Prepared by Sofia Oliynyk, Maryana Zaviyska, Anna Dovha
Photo: Zelenskiy Official Telegram channel
Cities under attack.
On the night of August 19, the Russian occupiers shelled Mykolaiv. Three rockets hit the Black Sea National University, and the surrounding houses were damaged. Previously, one person was injured. An enterprise was also damaged in another district of the city. In the morning of the same day, the Russian invaders attacked Kharkiv. Three districts were under attack. As a result of the shelling, a residential building was hit. Previously, one person was injured. An infrastructure object was damaged.
On the night of August 20, the Russian army shelled 3 districts of Dnipropetrovsk region. A 36-year-old man died and a 12-year-old child was injured. The private houses, shops, liceum, bank, bus stop, gas piper and power line were damaged. On the morning of August 20, Russian troops fired missiles at Kharkiv. One person was killed. The building of one of the institutions of higher education, the building of a civil enterprise, and private houses were destroyed. During the day, the city of Voznesensk, Mykolaiv region, was under attack. A five-story building and private houses were hit. 9 people were injured, including 4 children. On the same day, the Russian army shelled four communities in the Sumy region.
On the evening of August 21, the Russian occupiers attacked the Zelenodol community of the Dnipropetrovsk region. As a result of the shelling, one person was killed. six people were injured, one of them a child. Residential buildings and a children’s sports school were damaged. At the same time, the Russian invaders fired on Kharkiv. One person was injured as a result of shelling. Odesa region is under the attack again over the weekend. Regardless of the grain deal, the attacks continue — Ukraine claims Russia’s recent attack hit a grain storage facility, while Russia (as always) claimed it struck an ammunition depot.
Cities under occupation.
As of August 17, 2022, 323 territorial communities are located in the areas of military (combat) operations, or are under temporary occupation, encirclement (blockade). This includes 9 regions — Donetsk (66), Kharkiv (56), Dnipropetrovsk (9), Luhansk (37), Zaporizhzhia (55), Kherson (49), Mykolaiv (25), Sumy (21), Chernihiv (5) regions.
Kherson region. In recent weeks, the Russian invaders have increased the scale of filtering measures in the Kherson region, the number of people abducted by the Russian military is increasing. The Russians put pressure on parents who do not send their children to study in Russia-captured schools with Russian curriculum. Families who refuse to send their children to such ‘education’ institutions are threatened with eviction and confiscation of property. As a warning, all parents who do not apply for the education of their children in ‘schools’ will be fined 148,000 rubles. Also, local entrepreneurs receive the letters with the requirement to register with the invaders tax service. The registration is required to be completed by September 1, otherwise if they will not pay taxes to the invaders, self-proclaimed authorities will introduce ‘administration’ for external management. In Nova Kakhovka, Russian invaders kidnapped two lyceum directors. The whereabouts of the women and their condition are unknown.
Luhansk. The occupying authorities pay 60 thousand rubles for information about the whereabouts of men of draft age. Also, the occupiers began to approach elderly people at the entrance to the building asking for information about men of draft age in exchange for food.
Mariupol. People began to receive text messages with the offer to join the so-called ‘armed forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic’. The Russian occupiers offer 200,000 rubles to join the ranks of the DPR army. An attempt was made on the collaborator Konstantin Ivashchenko’s life, whom the Russian occupiers appointed as the ‘mayor’ of the temporarily occupied city.
Zaporizhzhya region. A woman who was waiting to be evacuated to Zaporizhzhia died at a Russian checkpoint near the occupied Vasylivka due to the inhuman conditions that the Russian occupiers created at their checkpoints. In Melitopol the Russian occupiers staged a provocation by firing on civilians after an attack on their military base.
Human rights.
The European Union provided information to the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague as part of the case of Ukraine against Russia, in which Ukraine accuses the Russian Federation of planning acts of genocide during the war.
In temporarily occupied Crimea, a citizen of Ukraine was sentenced to 6 years in prison on charges of participation in the Crimean Tatar battalion.
A martyrology of all civilian victims of the Russian-Ukrainian war is being created in Ukraine. ‘Evidence of such a large number of victims will help us achieve justice: that the international community recognizes Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism,’ stated the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska.
Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion and as of August 18, the Russian military has committed 28 991 crimes of aggression and war crimes and 13,493 crimes against national security in Ukraine, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Reconstruction.
