Blasts, drone attacks rock Russian-held areas far from Ukraine war front

Russia reported fresh Ukrainian drone attacks on Friday, after explosions erupted near military bases in Russian-held areas of Ukraine. This photo taken on Aug. 16, 2022 shows smoke billowing from a munitions depot in the village of Mayskoye, Crimea. Stringer | AFP | Getty Images

Russia reported fresh Ukrainian drone attacks on Friday evening, a day after explosions erupted near military bases in Russian-held areas of Ukraine and Russia itself, apparent displays of Kyiv's growing ability to pummel Moscow's assets far from front lines. The latest incidents followed huge blasts last week at an air base in Russian-annexed Crimea. In a new assessment, a Western official said that incident had rendered half of Russia's Black Sea naval aviation force useless in a stroke. Russia's RIA and Tass news agencies, citing a local official in Crimea, said it appeared Russian anti-aircraft forces had been in action near the western Crimean port of Yevpatoriya on Friday night. Video posted by a Russian website showed what appeared to be a ground-to-air missile hitting a target. Reuters was unable immediately to confirm the video's veracity. Tass cited a local official as saying Russian anti-aircraft forces knocked down six Ukrainian drones sent to attack the town of Nova Kakhovka, east of the city of Kherson. Ukraine says retaking Kherson is one of its main priorities. Separately, an official in Crimea said defenses there had downed an unspecified number of drones over the city of Sevastopol. "The Ukrainian armed forces treated the Russians to a magical evening," said Seriy Khlan, a member of Kherson's regional council disbanded by Russian occupation forces. The night before, multiple explosions had been reported in Crimea — which Moscow seized in 2014 — including near Sevastopol, headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, as well as at Kerch near a huge bridge to Russia. Inside Russia, two villages had been evacuated after explosions at an ammunition dump in Belgorod province, more than 100 km (60 miles) from territory controlled by Ukrainian forces.

Kyiv coy about incidents in Crimea

Kyiv has been withholding official comment on incidents in Crimea or inside Russia while hinting that it is behind them using long-range weapons or sabotage. A Western official indicated on Friday that at least some of the incidents were Ukrainian attacks, saying Kyiv was consistently achieving "kinetic effects" deep behind Russia's lines. Huge explosions on Aug. 9 at Russia's Saky air base on the Crimean coast had put more than half of the Black Sea Fleet's combat jets out of use, the official said, in what would be one of the costliest attacks of the war. Russia has denied aircraft were damaged in what it called an accident, although satellite pictures showed at least eight burnt-out warplanes and several huge craters.

Moscow dismissed the head of the Black Sea Fleet this week. Ukraine hopes its apparent new-found ability to hit Russian targets behind the front line can turn the tide in the conflict, disrupting supply lines Moscow needs to support its occupation. A senior U.S. defense official said on Friday that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration was preparing another security assistance package for Ukraine valued at $775 million and containing surveillance drones and for the first time mine-resistant vehicles. Since last month, Ukraine has been fielding Western-supplied rockets to strike behind Russian lines. Some explosions reported in Crimea and Belgorod were beyond the range of ammunition Western countries have acknowledged sending so far. A senior Ukrainian official said around half of incidents in Crimea were Ukrainian attacks of some kind, and half accidents caused by Russia's poor operations. He emphasized that attacks were carried out by saboteurs rather than long-range weapons, though he would not say whether Kyiv now had ATACMS, a longer range version of the U.S. HIMARS rockets it began using in June. The official, who declined to be named, said Ukraine had hoped its strikes would have a bigger impact in reducing Russian artillery power but Moscow was adapting.

Concern about nuclear plant

Ukraine also issued dire warnings about a frontline nuclear power station, the Zaporizhzhia complex, where it said it believed Moscow was planning a "large-scale provocation" as justification to decouple the plant from the Ukrainian power grid and connect it to Russia's. "If the Russian blackmail with radiation continues, this summer may go down in the history of various European nations as one of the most tragic of all time. Because no nuclear power station anywhere in the world has a procedure for a terrorist state turning a nuclear power plant into a target," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address Friday evening. Continuing the mutual blame game, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of shelling the complex, risking a nuclear catastrophe.

