WAR IN UKRAINE: Sept 3, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 192
Russian forces have suffered heavy losses during a Ukrainian offensive aimed at recapturing territory in the southern region of Kherson, Ukraine’s military said on Friday. “The enemy suffers quite significant losses,” a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military in the south said. “We continue to destroy the enemy in terms of its logistics, capabilities, capacities.” Ukraine’s attacks have degraded the Russian army’s logistics networks to such an extent that calling up reserve forces has become impossible, she said. Separately, Ukraine said it bombed a Russian base in the town of Energodar on Friday, near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Russian and Russian-affiliated forces have been forcibly transferring Ukrainian civilians, including those fleeing hostilities, to the Russian Federation or areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Sept. 1. It documents the transfers of Ukrainian civilians which HRW regards as a serious violation of the laws of war that constitute war crimes and potential crimes against humanity. Russian and Russian-affiliated authorities also subjected thousands of Ukrainian citizens to a form of compulsory, punitive, and abusive security screening called “filtration.” “Ukrainian civilians should not be left with no choice but to go to Russia,” said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. “And no one should be forced to undergo an abusive screening process to reach safety.” Read the full HRW report here
Russia’s Gazprom says it won't resume gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. The pipeline, which transports has from Russia to Europe was due to reopen on Saturday after three days of maintenance. Gazprom has blamed an oil leak and the inability to have it repaired on western sanctions. It looks like we weren’t off base calling Moscow’s actions as the weaponization of energy. "There are no technical reserves, only one turbine is working," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "So the reliability of the operation, of the whole system, is at risk," he said, adding that it was "not through the fault" of Russian energy giant Gazprom. A few weeks back, Canada, under pressure from Germany, tinkered with its own sanctions to return five turbines used in the pipeline. The controversial move backfired after it refused to accept the first turbine. To me, this looks like Canada and its allies have been hoodwinked once again by Russia
WSJ: Ukraine claims Russia transporting weapons to Black Sea ports using cargo ships. Ukraine requested Turkey to take action against four Russian cargo ships allegedly delivering military equipment from a Russian base in Syria through the Bosporus on to the Black Sea ports in support of Russia's war effort. On Aug. 27, Ukraine made a formal request to Turkey after it learned that a Russian freighter brought an S-300 anti-air system to Russia's Novorossiysk port through Turkish-controlled straits - Kyiv Independent
Russian army recruiters in St Petersburg have tried to persuade homeless men to sign up as soldiers to fight in Ukraine as they struggle to boost the military's manpower, writes the Telegraph’s James Kilner. The Nochlezhka charity said officials had targeted its homeless shelters in a central district of the city. “(A recruiter) offered to hand out leaflets explaining that men were to be called to serve under contracts,” the Rotunda news service quoted an unnamed source at Nochlezhka as saying. “The duty officer did not allow the leaflets to be handed out.”
Western anti-war hackers caused havoc on the roads of Moscow on Thursday when they targeted a taxi company and sent dozens of drivers to the same Hotel Ukraine pick-up address, writes the Telegraph’s James Kilner. One video showed around 100 yellow cars working for Yandex Taxi all pulling over along the same busy road that runs past the Hotel Ukraine, jamming up the lanes. “Drivers spent about 40 minutes in traffic due to fake orders,” a spokesman for Yandex Taxi said. “The algorithm for detecting and preventing such attacks has already been improved to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
