WAR IN UKRAINE: August 16, 2022
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 174
CRIMEA BLASTS: Fire and explosions reported at an ammunition depot in occupied Crimea, with two people reportedly injured. A railway line has also been damaged. According to Crimea Inform, a fire broke out at a transformer substation, and some ammunition detonated at a depot in the village of Maiske. About 2,000 people are reportedly being evacuated. In all, three separate explosions were recorded today in Crimea.
An advisor to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs posted a video on Twitter showing large columns of smoke and flames. On Facebook, the head of the Mejlis of the Crimea Tartar people, Refat Chubarov, wrote that the explosions were caused by a strike from the Ukrainian side. Russian officials said a fire triggered the blasts in the Dzhankoi area - before later blaming "sabotage".
Speculation has now turned to whether pro-Ukrainian sympathisers or western-trained special forces are causing the chaos in Crimea. Last week Russian warplanes were destroyed in an apparent Ukrainian attack on the Crimean coast.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said that despite the unlikelihood of Russia occupying the whole Donbas region, Kremlin proxies are reported by Russian media to be planning to announce a staged referendum in the occupied territories of Donetsk Oblast to "legitimize" Russian occupation of Ukrainian territories. Meanwhile Belarus activists report that Russia is amassing significant forces in Belarus for massive missile attack on Ukraine - Kyiv Independent
In televised remarks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. of prolonging the conflict in Ukraine and for fueling conflicts elsewhere in the world, such as Taiwan. He’s also offered to send advanced weapons to his allies. At an arms expo he boasted about the quality of Russian weapons.
A Washington Post article details (see below) shines new light on preparations taken in western capitals in the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. It says Washington struggled to convince allies and Zelensky that an invasion was coming. It claims previously unreported details and reports on Russian plans to takeover Kyiv, kill the president and move westward. Read the full deep read here
Russian authorities are further clamping down on local residents in the largely occupied southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, conducting house-to-house searches and requiring people to get Russian driver's licenses and even Russian passports in order to work, a Ukrainian official said. The comments by Yuriy Sobolevskiy, a top official on the Kherson Regional Council, add to growing evidence of how Russian-imposed authorities are seeking to stamp out any dissent or public opposition ahead of a Moscow-orchestrated referendum that is widely expected in the coming weeks. Kherson residents are now required to acquire Russian passports in the occupied region to work, drive, and receive financial benefits - RFE/RL
A Russian-backed court in eastern Ukraine’s charged five foreign nationals captured fighting with Ukrainian forces with being mercenaries on Monday, saying three could face the death penalty, Russian media reported. Briton John Harding, Croatian Vjekoslav Prebeg and Swedish citizen Mathias Gustafsson, who were captured in and around the port city of Mariupol, face a possible death sentence under the laws of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported.
Forty-two countries from around the world have signed a statement urging Russia to withdraw its armed forces from Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, saying their presence poses "a great danger." Russian forces have been reported to be firing from the plant and parking weaponry and ammunition in dangerous proximity. Ukrainian staff at the plant are also reported to be under enormous stress as they’re being harassed by Russian soldiers.
Increasingly, the charge of spreading ‘false information’ in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine is being instrumentalized for the purposes of silencing dissenting voices in Russia. Over the last few weeks, a considerable number of new cases of judicial persecution have been brought forward. Marina Ovsyannikova, former producer at Pervyi Channel, has been charged with ‘dissemination of false information about the Russian armed forces’ and faces up to ten years imprisonment for a single-person picket she organized in front of the Kremlin on 15 July. Earlier, Fortanga’s editor-in-chief and journalist Isabella Evloyeva faced a criminal charge for a similar offence of ‘dissemination of false information’ based on her posts on Fortanga’s Telegram channel about the losses of the Russian army and the bombardment of a shopping mall in Kremenchuk. Furthermore, administrative fines continue to be used to financially undermine media outlets and journalists.
Required reading…
As efforts for Russian “liberation” of Ukraine intensify, Ukrainians are disappearing. Whether by Russian-state orchestrated, forced adoptions of Ukrainian orphans or through Russian “filtration” camps in occupied Ukrainian territories, Ukrainians are trying to locate their disappeared relatives of all ages.
The Biden administration called on Russia to release an estimated 90,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian civilians detained, then deported to Russia - a war crime. Ukrainian children, especially orphans, remain particularly vulnerable. Estimates from the Ukrainian government suggest more than 200,000 children have been sent to Russia. Ukraine reports having brought back only 46 of them.
The Russian government introduced legislation to expedite Russian adoptions of these Ukrainian children, raising concerns they might never return to Ukraine. The U.K. government applied sanctions against Russian leadership specifically for “barbaric treatment of children in Ukraine” when 2,000 Ukrainian children were reportedly takenfrom Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donestk regions to Russia.
Forced deportations and adoptions continue, as the Ukrainian government warned this week that Russian military forces are orchestrating another deportation from Luhansk. Innocent casualties of war, Ukrainians continue to face genocide, displacement, deportation and forced reeducation which Russia frames as liberation and embrace.
- Thea Dunlevie