Ukraine's nuclear power operator said on Friday it suspected Moscow was planning to switch over the Zaporizhzhia plant to Russia's power grid, a complex operation Kyiv says could cause a disaster. The power station is held by Russian troops on the bank of a reservoir. Ukrainian forces control the opposite bank. Moscow has rejected international calls to demilitarize the plant and Putin on Friday renewed his accusation that Kyiv was shelling it in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to the Kremlin's readout. Macron's office said Putin agreed to a mission to Zaporizhzhia by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Thousands of people have been killed and millions forced to flee since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24, saying it aimed to demilitarize Ukraine and protect Russian speakers on what Putin called historical Russian land.

Ukraine and Western countries view it as a war of conquest aimed at wiping out Ukraine's national identity.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/blasts-drone-attacks-rock-russian-held-areas-far-from-ukraine-war-front/?feed_id=13660&_unique_id=6301aac42124e

Women at war: Life on eastern Ukraine's front lines

Kateryna never takes pictures with comrades before going to the front line — it's bad luck. Karina does not tell her mother she is going to the front. Iana uses social media to try and raise the morale at home.

On another day of war in eastern Ukraine, the three are resting with their unit in a village before another rotation.

They agree to talk about their lives on the front line of a war they were not expecting, which has lasted more than five months — and felt like years.

Kateryna Novakivska, 29, is deputy commander of a unit in the Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine where fighting is raging.

The 29-year-old comes from Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, and had just graduated from an army academy when the war broke out. Her role is to provide the troops with moral and psychological support.

After speaking about the "satisfactory" morale among soldiers and the justness of Ukraine's cause, she talks more personally about life on the front.

"The hardest thing for them is losing comrades," she said.

For Kateryna, it is being able to distance herself from the soldiers' horrific stories.

"They talk more easily with me because there are a lot of things that they cannot tell their loved ones," she said.

Their biggest fear is being left behind on the battlefield — dead or wounded.

She remembers one day, May 28, when 11 soldiers were killed and around 20 went missing. In the chaos of war, some troops disappear and nobody knows what has happened to them.

Kateryna's own greatest fear is being kidnapped by Russian soldiers, though she said she has "planned for everything."

She has a small scar on her nose — left by an explosion in March.

The lotus flower tattoo on her forearm is a memory from her time in Volnovakha in 2017 — a town now in Russian-occupied territory that Kateryna said "no longer exists."

'Keeping up morale'

On social media, Iana Pazdrii plays on the stereotypes of being a soldier, showing off her perfectly manicured nails as she drives an armoured vehicle or clutches a Kalashnikov.

The 35-year-old has been fighting since the start of the invasion in Ukraine and, like all her comrades, has not seen her child for five months.

"I volunteered because I am a patriot and I felt I could be useful here and I am," said Iana, who speaks of the army as "a family."

Whenever she has time, she posts little glimpses of military life on Instagram or TikTok.

"Some soldiers have to live on 'line zero' under shelling," she said, using a term frequently used in Ukraine for the front line.

"I try to show that we are keeping up morale despite everything, to tell people not to be afraid and that the army is doing everything to defend the country.

"But to be honest, it's hard sometimes."

Dozens of soldiers are killed every day on Ukraine's eastern front, where Russian forces made major advances in May and June, taking over almost the whole of the Lugansk region.

Since then, the front line has moved little, but ruthless artillery battles between the two sides have intensified.

'Line zero'

Karina, a former textile worker of Tajik origin who signed up to the army in 2020 on a two-year contract, drives her armoured vehicle back and forth from the front line.

"When we are in position, it's hard thinking about fellow soldiers, hoping that nobody will be killed or wounded, that you yourself will not come under attack," said the young woman, who is also a mechanic.

Her husband is anxiously waiting for her at home — but she said "nobody tells me what to do."

When Karina calls her mother, she said: "I don't tell her I'm at line zero and she pretends to believe me."

Karina has no illusions — she does not think the war will be over soon.

"The Russians have already taken a lot of territory" in Ukraine, she said.

Her sister-in-arms Iana insisted there was no option but victory. 

"Whatever happens, we will win. We do not have the right to lose," she said. 

After the war, Iana wants to travel to the Caribbean and South America.

"I need to fulfil my dreams. I think I deserve it," she smiled.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/women-at-war-life-on-eastern-ukraines-front-lines/?feed_id=4439&_unique_id=62e59796d1e27