Ukrainian artillery would have centered the headquarters of the Russian mercenary group Wagner Battalion at Popasna in the self-proclaimed Lugansk Republic in Russian-force-controlled Donbass. This was revealed by official local sources and also pro-Russian sources cited by the BBC, but they do not comment on the victims of the attack or provide any further details for the time being.
The Wagner paramilitary group is believed to be linked to the Kremlin – but denies it – and also operates in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and now Mali and faces charges of war crimes and human rights abuses.
According to the announcement of Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin – reports the Kyiv Independent – the Russian armed forces carried out over 22,000 attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine and about 300 on military targets since the invasion began on February 24. Yenin specified that “everything can be targeted”: from infrastructure to shopping malls, from schools to the country’s cultural heritage sites.
Attacks by the Moscow Armed Forces continue: yesterday after new bombings, three civilians died and another 13 Spno were injured in the Donetsk region, the head of the regional military administration Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Telegram. Five other civilians were injured this morning after a bomb attack by Russian forces in the Saltivsky district of the city of Kharkiv.
According to British intelligence, Moscow is now at an advanced stage of planning to hold a referendum in the self-proclaimed republic
from Donetsk (Dpr) with the aim of annexing it to Russia.
The specter of Chernobyl lights up Zaporizhia. While rockets and grenades are raining all around, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accuses the Russians of nuclear extortionto keep barricading and shooting out of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and turning it into a protective shield. According to Kyiv, Moscow’s troops west of the Dnipro are in trouble because they are cut off, while the new Western weapons being shipped to Kyiv are only slowing the already slow Russian advance for the time being.
“Every day the Russian contingent is on the territory of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and in the surrounding areas – said Zelenskyy at night in a usual video message on Telegram – the threat to Europe is increasing, as it never happened even at the height of the clash is Cold War”. “Any Russian soldier or anyone who shoots or shoots at the facility while shielding himself from the facility must know that he will become a special target of our intelligence agencies, our intelligence agencies of our army,” the Ukrainian leader warned.
THE Risks of a nuclear catastrophe, according to Energodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov, “they are growing day by day”, and the “most worrying thing is that there are no signs of de-escalation”. Kyiv has been demanding the demilitarization of the area of the large plant since March. And between Moscow and Kyiv, the ping-pong of allegations continues about who is shooting near the power plant, located in the town of Energodar, which was occupied by the Russians in the early stages of the war.
“According to residents, there are new bombings in the direction of the power plant,” said a manager of Ukraine’s Energoatom nuclear agency, urging civilians to “define their presence in Energodar,” the object of “provocations by Russia,” which intends to stop its attacks Attributable to false flag of Ukrainian army. According to Energoatom, “as of 8:00 a.m. on August 14, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is operating with the risk of violating radiation and fire safety standards,” the report said. “Risks of hydrogen leakage and the spread of radioactive substances remain and the risk of fire is also high “The repeated bomb attacks would have damaged a pumping unit,” according to the plant fire brigade.
Moscow is inviting the IAEA, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, to tour the facility “late August or early September,” although — he stresses — “not everything is up to us.”
Meanwhile, Kyiv claims that the Russian command in the southern region Kherson crossed the Dnipro River to reach the east bank after repeated sniper bombardments damaged and disabled three bridges. The troops are now in trouble, cut off from reinforcements and supplies, although their westward offensive has made some progress. And in the Northeast, three civilians were injured last night after Russian forces bombed the region’s town of Zmiiv Kharkiv.
According to British intelligence, Russian-backed forces in Donbass – particularly the militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic – have continued to attack from the north of the city of the same name. And an analysis by The New York Times shows that the long-awaited delivery of new western long-range missiles has allowed Ukrainian forces to slow down the advance of Russian troops in the east and south “at least for now”, but not to stop it: “The Russian Military machine still has enough power to continue.”