Ukraine and Eurocities, network of European cities, signed Memorandum of Understanding to support the sustainable rebuilding of Ukrainian cities. Under the Memorandum, Eurocities will rally together more than 200 of Europe’s large cities, standing in solidarity with fellow Ukrainian cities, for the implementation of reconstruction projects; pool and organize resources, including technical knowledge and expertise, best practices according to the requests for support from Ukrainian peers; provide assistance in identifying EU funding for the implementation of reconstruction projects, etc.
A joint taskforce comprising political representatives from Eurocities and Ukraine’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine will meet regularly to oversee the development and implementation of this collaboration initiative. The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities under the President of Ukraine, according to the Memorandum, will provide a list of the relevant critical reconstruction projects in Ukrainian cities destroyed during the Russian war; provide a convenient and transparent mechanism for financing reconstruction projects; promote the legislative initiatives needed to rebuild Ukrainian cities, etc.
Energy security.
Russia is preparing to disconnect the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP from Ukraine’s energy system in the near future. In this case, the station will remain without power for a certain period of time. The shutdown of all power units of the Zaporizhzhya NPP may lead to the development of the situation according to the ‘Fukushima scenario’, stated the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspection of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British PM Boris Johnson, and U.S. President Joe Biden affirmed their continued support for Ukraine during a phone call Sunday. The four leaders discussed the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, warning against military operations in the plant vicinity and underlining the importance of a visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency as soon as possible. The chairman of the special committee on defense of the House of Commons of Great Britain, Tobias Ellwood, stated that any deliberate damage causing potential radiation leak to a Ukrainian nuclear reactor would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5. A member of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, Adam Kinzinger, supported the British and noted that such actions of the Russian troops immediately affect the NATO charter.
The Russian invaders shelled the surveillance zone of Pivdennoukrainska NPP in Voznesensk, Mykolaiv region. The shelling of the surveillance zone of the Pivdennoukrainska nuclear power plant is an act of Russian nuclear terrorism.
Foreign policy.
French President Emmanuel Macron had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The president of France supported the speedy dispatch of IAEA experts under the terms agreed by Ukraine and the UN. And the President of the Russian Federation ‘reported his consent to the deployment of this mission and the specified methods’ — notes the Elysee Palace.
Cyprus and Greece oppose the ban on issuing visas to Russian tourists who wish to visit the EU , rejecting a call for such a ban by Ukraine.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called on Austria to declare Mykhailo Ulyanov, the ambassador of the Russian Federation in Vienna, persona non grata because of his calls for the elimination of the Ukrainian nation. ‘No mercy to the Ukrainian population,” the Russian ambassador wrote on his twitter account.
Food security.
On August 19, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited the port of Odesa and inspected the process of loading ships as part of the ‘grain initiative’. Also on Friday, the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) authorized the movement of two outbound vessels carrying a total of 31,000 metric tons of foodstuffs from Ukraine under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. This includes ZUMRUT ANA from the port of Chornomorsk carrying 6300 metric tons of sunflower oil heading to Venice, Italy and MV OCEAN S carrying from Chornomorsk carrying 25 000 metric tons of wheat to Marmara, Turkiye
Reading corner.
- EU support for Ukraine, the next six months | POLITICO — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is about to enter its seventh month, with the conflict looking like it’s heading toward a messy, unstable stalemate. And one key question that remains is how the European Union will respond as the war prolongs.
- War? Ordinary life? It depends on where in Ukraine you call home. | The Washington Post — In Kyiv and much of the western part of the country, prewar life has largely returned for civilians. People eat in restaurants, drink in bars, dance and enjoy lazy summer days in parks. In the east and south, where much of the fighting has been focused, people continue to live with the terror and destruction of Russian assaults. And in many places, Ukrainians are now living under Russian occupation, the starkest possible contrast to the relative ease of life in the capital.
Statistics.
- General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced the total estimated losses of the Russian military as of 10 a.m., August 22, 2022: personnel – around 45 400, tanks ‒ 1919, APV ‒ 4230, artillery systems – 1032, MLRS – 266, anti-aircraft warfare systems – 145, fixed-wing aircraft – 234, helicopters – 198, operational-tactical level UAV – 815, cruise missiles – 194, boats and light speed boats – 15, soft-skinned vehicles and fuel tankers – 3149, special equipment – 99.
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