WAR IN UKRAINE: August 14, 2022

*The Russian news agency, RIA, publishes photos such as this one from occupied Mariupol to show that “life is getting better;” they say, people are waiting for the bus.*

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 172

Ukrainian forces appear closer than ever to encircling occupied Kherson and regaining the key city in the right bank of the Dnipro River. An ammunition dump is said to have been hit by the Ukrainians.
Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Michael Patra said that, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, an Indian vessel has taken oil from a Russian tanker on the high seas and brought it to a port in Gujarat. There, the crude oil was processed and shipped to the U.S. in violation of Western sanctions, the Treasury Department said - Kyiv Independent
According to Ukrainian media outlets, Russian "journalists" from the Izvestia publication were detained in Estonia, who filmed a propaganda story in the country. Their visas were canceled and they were banned from entering the European Union for three years. And on one of the mainline Russian state-controlled TV channels, an ‘expert’ called upon more bombs to rain down on Kyiv saying the residents there are enjoying a too peaceful summer.
In the Finnish town of Lappeenranta, located near the border with Russia, the national anthem of Ukraine will be played every day at 19.30. In this way, the town wants to show its support for the Ukrainians. “I believe that the national anthem creates a sense of unity and unites the Ukrainians living here, as well as other residents of Lappeenranta,” Mayor Kimmo Järva said. The national anthem of Ukraine will sound from the roof of the city theater in the Iso-Kristiina shopping center. In addition, in Lappeenranta, the Ukrainian flag is now raised on the flagpole in front of the city hall and in the port. Finland and Estonia urge EU to stop issuing tourist visas to Russians.
The head of the Office of the President of #Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak, believes that the occupiers are shelling the Zaporizhiya nuclear power plant in order to cut off electricity to the south of Ukraine. “Why would Russia fire at itself at the ZMPP,” he said in a Tweet.
Russian oil flows to the Czech Republic through the Druzhba pipeline resumed on August 12 after more than a week, Czech pipeline operator said.
Slovakia has reportedly announced that they will ground their MiG-29 fighter jets next month and donate them to Ukraine.

Required reading…

"On Tuesday, Ukraine conducted its most daring strike since it sank the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva," writes the Atlantic Council's Doug Klain in The Bulwark.

The strike shows that Ukraine is prosecuting its defensive war effectively, making smart use of the tools at its disposal to stage daring and well-executed attacks on Russian forces.

But the big story in recent weeks has been Ukraine’s game-changing deployment of Western-supplied high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) to strike deep behind enemy lines and knock out dozens of key Russian targets such as ammunition depots and command posts.