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ukrainenews · 1 year

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Daily Wrap Up March 2, 2023

Under the cut:

Russian forces continue to press their offensive in the Bakhmut area as Ukrainian forces try to repel ongoing attacks near the key eastern town and nearby areas in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said in an evening update on Thursday.

The US is announcing three new partnerships Thursday in an effort to boost Ukraine’s agricultural sector and help supply the country’s grain to the world

A network of at least 20 torture chambers in the recently liberated southern Ukrainian region of Kherson was "planned and directly financed by the Russian State," war crimes investigators said on Thursday, citing new evidence. The Mobile Justice Team, funded by Britain, the EU and the United States, has been working with Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors across Ukraine and in Kherson since it was reclaimed from Russian forces in November after more than eight months of occupation.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, spoke for less than 10 minutes on the margins of the G20 meeting in New Delhi today, according to a US state department official. Blinken reiterated to Lavrov that Washington was prepared to support Ukraine’s defence for as long as it takes, the official said, in what is believed to be their first one-on-one conversation in person since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian attacks were reported in Donetsk, Kherson, Poltava, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Luhansk oblasts in the east, south, center, and north of Ukraine. According to local authorities, five people were killed, and 24 were wounded in the past 24 hours. Russia conducted an air strike on Zaporizhzhia overnight on March 2, heavily damaging a residential building, Acting Mayor of Zaporizhzhia Anatoly Kurtev wrote on Telegram.

“Russian forces continue to press their offensive in the Bakhmut area as Ukrainian forces try to repel ongoing attacks near the key eastern town and nearby areas in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said in an evening update on Thursday.

“They are assaulting the town of Bakhmut,” the General Staff said, echoing an earlier update suggesting Russian presence within the city and not just on the outskirts. CNN reported earlier Thursday that an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) also says Russian forces “advanced within Bakhmut and continued ground attacks around the city.”

Over the last 24 hours, Russian forces launched rocket attacks on the cities of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, located just five kilometers (about three miles) west of Bakhmut, and Zaporizhzhia, the General Staff said.

“The threat of further missile strikes remains high throughout Ukraine,” the Ukrainian military said.

There were unsuccessful Russian offensive attempts in the Kupyansk and Lyman directions, it added.

In the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions, Russian forces continue “to try to create conditions for an offensive” and have fired artillery at more than 40 settlement areas, it said.

Ukraine also responded with 13 strikes over the past day in areas where Russia has personnel and military equipment, the General Staff said, adding that the missile and artillery units hit one Russian ammunition depot.”-via CNN

“The US is announcing three new partnerships Thursday in an effort to boost Ukraine’s agricultural sector and help supply the country’s grain to the world, USAID officials told CNN.

The announcement is part of a deliberate effort by the Biden administration to build up Ukraine’s economy and alleviate the global food security crisis which has been exacerbated following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is regarded as a key bread-basket for much of the world, and the country relies on agriculture to generates more than 40% of total export revenues. The country’s economy shrank by more than 30% in 2022 after Russia’s brutal invasion destroyed infrastructure, hurt businesses and disrupted daily life, according to Kyiv’s economic ministry.

USAID’s new partnerships with Grain Alliance, Kernel, and Nibulon are projected to increase Ukraine’s grain shipping capacity by more than 3 million tons annually, the officials said. Each company has a long history of working in Ukraine.

Working together USAID and these organizations are planning to invest $44 million to support storage and infrastructure expansion in Ukraine’s agriculture sector.

This comes after USAID has announced multiple different initiatives to support Ukraine’s agriculture sector, including programs to specifically target Ukrainian farmers.

A Black Sea Grain deal has also enabled the passage of Ukrainian ships carrying the agriculture products to depart the country, which was a challenge in the early days of the war with Russia preventing the ships from leaving.

The new investments that USAID and its partners are announcing this week will target multiple terminals — Izmail and Reni in Ukraine, both on the Danube, and Čierna nad Tisou in Slovakia— where they expect to see an increase in grain exports. The operations will involve construction to renovate the areas where vessels are loaded.”-via CNN

WARNING: Discussion and description of torture.

“A network of at least 20 torture chambers in the recently liberated southern Ukrainian region of Kherson was "planned and directly financed by the Russian State," war crimes investigators said on Thursday, citing new evidence.

