2:46 p.m .: Ukrainian Defense Minister Olekxiy Reznikov has called on the United States and other Western countries to help prosecute Russian war crimes. Ukraine needs experts in military law and specialists in investigating war crimes to punish the Russian attackers, Reznikov said on Facebook on Saturday. He sent a request to this effect via the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv to the Ukraine contact group, which includes Germany and Great Britain in addition to the USA. The minister stressed that an international coalition had to be formed to investigate the bloody crimes.
Resnikov also referred in particular to the fate of Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were killed and tortured en masse in Russian custody. “I have no doubt that after Ukraine’s victory in this war we will, one way or another, track down everyone involved in the barbaric killings and torture,” Reznikov said. Not only the perpetrators themselves were to be punished, but those who gave the orders and those who justified such crimes. He cited the Nuremberg war crimes trials against National Socialists after the Second World War as a model.
After the death of around 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war in Olenivka prison near Donetsk at the end of July, Reznikov again called for independent international experts to clarify the case. It is also the duty of the United Nations to urge Russia to allow Red Cross officials access to the remaining prisoners. The minister accused Russia of being responsible for the mass murder. Russia, which attacked Ukraine at the end of February, accuses Kiev’s troops of shelling the prison camp.
Reports of war crimes had surfaced soon after the Russian invasion. Women had been raped and the bodies of civilians had been found in the streets of the village of Bucha. There were also numerous attacks on theatres, schools and hospitals. The International Criminal Court based in The Hague reacted unusually quickly and initiated investigations at the beginning of March and sent the largest team of experts to date to the war zone. At a conference in The Hague in July, Western states pledged to make more money and experts available and to work more closely together on investigations.
Saturday, August 13, 10:08 a.m.: According to the US Department of Defense, the explosions at a military base on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia were not triggered by weapons supplied by the United States. The United States has “provided nothing to Ukraine that would allow it to attack Crimea,” a senior Pentagon official told reporters on Friday. His ministry has no information on whether the explosions were rocket attacks or an act of sabotage.
Several explosions occurred on Tuesday at the Russian air force base in Saki on the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. It is estimated that eight aircraft and a significant amount of ammunition were destroyed. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the incident. The Saki base is central to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
The US has supplied Ukraine with large arms supplies since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression. However, there are no systems that would allow attacks from Ukrainian territory far into Russian-occupied territory.
According to the Pentagon official, the blasts had “fairly significant impact” on Russian air force operations. According to British military intelligence, Saki was mainly used as a base for the aircraft of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The fleet’s aerial combat ability is now “significantly weakened”.
3 p.m .: Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko has criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) for his refusal to stop issuing visas to Russians. “Russian citizens are fighting in Ukraine, torturing and killing peaceful Ukrainians and children, destroying our towns and villages,” wrote the 51-year-old on social networks after a phone conversation with his Berlin colleague Franziska Giffey (SPD). Most support the “Politics of Putin and his bloody imperial ambitions,” Klitschko also justified his call for a freeze on issuing visas.
Klitschko and Giffey had called demonstratively because the mayor of Berlin fell for a telephone joke in June. At the time, the 44-year-old spoke to Russian comedians close to the Kremlin instead of the Ukrainian ex-boxing world champion.
11:00 a.m.: After the attack on the Russian military base in Crimea, Western military experts suspect that Ukraine has new long-range weapons. This could have a decisive influence on the further course of the war. The images from the independent satellite company Planet Labs show three almost identical craters in which buildings at the Saki airbase in Crimea were hit with great precision.
Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for an attack. Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak said: “Officially we do not confirm or deny anything (…) we have to consider that there were several epicenters of explosions at the same time.” The base from which the attack was launched is far outside the Range of the modern missiles that Western countries say they have sent to Ukraine so far.
The Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian officials described the attack on Crimea as the start of Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south of the country, indicating intense fighting that month and September.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov thanked Britain for new and important arms deliveries. More M270 MLRS (Multiple Rocket Launcher Artillery System) have arrived in Ukraine. The army will use them skillfully. Also, more “gifts” would be arriving soon.
9:37 a.m .: Ukraine is pressing for further help from the German side. “We are very grateful for Germany’s decision to support us,” Ukrainian parliament speaker Ruslan Stefantschuk told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (Friday editions). “I very much hope that the time between the decisions and the actual arrival of the aid will become shorter and shorter. Because we really need German technology, including tanks and howitzers.”
Germany had long hesitated to supply heavy weapons. Only two months after the start of the Russian war of aggression did Berlin make its first commitments. In the meantime, the first systems such as the Panzerhaubitze 2000, Mars II multiple rocket launchers or Gepard anti-aircraft tanks have been delivered.
