WAR IN UKRAINE: Aug 6, 2022
Vladimir Putin (right) greets Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Sochi on Friday. Photograph: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/AP
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 164
Russian President Vladimir Putin has met Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for talks expected to focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine and that are being rumoured to include Kremlin efforts to circumvent western sanctions, The Guardian reported. Reports have warned that the meeting in the Russian resort city of Sochi may serve an ulterior motive. A Ukrainian government report described by the Washington Post said Putin would seek Russian stakes in Turkish oil refineries, terminals and reservoirs in order to help disguise the origin of Russian oil exports ahead of a planned EU oil embargo. The newspaper also reported that Russia could seek correspondent accounts for large Russian banks to circumvent financial sanctions. Separately, a top aide to Erdogan was quoted by Reuters as saying the international community cannot end the war in Ukraine by ignoring Moscow. "The truth is that some of our friends do not want the war to end. They are shedding crocodile tears..The international community cannot end the war in Ukraine by ignoring Russia. Diplomacy and peace must prevail," he said.
Russian forces at Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine are employing "terror tactics" by using the site to launch rocket attacks on civilians, the BBC has been told. On Friday, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of hitting at least one of the plant's power lines. The plant is near Zaporyzhzhia on land currently occupied by Russia. Moscow stands accused of risking a huge disaster by parking ammunition and artillery in one of the turbine rooms and forcing staff to obey Russian orders. In its daily intelligence update, the UK defence ministry said Russia was using the area to launch attacks - taking advantage of the "protected status" of the nuclear power plant to reduce the risk of overnight attacks from Ukrainian forces, BBC reported
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has said Ottawa had “no specific information” about threats targeting locally-engaged staff working at the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv prior to the start of the war on Feb. 24. According to a Globe and Mail report, Joly’s department decided to withhold the information from Ukrainian staff while evacuated Canadian diplomats. Global Affairs Canada is also accused of rejecting a request from Ukrainian staff to temporarily re-located to safer ground such as Lviv or Poland. The allegations, in my opinion, are consistent with the Trudeau Government’s bungling of its response to the Ukraine war - from being late to answer Ukrainian requests for lethal weaponry to tinkering with its own sanctions in order to return a repaired generator for Russia’s Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Wrote Sabrina Maddeaux in The National Post: “There really should be no scenario in which Joly can in good conscience keep her job. Ideally, she should step down so someone more capable can lead the way. “
The Russian warship Vasily Bykov was reportedly destroyed by Ukrainian forces near Sevastopol on Friday morning. Twenty sailors are said to be missing
The Turkish bulk carrier Ospreys, under the flag of Liberia, is heading to the port of Chornomorsk to pick up Ukrainian grain on August 5. This will be the first vessel not among those that have been trapped in Ukrainian ports since February 24.
Turkish Airlines has received two more A350-900s that were initially destined to enter Aeroflot's fleet. They join the first two that arrived in July, with two more still to materialize. With sanctions on Russia unlikely to be removed soon, Aeroflot didn't need the aircraft, so they were taken up by Turkish Airlines instead. However, they remain in Aeroflot's configuration and interior colors and are in a partial livery. Despite causing further product and brand inconsistency, it's unclear how long they'll remain like that - Simple Flying
On my first visit to Lechakiv Cemetery in Lviv, I discovered that the section outside its walls dedicated for fallen Ukrainian soldiers has more than doubled in size…
Required reading..
Oxford Analytica: Ukraine reconstruction needs money and tough oversight
The Ukrainian authorities have made their first pitch for an immense rebuilding programme. Although conflict in Ukraine continues, future reconstruction is already being discussed, most recently at an international conference in Switzerland in early July. The Lugano conference was an important launch-pad for efforts to mobilise international support. The Ukrainian government presented a Recovery and Development Plan, a lengthy but still sketchy outline of possible reconstruction activity. Estimates of its cost vary from USD500bn to USD1.1tn; the plan puts the figure in the middle at USD750bn.
What next
Much needs to be done to bring structure to plans currently short on definition, and clarify the competing priorities of purely physical infrastructure, robust institution-building and human capital: education, employment and the like. Funding arrangements, the balance between state grants and private investment, and above all oversight mechanisms in a notoriously corrupt state must also be fleshed out. Realistically, there are constraints on what work can start as long as Russia is destroying more infrastructure.