The Mobile Justice Team, funded by Britain, the EU and the United States, has been working with Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors across Ukraine and in Kherson since it was reclaimed from Russian forces in November after more than eight months of occupation.

The Kremlin press office did not respond to a request for comment.

Reuters reported on the scale of torture chambers in Kherson in January, when Ukrainian authorities said around 200 people had allegedly been tortured at 10 locations. Survivors told Reuters about being tortured, including electric shocks and suffocation techniques.

Moscow, which has said it is conducting a "special military operation" in Ukraine, has denied committing war crimes or targeting civilians.

The mobile team, established in May 2022 by the Global Rights Compliance humanitarian law firm and backed by international experts, is supporting Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General as it reviews more than 71,000 reports of war crimes nationwide since the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion.

"New evidence collected from recently liberated Kherson reveals torture chambers were planned and directly financed by the Russian State," the team, established by British attorney Wayne Jordash, said in a statement.

Witnesses described the use of electric shock torture and waterboarding by Russian forces. At least 1,000 torture chamber survivors have submitted evidence to investigators and more than 400 people had been reported as missing from Kherson, it said.

Funding a network of torture facilities was part of a Russian state plan to "subjugate, re-educate or kill Ukrainian civic leaders and ordinary dissenters," the team said.

Torture centres were operated by different Russian security agencies, including the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB), local Kherson FSB and the Russian Prison Service, it said.

Reuters was unable to verify the allegations.

An investigation is also underway by the International Criminal Court, part of a both domestic and international efforts to hold those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide across Ukraine to account.”-via Reuters

Here’s an article from CNN as well, with first hand accounts from people who were captured and put in the torture chambers.

“The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, spoke for less than 10 minutes on the margins of the G20 meeting in New Delhi today, according to a US state department official.

Blinken reiterated to Lavrov that Washington was prepared to support Ukraine’s defence for as long as it takes, the official said, in what is believed to be their first one-on-one conversation in person since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Blinken also called for Moscow to reverse its decision to suspend participation in the New Start nuclear treaty and to release detained US citizen, Paul Whelan.

The official said:

The secretary saw the purpose of this was to deliver these three direct messages, which we see as advancing our interests.

We always remain hopeful that the Russians will reverse their decision and be prepared to engage in a diplomatic process that can lead to a just and durable peace, but I wouldn’t say that coming out of this encounter there was any expectation that things will change in the near term.

Lavrov did not mention the meeting during a news conference he gave after Thursday’s G20 foreign ministers’ meeting.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, confirmed the meeting took place, telling CNN:

“Blinken asked for contact with Lavrov. On the go, as part of the second session of the [G20], Sergey Viktorovich [Lavrov] talked. There were no negotiations, meetings, etc.”-via The Guardian

“Russian attacks were reported in Donetsk, Kherson, Poltava, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Luhansk oblasts in the east, south, center, and north of Ukraine.

According to local authorities, five people were killed, and 24 were wounded in the past 24 hours.

Russia conducted an air strike on Zaporizhzhia overnight on March 2, heavily damaging a residential building, Acting Mayor of Zaporizhzhia Anatoly Kurtev wrote on Telegram.

Four people were killed in the attack, and at least eight were injured, according to Prosecutor General's Office. The rescue operation is still ongoing.

Zaporizhzhia regional state administration reported that civilian infrastructure in 14 settlements in Zaporizhzhia Oblast was under Russian fire. Local authorities received 27 reports about damage to citizens' households and infrastructure sites due to Russian attacks.

Russian attacks killed one civilian in Bakhmut and injured five more in Donetsk Oblast, said Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Russia hit 18 settlements and two communities in the region, damaging houses, an administrative building, a shop, and a church, according to Kyrylenko.

Russian troops fired almost 500 projectiles on Kherson Oblast using multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), mortars, tanks, drones, and artillery, according to Kherson Oblast Military Administration.

The attacks wounded 11 civilians in the region, including a 1-year-old child, and damaged houses and apartment buildings in the city of Kherson, the administration wrote.

A Russian missile strike hit civilian areas, including critical infrastructure, in the city of Kremenchuk, Ukraine's central Poltava Oblast, on March 1, the oblast governor Dmytro Lunin reported. There were no casualties, he confirmed later.

Russian troops hit more than seven settlements in Kharkiv Oblast with artillery, MLRS, mortars, and drones, said Oleh Syniehubov, the oblast governor. The attacks damaged houses, outbuildings, and an administrative building, but there were no casualties.