Since April, the federal government has also relied on indirect tank deliveries via eastern NATO partners. Countries such as Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Greece were supposed to deliver weapons from the Soviet era to the Ukraine and receive modern replacements from Germany.
Friday, August 12, 2022, 6:10 a.m.: Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) is suing the Bundestag to restore his special rights that were withdrawn in May. Schröder demands that a former Chancellor’s office with employees be made available to him again, as his Hanoverian lawyer Michael Nagel told the German Press Agency on Friday. On Schröder’s behalf, he filed a corresponding lawsuit with the Berlin administrative court.
More on the subject: Schröder is suing the Bundestag – he wants his office back
10.10 a.m .: After his visit to Ukraine, FDP defense politician Marcus Faber reported that only a third of the self-propelled howitzers delivered by Germany and the Netherlands were still functional. Now commented on a tweet about the manageable German arms deliveries with the words: “I am ashamed of my country. I’m sorry, we’ll try to do better.”
Although Germany has supplied some spare parts, there are also repair options on site that are urgently needed. So far, these have only been available for a few minor repairs. According to Ukrainian information, ten tank howitzers 2000 have been delivered from Germany so far, plus five more from the Netherlands, said Faber. A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Defense declined to comment on the operational readiness of the guns in Berlin.
In the Ukraine, Faber had visited the capital Kyiv, but also the cities of Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Slowjansk in the east of the country. He called the situation in Kharkiv, where after a low of 100,000 now more than 300,000 people lived again, “scary”. The FDP politician described the Russian approach as brutal: “Every day, every night, hospitals and residential areas are attacked with cluster bombs.”
10:08 a.m.: Creditors are giving Ukraine a two-year deferral for upcoming bond payments worth nearly $20 billion. In this way, the war-torn country can avoid a default, according to a document available to the Reuters news agency. Accordingly, the holders of around 75 percent of the outstanding bonds agreed to the proposal from Kyiv.
Wednesday, August 11, 9:04 a.m. According to British intelligence experts, Russia can no longer fully fulfill its foreign orders in the defense industry. “Russia is most likely unable to fulfill some of its armored vehicle export orders,” the Defense Ministry’s daily Ukraine War Intelligence Update said in London on Thursday. The reason for this is the extraordinary demand for armored combat vehicles for Russia’s own armed forces in Ukraine and the increasing effect of western sanctions, the statement continues.
For example, Belarus recently presented details of a battle tank that had been further developed in its own country. Previously, this task had fallen to the Russian state-owned armaments company UralVagonZavod.
According to the British, the reputation of the Russian arms industry abroad has also suffered: “The credibility of many of their weapon systems has been undermined by the connection with the weak performance of Russian armed forces in the Ukraine war,” the statement said.
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine at the end of February, the British government has regularly published intelligence information about its progress. Moscow accuses London of a targeted disinformation campaign.
11 p.m.: In view of the danger of a nuclear catastrophe in the Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhia, the UN Security Council is to meet for a crisis meeting on Thursday, according to diplomatic circles. According to information from the AFP news agency from UN circles in New York, the 15 member states of the Security Council want to discuss the situation in Zaporizhia at the request of Russia. Heavy shelling has been reported from the area around the nuclear power plant for days.
Alongside China, France, Great Britain and the USA, Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and has veto rights there. According to information from Security Council Presidency circles, the meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. local time (9:00 p.m. CEST). China currently holds the presidency.
According to Ukrainian sources, at least 14 people died in bomb attacks on Tuesday evening in the vicinity of the Zaporizhia nuclear power station. Russia and Ukraine have been blaming each other for the attacks in the region for days.
Located in the south of Ukraine, the plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and has six of the 15 Ukrainian nuclear reactors. It has been occupied by the Russian army since early March and is not far from the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The G7 group of seven major industrialized countries urged Russia on Wednesday to withdraw its army from the nuclear power plant site. “It is Russia’s continued dominance over the nuclear power plant that is endangering the region,” the G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement. At the weekend, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was “alarmed” by the situation on the ground and warned of a “very real danger of a nuclear catastrophe”.
6:57 p.m .: Ukraine has threatened to cut the power lines if the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is connected to the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia. “I think our armed forces will be ready if necessary,” Enerhoatom head Petro Kotin told the RBK-Ukrainian agency on Wednesday. This could happen before the power plant is disconnected from the Ukrainian grid.
According to Kotin, Russia has long wanted to connect the nuclear power plant to Crimea. “To do this, the power plant must be completely disconnected from the Ukrainian energy system and connected to the line that connects Crimea to the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant,” explained the 61-year-old. Kotin also said that Ukrainian troops would shell power lines if Russia connected the nuclear power plant to its grid.
If the power plant failed, the power supply for the entire Russian-occupied south would be at risk. Russia attacked Ukraine in late February and then occupied Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhia, in early March.
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