no longer be any doubt that Russia intends to dismantle Ukraine “and dissolve it from the world map entirely”.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN Security Council that the United States is seeing growing signs that Russia is laying the groundwork to attempt to annex all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
She said Russia's plans could include installing “illegitimate proxy officials in Russian-held areas, with the goal of holding sham referenda or decree to join Russia”.
UK: Russia to hold referendums in newly occupied areas of south Ukraine
Russian-installed authorities in newly occupied territories in southern Ukraine are under pressure and possibly preparing to hold referendums on joining Russia later this year, Britain military has said.
"Local authorities are likely coercing the population into disclosing personal details in order to compose voting registers," the Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Twitter. Russia classifies these occupied areas as being under interim "civil-military administration".
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told the Security Council on Friday that “The de-Nazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine will be carried out in full.”
Russia running out of steam in Ukraine, UK spy chief says
Russia is "running out of steam" in its assault on Ukraine, the chief of Britain's MI6 foreign intelligence agency, Richard Moore, has said in a brief comment on social media.
Moore made the remark "Running out of steam..." above an earlier post on Twitter by Britain's defence ministry, which described the Russian government as "growing desperate" and as having lost thousands of soldiers in its offensive in Ukraine.
Ukrainian military says around 100 Russian forces have been killed while trying to recapture the city of Kherson. TRT World's Aksel Zaimovic has the latest from capital Kiev pic.twitter.com/fqfYUjX5vz
Russian gas producer Gazprom says it has stopped supplying neighbouring Latvia with gas, accusing it of violating conditions for gas withdrawal.
Russia has already cut off gas supplies to Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, Netherlands and Denmark, which refused to pay for gas in line with an order by President Vladimir Putin requiring rouble accounts to be set up in a Russian bank as part of new settlement scheme. Russia has also halted gas sales to Shell Energy Europe in Germany.
In a statement on Saturday, Gazprom did not specify which gas withdrawal conditions Latvia had allegedly violated.
Ukraine calls for Russia to be recognised as 'state sponsor of terrorism'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the deaths of dozens of prisoners in a Russian-held jail showed there should be clear legal recognition that Russia was a "state sponsor of terrorism."
"Today, I received information about the attack by the occupiers on Olenivka (the prison's location), in the Donetsk region. It is a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war. More than 50 dead," he said in his daily address.
"I am appealing especially to the United States of America. A decision is needed and it is needed now."
For live updates from Friday (July 29), click here