In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Russian forces attacked the communities of Nikopol and Chervonohryhorivka overnight, damaging power lines, private enterprises, eight high-rises, a few shops, and other infrastructure. No casualties were reported, according to Governor Serhii Lysak.

Russian troops shelled the Kutsurub community on the Black Sea coast in Mykolaiv Oblast with MLRS on March 1, said Vitalii Kim, the oblast governor. No casualties were reported.

Overnight and earlier on March 1, Russian troops used artillery and mortars to strike nine communities in Sumy Oblast bordering Russia, the regional military administration reported. The attacks damaged a residential building and a power line, according to the administration.

Russia struck eight settlements in Luhansk Oblast with artillery over the past 24 hours, the regional state administration wrote. It didn't provide information on casualties or damage.

In Chernihiv Oblast, Russian troops hit the settlements of Yeline and Berylivka close to the Russsia-Ukraine border, according to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces. It didn't provide information on casualties or damage.”-via Kyiv Independent

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #Bakhmut #Dnipropetrovsk #US #Kherson

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ukrainenews · 1 year

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Daily(ish) Wrap Up December 23, 2022-January 1, 2023

Under the cut:

Ukrainians faced a grim start to 2023 as Sunday brought more Russian missile and drone attacks following a blistering New Year’s Eve assault that killed at least three civilians across the country, authorities reported.

Both Ukraine and Russia reported an exchange of prisoners of war on Saturday. Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said 140 prisoners of war had been released — including those from Mariupol and Snake Island.

Russia has been targeting Ukraine's critical infrastructure in a series of drone attacks early on Monday on Kyiv and the region surrounding it, officials said. Russia kept pounding Kyiv for the second night in a row, after firing a barrage of missiles over the capital on New Year's Eve night and earlier in the day. Ukraine's regional military command in the country's east said air defence systems destroyed nine Iranian-made Shahed drones over the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 12 cruise missiles after Russian forces launched more than 20 from land and sea Saturday, according to Ukraine's military.

“Ukrainians faced a grim start to 2023 as Sunday brought more Russian missile and drone attacks following a blistering New Year’s Eve assault that killed at least three civilians across the country, authorities reported.

Air raid sirens sounded in the capital shortly after midnight, followed by a barrage of missiles that interrupted the small celebrations residents held at home due to wartime curfews. Ukrainian officials alleged Moscow was deliberately targeting civilians along with critical infrastructure to create a climate of fear and destroy morale during the long winter months.

In a video address Sunday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised his citizens’ “sense of unity, of authenticity, of life itself.” The Russians, he said, “will not take away a single year from Ukraine. They will not take away our independence. We will not give them anything.”

Ukrainian forces in the air and on the ground shot down 45 Iranian-made explosive drones fired by Russia on Saturday night and before dawn Sunday, Zelenskyy said.

Another strike at noon Sunday in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed one person, according to the head of the regional military administration, Alexander Starukh. But Kyiv was largely quiet, and people there on New Year’s Day savored the snippets of peace.

“Of course it was hard to celebrate fully because we understand that our soldiers can’t be with their family,” Evheniya Shulzhenko said while sitting with her husband on a park bench overlooking the city.

But a “really powerful” New Year’s Eve speech by Zelenskyy lifted her spirits and made her proud to be Ukrainian, Shulzhenko said. She recently moved to Kyiv after living in Bakhmut and Kharkiv, two cities that have experienced some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night, wounding dozens. An AP photographer at the scene of an explosion in Kyiv saw a woman’s body as her husband and son stood nearby.

Ukraine’s largest university, the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, reported significant damage to its buildings and campus. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two schools were damaged, including a kindergarten.

The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities. Saturday’s unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials. Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October, increasing the suffering of Ukrainians, while its ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance.

Nighttime shelling in parts of the southern city of Kherson killed one person and blew out hundreds of windows in a children’s hospital, according to deputy presidential chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Ukrainian forces reclaimed the city in November after Russia’s forces withdrew across the Dnieper River, which bisects the Kherson region.

When shells hit the children’s hospital on Saturday night, surgeons were operating on a 13-year-old boy who was seriously wounded in a nearby village that evening, Kherson Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said. The boy was transferred in serious condition to a hospital about 99 kilometers (62 miles) away in Mykolaiv.

Elsewhere, a 22-year-old woman died of wounds from a Saturday rocket attack Saturday in the eastern town of Khmelnytskyi, the city’s mayor said.

Instead of New Year’s fireworks, Oleksander Dugyn said he and his friends and family in Kyiv watched the sparks caused by Ukrainian air defense forces countering Russian attacks.

“We already know the sound of rockets, we know the moment they fly, we know the sound of drones. The sound is like the roar of a moped,” said Dugin, who was strolling with his family in the park. “We hold on the best we can.”

While Russia’s bombardments have left many Ukrainians without heating and electricity due to damage or controlled blackouts meant to preserve the remaining power supply, Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator said Sunday there would be no restrictions on electricity use for one day.

“The power industry is doing everything possible to ensure that the New Year’s holiday is with light, without restrictions,” utility company Ukrenergo said.

It said businesses and industry had cut back to allow the additional electricity for households.

Zelenskyy, in his nightly address, thanked utility workers for helping to keep the lights on during the latest assault. “It is very important how all Ukrainians recharged their inner energy this New Year’s Eve,” he said.”-via The Associated Press via WSAZ

“Both Ukraine and Russia reported an exchange of prisoners of war on Saturday.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said 140 prisoners of war had been released — including those from Mariupol and Snake Island.

“On the New Year Eve we not only repel enemy missile attacks, but also return our people home. This is another big exchange that we managed to carry out — 140 people are returning home. Among them are the wounded, as well as the defenders of Mariupol, Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, volunteers of territorial defense from Slavutych, fathers and sons who were in captivity together, as well as ours from Bakhmut direction,” Yermak said in a post on Telegram. This is the 35th such exchange of the war, according to the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

The agency said 1,596 people — including both military personnel and civilians — have been released from Russian captivity through negotiations. That includes 187 women freed since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, according to the officials.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said 82 servicemen had been returned.

“The liberated personnel will be delivered to Moscow by military transport airplanes for further treatment and rehabilitation at healthcare facilities of Russian Defence Ministry,” the statement said.”-via CNN

“Russia has been targeting Ukraine's critical infrastructure in a series of drone attacks early on Monday on Kyiv and the region surrounding it, officials said.

Russia kept pounding Kyiv for the second night in a row, after firing a barrage of missiles over the capital on New Year's Eve night and earlier in the day.

"It is loud in the region and in the capital: night drone attacks," Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said on the Telegram messaging app.

"Russians launched several waves of (Iranian-made) Shahed drones. Targeting critical infrastructure facilities. Air defence is at work."

By 3 a.m. local time (0100 GMT), Ukraine's air defence systems destroyed 16 air objects above Kyiv, the city's military administration said. Air raid sirens were wailing by that time for more than three hours.

Earlier in the night, debris from a destroyed drone over Kyiv hit the capital's northeastern district, wounding one, the city's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

A 19-year-old man was taken to a hospital in Kyiv's Desnianskiy district, Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, after drone debris hit a road there and damaged a building.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the information.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Ukrainian presidential aide, said drone debris hit a road in the Desnianskiy district, in Kyiv's northeast, damaging a building next to it.

The district, located on the left bank of the Dnipro River, is chiefly a residential area and the capital's most populous district.

Ukraine's regional military command in the country's east said air defence systems destroyed nine Iranian-made Shahed drones over the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions by early hours of Monday.”-via Reuters

“Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 12 cruise missiles after Russian forces launched more than 20 from land and sea Saturday, according to Ukraine's military.

Moscow's forces attacked using Tu-95MS bomber planes over the Caspian Sea, and with Iskander-M missile systems from the ground, the Ukrainian Air Force Command wrote on Telegram.

“According to preliminary data, about 20 missiles were launched in total. Several of them did not reach Ukraine and fell on the territory of Russia (information is being clarified),” the statement said.

Air defenses shot down missiles over several Ukrainian regions, according to Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's military.

“The forces and means of our air defense destroyed 12 cruise missiles: 6 within Kyiv, 5 in Zhytomyr and 1 in Khmelnytskyi regions,” Zaluzhnyi said in a message on Telegram.

Ukrainian defenses also shot down an enemy drone, "which was conducting aerial reconnaissance during a missile attack and trying to identify the positions of our air defense,” the Air Force Command said.”-via CNN

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #Kyiv #Dnipropetrovsk #Zaporizhzhia #Mariupol

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